PT Cruisers on slow ride to scrap heap - dumped into rental fleets

[BlueStreak]

133. This article iw FLAT OUT WRONG in every important respect

Last edited Wed Mar 6, 2013, 05:39 PM - Edit history (1)

No major car rental company has had ANY Cruisers in its fleets for years. Other than the 14-month period following the Bush meltdown in 2008, none of the major car rental companies have had any significant part of their fleet more than 3 model years old, and most of them have returned to a twice-a-year cycle -- with cars leaving the fleet long before the factory warranty expires.

This article is complete bullshit.

They also have the recall thing all screwed up. All the major companies act quickly on any recall that would endanger their customers. The issue is that there are thousands of minor recalls. In general, those are attended to when the equipment is next serviced for oil change and tire rotation -- usually every 5,000 - 7,000 miles, which is a lot faster than the average consumer gets around to addressing these minor recalls.

That doesn't put any customers at risk, but this legislation is written such that it would be extremely disruptive to fleet managers to have to stop renting a vehicle IMMEDIATELY as soon as ANY recall is issued. There might be a recall, for example, that says the GPS sometimes blinks or that a muffler bracket has worked its way loose on 3 cars out of 100,000. There is absolutely no reason a car rental company should have to ground those vehicles the very day the recall is issued, but that's what the legislation does.

Back in 2006, there were great incentives to car rental fleets for Cruisers, and a lot of fleets loaded up on them, but those cars have been out of fleets for 5 years now because the incentive was to flip them as soon as they hit 12,000 miles. They haven't even been offered to car rental fleets for 3 or 4 years now.