Yeah, I used to work with a Safety Engineer that had just retired from road racing motorcycles for Honda. He abused his rentals by hot dogging in them. He thrashed them, then bragged to us about it.
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My wife and I were in Arizona. We had traveled from East Central Indiana by rail. I rented a car from a local agency. The car was a Chevrolet Vega with a 4 speed manual transmission. We drove it to the Grand Canyon and through the Painted Desert. I did notice a low rear tire when I stopped for fuel. O pumped it up and it held for the rest of the trip. I reported it to the rental agency when I brought it back so they could keep an eye on the tire.
On another trip out west, I rented a Ford Taurus. At speeds above 45 mph, the car buzzed as if there was a nest of hornets in the cabin. I took it back and was given a free upgrade to a Jeep Grand Cherokee. When we returned the Grand Cherokee, the rental agent told me that the windshield had recently been replaced and hadn’t been sealed correctly.
The real gem was a Ford Van our church rented for my wife to take a youth group from East Central Indiana to Iowa for a work camp. The van came from an agency called ‘Rent a Wreck’. On the dashboard was a big sign taped on which read 'Check Oil At Every Gas Stop".
‘Rent a Wreck’.
Is Rent a Wreck still around I have not seen or heard that name for may year’s?
Yeah they’re in Minneapolis yet along with Ugly Duckling. Years ago I think I checked prices and really they weren’t all that much cheaper than the others where you got a car with less than 20K on it.
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@Renegade. It hasn’t existed in my community for at least 25 years. I think it was more than 30 years ago that my wife made the trip.
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I just checked, and Rent a Wreck still exists in my area. I haven’t needed them for many years, but when I did rent from them, their cars were mechanically decent, even if they weren’t attractive.
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Any rental car that gets me where I want to go is fine with me.
I have heard of parents, though, renting Cadillacs and Lincolns to transport their kids to college to make a good impression.
My dad had a different idea. He opened the trunk of our old Buick and told me I could take what I could fit in the trunk. I put in the necessities–my French Horn, records, some books, and music–just the essentials. Non-essentials such as towels, wash cloths razor, socks and a change of underwear I didn’t bother to pack.
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It was 1955. I was in charge of a testing station at Eglin AFB and had a rented Ford station wagon. A visitor from headquarters flew to Pensacola and I went to pick him up to take him to my laboratory in Fort Walton Beach. He asked if he could drive. We were going about 70 on US98, and he said “I wonder what will happen if I put it in reverse?”. Before I could even think of a reply, he moved the selector lever to reverse.
We came to an amazingly fast stop. After just sitting there for a couple of minutes, he shifted to drive and we started forward, but the transmission refused to shift out of low gear, so we just continued driving in low at about 10 MPH. After about 5 minutes, it shifted through the gears and operated normally thereafter.
My BIL used to do that just for fun with his 54 Desoto. He’d slow down to about 20 though and drop it in reverse just for a few seconds to hear the tires squeal. Pretty solid cars back then.
Here’s what $15,000 will get you at Hertz:
Here are some of the “almost new” cars you can get under $15k from Hertz in the St. Louis area (I limited the search to 2019 sedans to make things simple):
2019 Fiesta $10,790 and up
2019 Versa $11,690 and up
2019 Rio $11,990 and up
2019 Accent $12,990 and up
2019 Optima $14,690 w/45k
If you want basic, economical transportation it’s worth a shot. Not a huge selection though. There was only one Optima under $15k.
Out of those cars, most of them are so cheap and basic, I’d never consider them as my next car
As you said, only the Optima would be worth a look
Actually, my Corolla is fairly cheap and basic by current standards so that wouldn’t bother me too much. But the Versa would be an automatic “No” because of the history of Nissan transmissions. I’m a fairly big guy so I’d have to see how I felt in one of the other small cars. I almost bought a 2009 Yaris the day I chose the Corolla so you never know. Still, no real reason to get excited about anything on the list. If anyone is considering buying from Hertz, they list on Autotrader.com where I live and that’s where I compiled my list. You might get lucky.
Some relatively small cars actually had a lot of headroom
My Tercel had a lot of headroom
I can’t speak with absolute certainty, but I seem to remember the old aircooled Beetles had decent headroom . . .
And just because a car is small, doesn’t necessarily mean the driver’s seat can’t be comfortable
Our 2018 Ford Fiesta SE was fine on a 1500 mile trip and averaged 38.6 MPG . Also the size was a plus when we went to some of the tourist areas near Denver , CO with the narrow streets and limited parking.
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Yes, I mentioned having been favorably impressed with an older Yaris. Decently adjustable seats and a tilt/telescope steering wheel help a lot. As I said, it would depend on the specific car. Some folks might find a lot to like from a used Hertz vehicle.
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