I think that's a bit of a myth to be honest. Most people hire cars to tootle around on their holidays. If the odd rental trashes it, it's not a major problem (unless they crash it of course).
I had a long term rental from Enterprise last year. Had it for just over 6 months and it was handed back in the same condition I got it.
Many years ago I worked in the head office at Avis so I know a well maintained car was worth a lot more to them than a car that's been poorly looked after. I doubt things have changed musch over the years.
Nothing is as fast as a rental. Back in my youth if we had a rental it was thrashed and abused.
I bought a 3 year old A class Mercedes - 1 owner from new "ERAC".
The car was lovely and I kept it for over a decade. It wasn't until well after I bought it that a friend who works for Mercedes pointed out that Easy Rent A Car were the original owner. data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
They'd done a bulk buy and part of the deal was they had to take some of the top spec Avantgarde LWB versions with the larger engines as well as the fleet of Classic SWB with the 1.4lt.
Mine was probably an employee's car rather than a rental but either way it was a cheap, fully serviced car which lasted a long time.
I admit I used to be a bit harder on rentals and courtesy cars than my own wheels but these days renting car is so fraught with them taking hundreds for every stone chip and scuff on the body that I treat them with more care not less data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
ERAC is enterprise rent a car. VW bought a fleet from them. They all had damage somewhere that I wouldn’t have expected for a 2 year old car. Also above average mileage.
They were well priced though.
Back in the days before speed cameras and NPR systems, rental cars were thrashed.These days that's not the case, as rental companies pass on speeding tickets, fines etc. with hefty "administration" charges that can make your eyes water, and your credit card melt...
The ownership details wouldn't bother me too much. Three owners in four years isn't the end of the world, (I've seen worse lol!), the first owner having it for bang on one year could indicate that it's either been a rental car, or maybe a lease car to a VX employee? When I worked for Nissan, staff members and their close family were entitled to a cheap lease car on a years contract. My daughter had a Pulsar for a year and loved it.
What would puzzle me is what somebody else mentions above.... why would a Toyota dealer have a 4 year old Corsa in their used car selection? Toyota dealers tend to stick with Toyotas.
I now work for a Peugeot dealer, and we tend to stick with Peugeots, unless something really rare comes in part exchange, (Jag, Merc, BMW or Audi that sort of thing), and we'll have a go with it, but only if we can price it really competitively compared to a main dealer.
The only reason we would run with a four year old Corsa would be if we had paid way too much for it, and the only way to make up for the mistake would be to retail our way out of it.
That doesn't mean to say that you're being overcharged for it, but a dealership would rather break even on a retail sale than lose a packet by putting it out to trade.
So the dealer really wanted the Corsa's previous owner to buy into Toyota?
Maybe not just the replacement for the Corsa, but a sweetener to encourage family purchase of a second, more lucrative model. And future trade-ins/updates, and ongoing service income.
this dealership is part of a group of a few main dealers (of which vauxhall isnt one) and on their website they have quite a few used approved cars of various makes taken in as trade ins but too good/expensive to auction.
thank you for replies so far everyone