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Any - Low mileage ex fleet - Halmerend

I’ve been looking at a low mileage four year old car. When I type the reg no into KwikFit‘s site it’s telling me that it’s part of a fleet. In reality, how has this car been likely to have been used to date and what kind of life is it likely to have had?

MOT history is impeccable and ties back to the service records and claimed mileage history. All four tyres are the same make and condition is A1 both inside and out.

Thanks in advance.

Any - Low mileage ex fleet - Heidfirst

which fleet? Part of a rental car fleet is likely to have been used differently than e.g. a hotel's courtesy car.

What is the service history like?

Any - Low mileage ex fleet - Halmerend
It doesn’t say which fleet, service history and mot history look impeccable with no advisories. It’s five years old sorry and has had three mot’s.

Edited by Halmerend on 16/06/2024 at 12:27

Any - Low mileage ex fleet - Andrew-T

If the MoT history is encouraging, look for telltale marks such as wear on pedals, marks on the steering wheel, round door handles etc.

My 207SW was a rental car for 7 months before showing up at a Pug dealership with over 13K on the clock and no service history, because it was moved on when an oil change became essential. It looked in decent nick and I bought it despite the oil change being overdue IMHO. So far I have not regretted it, and I still have it - but I immediately shortened the change interval to 7-8K miles (it's a diesel).

Any - Low mileage ex fleet - ElHombre

In short, you've no way of knowing how it's been driven. Just as you'd have no idea how an ex lease or PCP had been treated, or a privately owned car. They could all have been treated impeccably or driven every day by someone with the mechanical sympathy of a chimpanzee.

Any - Low mileage ex fleet - gordonbennet

Ex fleet could be anything from rental to company pool car to employee benefit car (typically employees get a new car for so many months or years cheap), even the first owner on the reg doc can be misleading, one huge rental outfit (at least one) cars were registered to a company that you would never guess were associated.

I've seen cars of all ownerships mistreated, private as well as fleet/company/rental, if the car appears to be in good working order drives well and is a bargain get it bought.

Any - Low mileage ex fleet - SLO76
Wouldn’t be even slightly concerned, the bulk of new cars sold go onto leasing fleets these days. Usually it means that they’ll be serviced and maintained correctly. That said you do need to watch out for clocking or digital mileage “correction.” On a lease car it’ll show up as a mysteriously low mileage in its final year of ownership, so scrutinise the service record and look at the Mot history for signs of a discrepancy. No one does 12-15k pa then a few hundred in the last year of ownership, they’ve taken a years worth of usage off it to avoid fees when returning the car. This is very common today thanks to almost all new cars being taken on lease or PCP.

Look out for poor quality paint repairs that are done by leaseholders before returning the car, agsin to avoid penalties at the end of term. I found almost every car I looked at in recent years was hiding a dodgy past. It’s harder now than ever to find a good used car. But being an ex fleet car isn’t of much concern as almost no one actually owns their car from new, they’re all rented in one way or another.
Any - Low mileage ex fleet - Halmerend
Thanks people, plenty of helpful tips there.
Any - Low mileage ex fleet - catsdad

I’ve never seen fleet cars per se as an issue. I had company cars for years and they were all well-maintained.

As for the eight personal cars we’ve owned in 35 years, only two had private owners. We even had two ex-driving school cars that we bought at one year old knowing their history. Not for the faint hearted if you worry about abuse but one we traded in after a couple of years at a paper profit and the other is still showing as MoT’d at 14 years old and over 100k miles.

As others have said judge on condition and service history rather than whether its been on a fleet.

However despite my experience it’s probably best to avoid driving school cars. We might have been lucky but they are likely to have been subject to clutch and gear abuse. It can be hard to identify them even from the V5 as they will use company or other company names. Holes for dual controls were a giveaway on ours.

Any - Low mileage ex fleet - RT

The vast majority of used cars under about 4 years old will be fleet cars - private owners buy few brand new cars and even then don't sell them on that quickly.

You need to examine the car closely for condition, particularly inside.