Ex rental prefix registrations

Ex rental prefix registrations

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Discussion

legless

1,693 posts

141 months

Monday 20th January 2020
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Buster73 said:
tril said:
My RS3 is KMxx as is an ex Audi UK director's car. I'm not sure if you can make such a blanket statement, its more dependent on the car.
Years ago I went to an Audi driving day , all the cars had less than 500 miles on the clock , all of them were getting thrashed .

My son was looking at an S3 not long after , there was an abundance of metallic blue S3 one owner low mileage cars for sale through Audi dealers , which by coincidence was the exact colour of the cars at the Audi driving day.
All of the Audi demo cars will have O-prefix registrations - it's an easy way to differentiate them from the staff cars.

Most of the ex-demo fleet cars are usually incredibly high spec though.

av185

18,514 posts

128 months

Monday 20th January 2020
quotequote all
Buster73 said:
tril said:
My RS3 is KMxx as is an ex Audi UK director's car. I'm not sure if you can make such a blanket statement, its more dependent on the car.
Years ago I went to an Audi driving day , all the cars had less than 500 miles on the clock , all of them were getting thrashed .

My son was looking at an S3 not long after , there was an abundance of metallic blue S3 one owner low mileage cars for sale through Audi dealers , which by coincidence was the exact colour of the cars at the Audi driving day.
Porsche Experience track centre at Silverstone cars are all retailed through official OPCs.

Last time I was there I drove a 2k mile 6 month old 991 GT3 RS PDK S at Silverstone which in its short life had been screwed by all and sundry and subjected to over 500 launch starts. I got through a set of tyres in 3 hours driving btw.

KTF

9,809 posts

151 months

Tuesday 21st January 2020
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av185 said:
Porsche Experience track centre at Silverstone cars are all retailed through official OPCs.

Last time I was there I drove a 2k mile 6 month old 991 GT3 RS PDK S at Silverstone which in its short life had been screwed by all and sundry and subjected to over 500 launch starts. I got through a set of tyres in 3 hours driving btw.
Does that not give you confidence in the car though if they are prepared to sell them through as an approved used with the warranty that goes with it?

av185

18,514 posts

128 months

Tuesday 21st January 2020
quotequote all
KTF said:
av185 said:
Porsche Experience track centre at Silverstone cars are all retailed through official OPCs.

Last time I was there I drove a 2k mile 6 month old 991 GT3 RS PDK S at Silverstone which in its short life had been screwed by all and sundry and subjected to over 500 launch starts. I got through a set of tyres in 3 hours driving btw.
Does that not give you confidence in the car though if they are prepared to sell them through as an approved used with the warranty that goes with it?
Well you are right it does inspire confidence as the RS was on its original clutch and transmission whereas some manufacturers will invalidate warranty after a relatively low number of launch starts. Porsche imo are one of the best engineered cars you can buy and rarely give issues that I can confirm.

My point was that official Porsche dealers are happy to retail their ex track cars through OPCs as essentially '1 owner' and low mileage with their history unbeknown to the majority of purchasers.

Lester H

2,739 posts

106 months

Thursday 23rd January 2020
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av185 said:
powerstroke said:
Wrong about the servicing !! if done to manufactures spec then warranty would be valid ..
It's a big 'if'.
As long as you buy under around 13k miles, does it matter? You will save money, then take it to your local independent.... Our family have done it both ways ( unintentional double entendre) and found Motorpoint just as mediocre though satisfactory and no more as are main dealers for nearly new, and, of course they are the same cars, just posher smelling staff and coffee with more literate newspapers and better computer games at main dealers.Also on the “Directors’ “ claim, I think I can become a director on line later this evening. It was £100 last time I checked Exchange and Mart instant companies.


Edited by Lester H on Thursday 23 January 22:20


Edited by Lester H on Thursday 23 January 23:30

DaveCWK

1,996 posts

175 months

Thursday 23rd January 2020
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I used to see loads of YE* prefix BMW's on the M3 around Fleet in non-boring specs, presumably BMW head office company car scheme.

Jag_NE

2,993 posts

101 months

Thursday 23rd January 2020
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My last company car recently went back, 3 year term. It was booted from stone cold everyday and I had zero mechanical sympathy with it.

