Comments on: Buying a Car from Hertz Car Sales

By: Barb

Barb — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:15:03 +0000

I agree with you. The customer service from the Hertz call-site is terrible. I ended up buying the car because it was a 60 mile trip to bring it back and my husband had to have emergency open heart surgery during the three day trial period.

Hertz sends e-mails to you and then the call-site people act “put out” if you call them to respond. I spoke to one or two polite employees, but most acted annoyed and could care less if you bought the car.

I’m sure Hertz pays by the hour. My suggestion would be to change to a commission based pay system. Perhaps money would motivate these employees to show some manners!

By: David

David — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:45:50 +0000

I was researching if Hertz Rent-to-Buy was a scam. I am at the end stages of the program. It’s really been a horrible experience. They offered financing but only gave me five days to decide and did not tell me I only had five days. During four of those days, I was away for Thanksgiving weekend. I then saw in the contract that there were two warranties put into the contract and I didn’t want any. So, by the time I figured it out, I needed to get my own financing. Also, they sent me forms to be signed and sent back. However, one of the forms needed to be signed by Capital One and Hertz Rent to Buy send the documents had to be received within 48 hours. How is that possible. There were many other problems as well such as using the scare tactic to of saying that if I did not get the financing in by a certain period of time, I would have to return the car. That meant I would have to pay hundreds in rental charges. My old car was totaled by a hit-and-run driver.

By: Wojciech Kulicki

Wojciech Kulicki — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:57:15 +0000

Christian,
Hertz coupon codes come and go. Your best bet is to visit their Facebook fan page or go directly to the site for deals.

By: Christian

Christian — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:34:37 +0000

Hi,

Can someone tell me what the current $250 coupon code is?

I said the following under The Process: “Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the current coupon code.”

I could not find it at the bottom of this post.

Thank you.

By: Karan ann

Karan ann — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:25:38 +0000

am in the process of looking for a good used car,found this , and am now more confused! Some had a good time Yea! Some had a really bad time, BOOOO, I
expect more from a company then I do from an individual, but either way this
process is Hellacious. Living in the Mts of NY,cannot do without a car, so whom shall
I allow to aggraviate me? The admin staff at Hertz must be alseep at their desks, the adventure with Enterprise seems just as fraught with service crews not caring about
customer satisfaction. Maybe these corporations don’t realize that most customers can now share their views, about their experiences.
WAKE UP HERTZ, OR ALL CUSTOMERS WILL GO ELSEWHERE!!!!!!!

By: Skip Schwarz

Skip Schwarz — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 03:37:44 +0000

Hertz Rent2Wait
Apparently it makes a difference where you buy the car under this program. Some places have their acts together–two weeks and you’re ready to go–but others don’t. Rented a car over the July 4th weekend. Told them I’d buy it the day I picked it up. Minor damage to back bumper knocked $1000 off price. They sent me instructions by email the next week. I followed them and sent them a Dealer’s check from the financing bank. They lost it. After a week of calls wanting to know how I was going to pay for the car, it dawned on me that they didn’t have it. I sent them a second one and stayed on the phone to make sure they received it. On July 24th they said the papers were ready to sign. Had to drive from NH to Boston to sign because they don’t have a license to do business in NH (since when are they doing business in NH simply because I sign the papers there? Other out of state dealers have had no problem FedEx-ing the paperwork for me to sign). On Aug. 16th they said they had turned everything over to the title company (ABS). Heard nothing. Emailed Hertz on Sept 17th asking how many months it was going to take for the title. Heard from Title company two days later. Finally, yesterday, Sept 30th, almost three months after telling them I wanted to buy the car, I picked up the registration papers at the town office.
They’re a “team” = no primary contact person and you deal with several different people, some who talk to each other and some who apparently don’t. Example: five minutes after getting off the phone and making sure they rec’d the Dealer’s Check, I got a call from another “team member” wanting to know how I was going to pay for the car. Par for the course. The staff people themselves were very courteous and helpful, but had the distinct impression there was a leadership vacuum at the top.
Apparently in some places across the country they’ve got their act together and it takes two weeks. In other places they don’t, and you’re looking at 2 1/2 to 3 months.

