Too many people depend WAY TOO MUCH on Carfax and the like. Those services have their place for some buyers, like any due diligence tool. But they certainly do not always have the whole story on any given vehicle. So we don't use them at all.

And I'll ad this to the rental car purchase debate, As with most everything with used vehicles there is rarely anything this is ironclad 'always' or 'never'. We have bought a lot of former rental cars over the years. We now buy salvage vehicles to rebuild. And that includes so called 'flood' vehicles. In all these categories of vehicles, there are good vehicles and there are turds.

It is virtually impossible to say how any individual vehicle will perform from simply looking at the category somebody listed it in.

Everybody is looking for a 'deal'. But real deals are hard to come by in the automotive industry nowadays. So that leads some people to go off the beaten track to chase down a deal. Rentals, executive, salvage, flood, fleet, whatever, can offer good bang for the buck. But extra due diligence is needed which may be more than some consumers can muster. And a bad buying decision will never be the buyer's fault.

The reason that some vehicles are deals is often because there is a much larger chance that they will be a turd. And separating the occasional solid unit from all the turds is not for everyone. But those that cannot manage it should not tell everyone else that it can't be done. That is simply not true. Not everyone can do it, but it can be done. Good deals CAN be had in these categories of vehicles.