The majority of rentals will have a wide range of driver types which for me makes it better than acquiring something like my company car which was “one company owner”

KTF

9,809 posts

151 months

Friday 24th January 2020
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DaveCWK said:
I used to see loads of YE* prefix BMW's on the M3 around Fleet in non-boring specs, presumably BMW head office company car scheme.
Yes, BMW has an office in Farnborough (the old Nokia building) and have very attractive deals for employees. These cars are cycled every 6 months or something like that to supply the dealers with approved used stock.

Toaster Pilot

14,621 posts

159 months

Friday 24th January 2020
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KTF said:
Yes, BMW has an office in Farnborough (the old Nokia building) and have very attractive deals for employees. These cars are cycled every 6 months or something like that to supply the dealers with approved used stock.
Many, many, many more of the approved used stock on such registrations are ex daily rental though.

KTF

9,809 posts

151 months

Friday 24th January 2020
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Toaster Pilot said:
Many, many, many more of the approved used stock on such registrations are ex daily rental though.
Yeah, I have seen many Yorkshire plated BMWs sitting in the rental car lots at LHR. All that output has to go somewhere...

They do tend to be in better condition than the Astra/Focus as they are outside of the usual 'allowed' rental class for corporate.

DaveCWK

1,996 posts

175 months

Friday 24th January 2020
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Toaster Pilot said:
Many, many, many more of the approved used stock on such registrations are ex daily rental though.
I was going to say you could just look for the ones with non standard colours/toys that the rental fleet would not have optioned to attempt to filter them out, but now I think about it, I had an X5 'like-for-like' hire car not long ago which was an M-sport spec with optional alloys / 7 seats/ panoramic roof etc so there's likey no way to differentiate.

Greg the Fish

1,410 posts

67 months

Friday 24th January 2020
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Earthdweller said:
Hyundai is based in Essex .. all the cars registered by the manufacturer will have Essex plates

Look at all the Police Hyundai’s they mostly have Essex plates

Fiat group are all Bristol registered

VW group either Oxford or Kent

BMW in Yorkshire

Etc

Big fleets such as rental companies will tend to have large numbers of cars direct from the manufacturer
Sussex and Kent plod vehicles will mainly be GX ** ****

Met police ones have B* because most of them are registered in Birmingham

Toaster Pilot

14,621 posts

159 months

Friday 24th January 2020
quotequote all
KTF said:
Toaster Pilot said:
Many, many, many more of the approved used stock on such registrations are ex daily rental though.
Yeah, I have seen many Yorkshire plated BMWs sitting in the rental car lots at LHR. All that output has to go somewhere...

They do tend to be in better condition than the Astra/Focus as they are outside of the usual 'allowed' rental class for corporate.
My 18 reg F31 320d is in pretty good order, very little sign of wear on the interior etc. Looks worse after the 14k miles I’ve used it for than the 11k the rental co did!

jamoor

14,506 posts

216 months

Friday 24th January 2020
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A Toyota/Lexus with a G prefix may have something to do with Toyota HQ

KTF

9,809 posts

151 months

Friday 24th January 2020
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jamoor said:
A Toyota/Lexus with a G prefix may have something to do with Toyota HQ
Yes, Toyota HQ is in Surrey. A lot of them work their way in to the used car system.

Certainly in terms of BMW group, the ex-HQ/management/press cars are the ones to aim for as they are almost always very high spec with all the desirable options. Imagine the same is true for VW group as well.

Lester H

2,739 posts

106 months

Tuesday 28th January 2020
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Wooda80 said:
I'd interpret the sales lady's comment to mean that "All the Hyundais we currently have in stock with reg numbers beginning EN and EO came from Enterprise" rather than "Every car ever registered with an EN/O prefix has been an Enterprise car" or "All Enterprise cars have nothing but EN/O numbers"

You can't really come up with a conclusive list but if you see batches of cars with similar registrations at several dealers, especially if they are not local numbers, then that's a clue.

Some people have a subjective preference to avoid ex-rentals cars but there's no objective reason why any given ex-rental should in itself be any better or any worse than any given ex-privately owned.Next is the supporting reply:
Having had ex rentals in my extended family’s “fleet”, often masked by that dreadful cliche “ one former keeper” when rental car passes on to long term owner and then appears on a car lot, I /we have never had any less than typical reliability from these.Much rehearsed on this forum, but punters need to move on from one lady owner/back seat never sat in/one reverend owner/ one doctor owner or even worse (usually classics) one titled owner.
Edited by Wooda80 on Saturday 18th January 17:31[/footnote]
[footnote]Edited by Lester H on Tuesday 28th January 21:55