By: Stefan

Stefan — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 20:50:47 +0000

Hi all and Wojciech Kulicki,
First of all thanks for this forum and all your opinions. They were very helpful for me as I recently become the owner of one of the R2B cars. I bought 2010 Nissan Rogue for 16kUSD with 39000miles on it. The whole process was longer than expected, but the result is I have the car and I have it from the day I collected it.
Therefore I decided to take time and write review, because, reading all those before really helped me to see what is coming… There are few comments of this process I want to share with you and that you should be aware of them:
Accident check:
- On 22 July 2011 I choose my Rogue on-line. But I did not check on the autocheck.com status of the car initially, only after I selected it and already scheduled appointment. I found out that the Rogue (1 of 3 in the offer that time), was in an accident (big or small, no-one knows…). Per Hertz it was only small accident, but in the report it was shown as 1x accident. I purchased the 60day unlimited autocheck (I recommend to do this strongly!!! It is good investment, because I randomly select some other R2B cars e.g. Sentra and Mazda3 and some of them were having one accident reported too). I had to cancel this Rogue by calling the info line and chose another one next day, of course after I did the check and it was all ok on autocheck… (this was fast process and 4 days from that call I select to collect the car)
Car availability confirmation:
- I have been told that hertz will call me 24h ahead to confirm if I can pick the car. So issue was, that they call me 24h before and told me that “my car may or may not be ready”…! I hate when someone tells me this, I am a simple guy, so please tell me is the car ready or not? That is all I want to know. I am working and can’t leave my job anytime, right? So I planned all this ahead and requested day off at work to collect the car and take it to inspection…
- Anyway Hertz rep. call me the same day as my car supposed to be ready. It was at 10am that the car is ready to collect and I scheduled it to collect at 3pm. So I was a bit nervous and excited that day…
Actual car status and pre purchase check:
- My car had bunch of dents and scratches, this was told to me on phone before so I expected it. 1 year old car with 39k miles on it, of course it was heavily used… but the price was very good 2-3k less that best price I could negotiate with dealer… I could see the car before actually sign or do any paperwork, so I still could say no, but I did not. I tried all the power options of the car, windows etc… This is very positive service from Hertz, always check the car ahead…
- The car was totally cleaned, polished and shiny in and out… One bad think about my car was , that it smelled quite bad (the girls from Hertz admitted it too). But the next parked Prius (also waiting to be R2B purchase obviously) had all the windows down, so I was wondering why, and I put my head in to the car and smell the same bad smell of the interior… I tried to call Herz to credit me for couple dollars for the interior clean, but w/o success… the car was as-is… no price negotiation… there were no stains in the car to pointing to the cause of the smell… I check and looked everywhere… (now after 1k miles of use and periodic clean of the car, the smell is much less, I still need to send it for interior clean one day).
- I send the car for inspection (90usd) all was ok, so the next day I chose to buy it. Too bad that they charge my CC full price and it took 3 weeks and 5-6 phone calls and bunch of emails to get back the waived fees… even I select “buy” the next day!!!
Paper work:
- The remaining paper work process was difficult for me as I did not have the US driving license (I am EU guy here on 3y contract trough my company in Europe) so we had many calls and discussion how to title the car to my name… But it looks like easy and fast process if you have the US driving license and evidence of residency in the state you live in (e.g. utility bill)… we just moved to US, so we did not had any of it, but had to buy a car.
- I had to title the car myself, but this saved me about 50-60USD, once I count all the dollars I paid vs. the title and reg. fee from Hertz.
Three days ago I revieved my title too, so all is now good. The car runs well…
Warranty concern:
- I do not know about the car warranty though (not the one from Hertz), since with Nissan you can transfer it to new owner, but all warranty is about that, you have to follow the regular service intervals. But Hertz will not give you written statement that all service was done per specification. Just verbally in the phone the person will tell you that they followed it…
so I am not sure, if one day ,one part will fail and is still under Nissan warranty , if that would be repaired for free, since I have no evidence of good servicing of the car… you know what I mean…
Post purchase service:
I had to change oil immediately after purchase as well as the oil filter (in between the recommended interval), just to sleep better (cost of 35USD in GoodYear service with coupon ).
What I was badly surprise was, that during that oil change, I was called by the service guy that the air filter is very dirty and have to be changed (40USD), the service guy told me also it was not changed regularly, since per Nissan service it supposed to be recently changed… so I am bit skeptic of the regular Hertz maintenance of their cars… especially if they can not show evidence. (I am an auditor in my job, so no evidence means, fail to prove it was done)
Would I recommend R2B to my friends?
Yes I would, if the price is low enough against the dealerships, but be ready for all the above I just wrote… Stefan.

By: Josephus

Josephus — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 02:44:33 +0000

Looks like the two most important take aways from the above discussion for the rent-2-buy program are:

1) Call your pickup location before you pick up and ask them how much they have dealt with the rent-2-buy program. And do not direct any questions about the program itself to them.

2) Get the car inspected by a mechanic before you decide to buy it.

By the price they are selling Mazda5s at and the estimated value of them at Edmunds.com you are basically getting a private-party selling price. Private-party price is always several thousand below the dealer price, especially the advertised dealer price.

We cancelled our reservation when they told us on the phone that they continue to charge our card the daily rental rate until financing comes through, and then refund it all back to us all the rental charges. I have my reservations about how quickly that would happen. In this case I want to know we are approved prior to renting the vehicle.

We won’t need-need a car until December. If the program improves before then, we might still use it.

9-12-11

By: Wojciech Kulicki

Wojciech Kulicki — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 22:51:18 +0000

Bee, I’m curious to hear about how it goes–let us know!

By: bee

bee — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 22:29:00 +0000

Ok- I read these posts the other day and decided it was enough to give it some time and a try- I was hit by a hit and run last week and my matrix was totaled- Anyway my apt. is wed in Boston- I plan to buy as I want the same car I lost- and will be curious to see if there r embedded scams- I plan to use the labor day special $1000. off list- but lets see if that is true- the sale goes till Sept 9 and your rent start is the date for this discount- first apt they had to rent was the 7th of Sept and they said that would qualify- I will report back to the group and hope others will too- I called the Hertz agents- one in Texas was really helpful and walked me thru the steps and pros and cons- like talking with my dad-anyway I will have no idea if this is what it claims to be until I go thru the process- thanks for the postings as it helps me take the first step after a bad accident- I have a business and my associates r interested in this transparent approach to a vehicle purchase- that’s how we run our shop too-they might try it if it is what it says-