Buying an Ex Courtesy Car from Dealer

zzantara wrote: »

Rentals are generally considered to be cars that you see in Airports etc,rented mainly to tourists that tend to give them a harder time as they are in a strange country and trying to "do" the cliffs of Moher/Giants Cause Way/Ring of Kerry in three days with lots of bodies/luggage in the car???
Courtesy Cars are cars that are used mainly by Irish poeple that needed a replacement car while theirs were off the road for repair for instance ?some Insurance companies include a car as part of their policy ,these cars are sometimes just driven as far as the drivers office and parked outside for the day,generally they are in much better condition than Rental Cars,I would always rate a Dublin car a better bet than a Monaghan Car,no offence intended but those Monaghan back roads can really give a car some stick!

Advice - Avoid buying ex-Courtesy Cars and Ex-rentals.

I worked in the rental car game for a while and these cars are hammered from the day they roll off the delivery truck.
They are seen as fair game to be thrashed within a inch of their life............and trust me, i know - i've hammered shed loads. I remember the time we had to get 3 spankers new puntos to dublin airport from southside dublin.............up the m50, flat out, i'm talking FLAT OUT..........all 3 of us......its was 3am, no one around. Think i got 107mph outta mine till the rev limiter kicked in. My car started to develop smoke inside the cabin..............did i care.............NO. At the light, burning the tyres with the handbrake on.......did i care ....NO.

And this is the mentality of the 20 year old dont give a **** employee and car renter.

I've alos seen cars come of rental or from being a
Courtesy Car as they call it rubbish, covered in vomit inside, maggots from fisherman being careless (the smell never ever leaves, NEVER), cig burns, wee wee stains, Cum stains on the seats, Soiled condoms in the ashtrays - the works - and no amount of valeting gets rid of all of this. Sorry.
But its the mechanical state of the cars that puts me off them. They are serviced, sure, but hammered - and the life can be gone out of a car before its 6 months old. They quickly go from a nice tight new motor to a loose bag of ****e.

You have been warned - I'd never ever think of buying one.

TychoCaine wrote: »

A mate of mine used to work for one of the major hire companies at Shannon airport and he said that at any one time 1/6 of the fleet were off the road being repaired..... :eek:

No Sh*t Unkel.............you would not belive the **** that goes on in rentals. and the things we found left behind in em..........good expensive **** like ~Camera's, umbrella's, nice things etc, and rubbish too, and ooooooohhhh, yeah - one of the young cleaners found a big BIG MOMMA smelly VIBRATOR under a seat.......he was just 15 working on a saturday morning and he thought it was a kids toy! ahhhh, the craic and the laffs. Could write a book. :eek: LOL

And Tycho, your mate's not wrong. The fact is rentals get banged and whalloped all over the place by clients. from small dents to write offs. I worked for one of the countries largest offenders, sorry companies and they would use certain cheap and nasty repair panel beaters that i would'nt get my mountain bike sprayed with..........and the stories, ohhhhh, the stories.

And the clockin.............the clocking of the cars before they go for sale when they finally come off rental. Completely immoral i used to think and still do.

here's one punter story.............this guy arrives at the airport. A yank, lots of dosh. Says "i want a big car with a auto gearbox". We didnt have one, we were all out, it was peak season. so , we talked him in taking a manual mondeo - brand new - just a week old i remember - as i drove it the weekend before. Last thing he said to me leaving the compound was "what was the way to Killarney?" - so i sent him in the direction of the m50.

10 o clock that night i got a call from the AA saying they were towing in a car from ennis, co. clare as the clutch had burnt out and the driver insisted we got a new car to him immediately all the way to Ennis!

The big dumbass yank drove all the way to Ennis with his foot on the clutch and burnt it out. The AA guy said he never say anything like it! We did'nt send a car to ennis till the next day...............and we gave him a micra automatic..........LOL - just for BADNESS!!!

I bought an ex-rental 05 yaris 2 years ago with 19000km on it, not an ounce of bother with it and it's just turned over the 100,000km.
I can believe all the stories with reving the nuts of these cars as i used to do it when i was in the trade,young and stupid i suppose.
going by my experience i would have no bother in buying an ex rental again.

Generally it would be advisable to steer clear of manual transmission ex rentals due to the fact that some tourists are not used to driving manual cars and can damage them as a result, generally the clutch. It is also common for ex rentals to have badly damaged alloys for some reason, people just don't look after rented cars as well as they look after their own. When a garage takes back a fleet of ex rentals there is always a large bill for repairs. However, if you find a good one you can get a very good deal.