I have just checked the comments regarding Toyota Avensis' on this site and was interested to read that many nearly new ones are ex-rental/lease.
My suspision was raised, which lead to cheaking the identity of the one previous owner - true enough it was an Avis outlet in South-West London, unknown to myself. The car has done 18,000 and is two years old. I very recently purchased it from my local Toyota Dealership and they are attending to a number of minor faults, including a missing spare wheel!
I have noticed that the lean-burn engine is frugal but it does affect dramatically the performance, the car appears to misfire on accelerating from around 3000 rpm. A sympton of the lean-burn so I am told by the dealership.
I am keen to hear views whether the lean-burn performance is normal, but also whether it is a particularly bad that it was ex-rental and this may affect its long term reliability (the main reason for purchasing a Toyota).
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Ex-rental no problem and in my experience the Avis cars were usually in better condition than Sixt,Hertz,Kennings,and ALL of the smaller unheard of outfits.18,000 miles sounds very high miles to have come straight from Avis though,are you sure that they have operated it from day 1?Always makes me laugh when the franchised dealer says 'yeah,its a demo car'and then you see Daewoo,Proton, Audi,Peugeot cars etc with the address Trident House, Hayes Middx,yes thats right,Avis Europe! but subject to the usual checks the cars should be ok.
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Every Hire car I've ever had I have subjected to the most brutal thrashing imaginable, once had a 1.2 Nova up to 70 mph in second gear and thrashed it senseless over the snake pass. Caused a Peugeot 106 "KID" to boil over halfway up a mountain in France too - However most people are more sensible, but I would expect an ex hire car to be cheaper than one which had been privately owned. hope yours is ok - you should have been asking this question before you decided to buy it !
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Why be so childish? I have hire cars occasionally, but see no need to thrash the nuts off them and drive in a socially irresponsible manner. Tosser! (But I think you know that already)
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Would anyone out there buy a car with 200 not very careful previous owners?
I would'nt!
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Remember all those daily rental cars end up with new owners,and these days the companys run just about anything,so with a bit of creative address work,Windmill Garage,Provincial Securities,Axus UK etc,most people would never think for one minute what their Passat,Subaru,BMW,PT Cruiser etc etc was upto in a previous life.Anyone know what name is on the Easy Rentacar A-class Merc V5s
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I reckon ex dent-alls are the best run-in cars you can buy. I used to deal in them rather than anything else and never had more than a minor problem with any of them. These days, if you do what Ivor did to that Nova and 106, the rental company charges the damage to your credit card.
HJ
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I reckon ex-rental cars will have been driven very carefully, I always take extra care parking etc in a hire car, they always cheack them very thoroughly on return!
Andrew
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Same thing happened to a friend of mine.
He bought a 9 month old Avensis from a Toyota Dealer.
Asked about origin of car, dealer said "Our own car, a demonstrator". There was a witness to this statement.
Document arrives from Swansea.
States previous (first owner) as ERAC Ltd. A quick web search revealed that they are "Enterprise Rent A Car".
So the Dealership is dishonest. He would love me to name these people. They weren't interested when he complained. Said that the car was, technically a demonstrator since they had had it for 3 months before selling it. Trading Standards couldn't get anything out of them, and weren't particularly interested to be honest, though she has kept the complaint on file (presumably in case some other poor sap gets told some more porkies). But the dealer will pay for his next service. Big deal.
It wouldn't be so bad but in the first 4 weeks of ownership it had to be looked at, and repaired in some way, under Toyota warranty on no less than FIVE occasions (and this by his local dealer, not the place he bought it from which was too far away). And these were not all the same fault!
Thankfully, the car is OK now.
But he tels me that he will never, absolutely never, buy another Toyota again.
He has no faith in their dealers, despite the usual high quality and reliability of their vehicles (present car excepted).
So he and I would say, avoid ex-rental Avensis, they are a risk to your health (stress, don't talk to me about stress)!
Oh to hell with it. The dealership was Smith Knight Fay Toyota in Manchester. And he can back up these comments with proof. With a bargepole, them he shall not touch again.
On reflection, he MAY have bought the car had he known its history, but he may have tried to get a better deal than that offered.
Hope plenty of people read this.
MORAL : Get the previous ownership detail in writing before parting with any cash.
A Fool and His Money
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toyota reliability reputation is founded on japan built cars...
many are now not japan built, and are not as reliable...
sad but true...
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I also bought an ex-hertz Avensis at 6 months old from Ron Skinner and Sons, Rhymney, South Wales for £8995 almost one year ago. It had 13K on the clock. I checked with Toyota before purchase that 3 year warranty was valid as there were no stamps in the book, Toyota in Cardiff assured this was OK as Hertz should maintain according to Totota schedules using their own staff, this is apparently part of their deal.
One year on and the car has performed very well. No problems at all and typically 43 - 45 mpg ( max was 49 !! ) and I have now covered 47K, mostly stress free motorway miles. Also towed a caravan to Ireland and the South of France with the family. Serviced by Toyota according to schedule. Front tyres just changed at 46K for the first time, replaced with Michelin Energy.
I do not experience this change in performance so can't offer any advice I'm afraid but it doesn't sound normal to me.
I opted for this 'cheap' car at the time to experience giving up the company car for cash. Would I do it again ? Yes, most definitely. Can anyone suggest a site selling low mileage, ex-rental, diesel MPVs ?
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Even if your pride and joy has been driven by 200 previous people only a couple or so are likely to have tried to abuse it.
They are also likely to have failed.
You CAN abuse a modern car,by not having it correctly serviced,changing oil,etc,but its a long time since I drove a car I could do much harm to in 2000 miles.
Also,consider the averages,all those drivers will have different styles of driving,which self cancel.
But if only one person had driven it,and,let us say,he delighted in clutchless gearchanges........
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