I bought a 2004 LSV8 with 14K on the clock for $26K with the remainder of the factory warranty still in place. Mine was a former Hertz rental from Hawaii shipped back to So Cal. All the other cars within 100 miles according to a car trader web search were more expensive than my LS with more miles, so I think I got a good deal.
The car has pretty much everything except the HID and heated rear seats and the super premium(whatever) stereo, just 6 disc player.
I was nervous about buying a rental since I have seen people trash rentals. But I figure this car is typically too expensive for the real jerks to rent so it probably was rented by a bunch of little old Ladies from Pasadena. Since it was a Hawaii rental, I also assume it was only rented by vacationers with money.
The car was in excellent condition except that the rear trunk was hard to close, probably too many little old ladies with steamer trunks slamming the lid. There were some very small but numerous scratches on the left rear fender, I guess from little old ladies leaning over the fendfer to haul their luggage out. The interior was cleaner than the average used car.
Assuming Hertz maintains their rentals like they do their lease cars(I had a company lease car way back), then I am pretty sure the rental had the normal regular maintenance. The engine was spotless inside and out when I got it.
I DID have problems with the tranny but have read on this site that this is not unusual. The dealer did a minor rebuild under warranty.
The one gotcha with a rental is from what I understand, the rental agencies throw the extra keys and key fobs into a box. When they sell the car, the extras usually do not go with the car. Buying the extra fobs can be expensive, I bought one for I think $17 on eBay. But the real gotcha is that with only one key, you must go to the dealer for a spare. AND YOU MUST ALWAYS HAVE A SPARE, or else if you ever lose the one key, you have to be TOWED in so the dealer can scrape some money off your hide. I have been told keys are $70 and up assuming you already have one good key. You must have 2 good keys if you want to have any hope of buying more away from a dealer and not getting robbed. Also the dealer does not have the keyless entry code, some will read it for you, for a fee. Lincoln Customer support will not tell anyone but the original owner the code, so either you pay the dealer to find it or you dig out the computer and read it off a sticker. I am pretty sure it is not on the PCM since I looked there and found nothing of use, so I am guessing it is on the inside of the door.
So far so good with my ex rental, but like I said the tranny is suspect and who knows down the line? My guess is that since I am covered under the factory warranty til November 2007 or til 50K, any serious bugs from rental should be worked out. Not much harm you can do to an engine that has a speed limiter on it, but you could hurt the tranny and suspension by driving like an idiot.
I know of one friend who also bought a Hertz rental years back and the tranny blew on that too at about 12k miles and was covered under warranty.
Good Luck,
Jim Henderson
