Bought DW’s dad a car from Enterprise some 5+ years ago. No problems, however he has very low annual mileage.
I’ve bought from Hertz before. It worked out great. You can be sure those cars had their regular maintenance.
Uh oh. It is 8:50 pm. Is the guy still checking with the manager?
Mr. B enjoys playing car dealership cat and mouse games. I hate, hate this stuff.
I used to sell cars, new and used. I have been out of the game for a decade, though, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
You are usually fine buying from the rental companies, they make sure the cars are cleaned and maintained and even a “hard driver” can only do a little damage to the car over the time it is rented. There can be problems with the cars, but that is true of ALL used vehicles and in my experience dealer and rental cars are less of a gamble than POV’s.
Most dealers prefer certain brands and try to stick to a certain “quality range” in what they sell - whatever doesn’t fit their niche goes to auction. Someone who wants to buy a new $30k car will be turned off by a $500 junker on the lot, and the sales techniques for the two types of car are pretty different anyway. A new dealer will keep a few “affordable” cars on the lot, mostly to sell to the kids of higher-end customers, but that is about it.
As far as brands go, the nice thing about used car prices is that they more accurately reflect market value than new car prices. I have seen several people on here suggest Hyundai and Kia, and when I was selling there was a reason those cars had a terrible resale value - they were garbage. They degraded quickly and were expensive to repair, especially any kind of collision repair. They started coming out with those super-extended warranties around that time to reassure customers, but the mechanics I knew in those car lines called them worthless because the language of the warranties combined with the financial disciplines of typical buyers meant that most major repairs still wouldn’t be covered because someone missed something on the maintenance that would allow the manufacturer to weasel out of covering it. Perhaps they have improved since then, and ANY car will last a lot longer if you maintain it well, but I am still quite wary of those brands and when I look at them in dealerships I still shy away from them.
As to “talking to the manager”, most dealerships don’t give the salesmen actual cost information. The salesman/manager duo provides better profit per sale (because the managers are better positioned to retain margin) AND increases the number of sales (because the ignorance of the salesman actually makes them seem like more of an ally to the buyer). And this is the least problematic part of the whole process anyway.
Bought the Corolla. The Toyota place matched the Enterprise price, but I still had to sit there for hours until they got stuff wrapped up. Honestly such a horrible experience.
I feel like the world’s nicest mom because the car will be waiting when my daughter arrives home for TG. We have a funeral on Friday and Saturday will be her only day with her boyfriend (who is in med school in another state but will be in town for the holiday). I couldn’t bear to tell her that Sat will be for car shopping, so I bought for her this weekend. She’ll be driving it back to school on Sunday.
My KIAs have had no problems. I have a 2009 given to DS and a 2014 and they’ve given me no problems.
The Corolla is an awesome car! My D just logged her 200,000th mile on hers.
Great to hear! My daughter (the philosophy/ comp lit major wirh an interest in performing arts and creative writing) will likely be driving this car for a very, very long time.
We almost handed our Corolla to DS. We spent many (almost 5?) years (in two states) before a mechanic finally tracked down the brake noise problem on that Nissan Altima I referred to above. If it were not fixed, we would give our S our Corolla instead.
Corolla is a good car (for our purpose.) We have owned 3 Corollas (two new ones and one used one) in our life time.
LOL! My D, a CPA, with majors in Philosophy and Information Systems, was given the car as a college graduation present in 2012. Her Corolla is a '98 base model CX (?) and had 120,000 miles on it. Paid $3,000 for it at Tustin Toyota (CA). The glove box has a wing nut that keeps it closed. Now, 80,000 miles later, it still runs like a top. Besides the normal stuff, oil changes, brakes, tires, have only spent an additional $1,000 in other repairs after the purchase.
Before buying a late model used car that tends to have high resale value (like many Toyotas and Hondas), be sure to check how much new ones are going for (including, at this time of year, any leftovers from the outgoing model year).
We made used Corollas (all by ourselves) for both young ladies. Great little cars! I drive the baby kiddo’s 2008 Corolla Matrix when she is away at school.
You are a super mom. 
How often do you check your tire pressure!?
I am really guilty about not checking the tire pressure frequently enough, especially after we had shipped our air pump to our son and we hesitated to buy another one for ourselves. (We do not have much storage space.)
If you do not own an air pump, is there a convenient place where you can go to check and pump your tire (like gas station or car wash station)? We still have the tire pressure gauge but do not have an air pump any more.
It seems to me the car wash place we usually go to has an air pump.
If you have a floor pump to pump up bicycle tires, it should work on car tires (unless it is a Presta-valve-only pump).
Remember PV = nRT from high school or college chemistry? Tire air pressure § can fall due to either falling temperature (T), a fast leak due to a puncture (n), or the slow leakage through the rubber, rim interface, or valve (n).
Mcat, most modern cars are equipped with tire pressure sensors. Most auto car wash and gas stations have air pumps.
However, the tire pressure monitoring systems may only alert if the pressure is several PSI below the level indicated on the sticker on the door jamb. So if you wait for that alert, you may have been driving on underinflated tires for months (worse handling/braking/safety, worse fuel economy, worse tire wear).
@ucbalumus, We used to have a floor pump but not any more after we no longer lived in our house in our old state. (we discarded or liquidated most of our belongings and relocated to another state hopefully to work for a few more years. We basically only took whatever could be packed into our check-in luggage and nothing more – except for shipping our car here. It us easy to do this when you are an empty nest.)
@BunsenBurner, Our Corolla does not have tire pressure sensor. (Hmm…not sure whether OP’s newly bought Corolla has it or not.) DS’s Altima does have it but it was broken not long ago as I heard. He took the car to the dealer and was told it was not cost effective to have it fixed. (What? I thought the dealer would love to have every business opportunity come their way. The dealer claimed that they have no way to tell which tire sensor was broken. They could fix it by replacing the sensors on all 4 tires. Somehow DS decided to live with it, i.e., to ignore the tire warning sign. If the car were still in our hand, we would definitely have it fixed before shipping the car to him. He is “cheaper” than us.)
Thanks.
BTW, one good aspect of owning a Nissan rather than a Toyota is that it seems it is easier to get the car serviced at a dealer. Most Toyota dealers tend to have a longer waiting line.
Sure, but what is the alternative? Checking it daily? Or 2x? 'Cause temperatures can vary by 20 degrees between morning and afternoon commute. There is NO magic tire pressure number. As long as the pressure is within a reasonable interval, all is well.
Buy one of those little pen-shaped air pressure gauges, and if its low, go to a gas station and fill the tires. This isnt rocket science. In Nor Cal its not going to get so cold that you have to worry about air pressure dropping in the tires.
When you get gas, most gas stations will have a place to check tire pressure and an air hose to fill it with air. You look at the door and see what the pressure is supposed to be and then you set that number on the pump and it should stop adding air or alert you that the number is reached.