Fully informed rental vehicle buying?

What is right and/or wrong in this advice?

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-buy-a-used-rental-car-step-by-step-guide-2020-6

If you are considering cash buying a rental fleet HD pickup truck,
what additional considerations should be thought over?

Is there a financial calculation one can make to renting an almost new pickup for so many $ for a month
versus paying a fixed $ to outright buy a ex-rental pickup that is Maybe 3 years older?

Wall Street Journal had an article about how Hertz set up 2nd party leasing companies,
then these “independent” vehicle leasing companies lease the vehicles to Hertz.
The 2nd part leasing companies purchase the vehicles with funds raised by issuing special bonds that were generally bought by banks or pension funds.

The banks and pension funds are asking the Bankruptcy Judge to sell off the vehicle fleets quickly because $ depreciation of each vehicle per day is high.

if you're after something Hertz is selling looking at it like any other used vehicle. What to look for is the same so then it comes down to pricing and what sort of financing you can get if you're looking at buying it that way. They probably will be decent deals if they're being forced to unload their fleet fast.

I would guess that when it comes to trucks and vans that they'd probably try to sell them as lots to other companies who are looking at expanding or replacing their own fleets because it would be the quickest way with less hassle to get rid of them.

The last two cars for the wife were rentals from Orlando, FL and had very few issues. First one was an 04 Sebring convertible and a 2015 Chrysler 200. She keeps her cars for 10 years and may have the 200 for the rest of her life. We always get a current model year about 6 months old.

We had an on-site Enterprise location for 10 years. I wouldn't buy a former rental with someone else's money. Those cars get the snot beaten out of them, and they don't get maintained at all.

My daughter has a 14 Cruze that was a rental. She bought it at 20k miles. It's been good to her besides regular maintenance....tires,brakes and a battery. 80k on it now. Looks great and has been very dependable.

we have bought two cars ,one a rental the other a factory lease,not ANY problems with either
01 bonneville,and 04 grand cherokee
both have hit a deer(not the same deer),both have been repaired ,as i said NO problems

Between cars, vans and pickups
... which type of vehicle gets treated the roughest by the rental customers?

Hertz, Avis, Enterprise - who does the better maintenance?

In the 10 years I was around Enterprise cars every day, I didn't see one type of vehicle treated worse than another. People who didn't beat on their own cars tended to not beat on their rentals. People who beat on their own cars were at least as rough on rentals, if not more so. The phrase "drive it like a rental" exists for a reason.

None of them maintain their vehicles, other than doing oil changes when they get around to it.

I had that same position for a lot of years for a pretty legit reason. When I was in my 30s I did some travel for the corporate over lords and I hammered some rental cars just because I could. Ya get bored when yer on the biz trip and it is somebody elses car. see also: damage waiver insurance that lets you just walk away from it. Yes, swapping avis abuse stories was a thing.

In 2016 my girl bought a 2012 200 convertible with 60k on the clock. CarFax said no accidents. 1st owner was Enterprise car rental in Florida and they put 30k on it. Other 30k came from 2 subsequent owners including one that had it repossessed within a few months of buying it. Gave it the usual used car stink eye, found a couple dings but everything worked. Dealer picked it up at auction, put new tires and brakes on it. At some point I noticed a big oil stain where it had been parked and the sales weasel didn't take it at well when I took the position of this deal doesn't move any where until you put this thing on a lift.

Turned out to just be an oil pan gasket but the wrench that got under it with us also mentioned how he had replaced the front fascia / bumper cover and the battery which wasn't disclosed earlier. In the end we bought the thing and they replaced the oil pan. Have since put another 70k on it while only feeding it tires, brakes, a wheel bearing and a couple other small bits.

I'm still suspect of ex-rental cars but this one worked out for us and I'm thinking that's more about how it was built rather than how it was or wasn't maintained by the rental company. There may also be something to be said for it being a fairly expensive car to rent that was based in a vacation destination. More tourist miles than bored businessman miles and probably not that many kids flogging it like a rented mule.

As for the article in the OP, doesn't really say anything new or useful - when yer looking at a used car, look at it like it's a used car. Current condition means more than how it came to be in that condition. I also disagree with the idea that a used rental is gonna be significantly cheaper than a comparable. Yer not gonna get a $20k car for $15k just because they're turning over the fleet and wanna get rid of it. Rental car companies are in the car flipping business and try to get max value for retired assets just like everybody else. Best you're gonna do is low end of book value based on higher mileage and more dings.

During a fraud investigation, I once uncovered a car with a clean CarFax, but my inspection of the car indicated that the car was anything but clean. Title history uncovered that it was a former Alamo (owned by Enterprise) rental, and had been involved in 3 prior accidents, the last of which involved the car being rolled over onto the roof and abandoned on the beach, and then caught by the tide as it came in. Someone bought it in TX, took it to FL, fixed it, and sold it to a buy here/pay here, who in turn sold it to some poor, unsuspecting guy. Because the major rental companies are all self-insured, there is no accident history for CarFax to find. Pretty much every former rental will have a clean CarFax for that reason. That's the same reason that a totaled rental car won't have a salvage title.

Carfax is good to get an idea of what's going on but that's it. If it doesn't go thru the channels they deal with or it isn't reported to them in a way they understand they don't show anything. There have also been cases where people have been upset because they indicated odometer tampering because one of the quick oil change places or other service either didn't give mileage or they were lazy and rounded mileage and it a number below the previous mileage listed or accidents listed for multiple body shop estimates or scuff repairs etc.

We've owned two former rentals that we know of and never had problems with either of them but yeah they are definately buyer beware. You don't want to end up with something that was driven dukes of hazzard style.

Usually when a new car dealer sells a used 1 year old car it's a former rental and if it's 2 years old it's a business lease return of some sort.

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.

100% agree. It's not for everyone. I wouldn't spend my time and energy trying to sort good fro bad, which is why I wouldn't buy a former rental. A salvage vehicle is something I would consider, depending upon the circumstances.