^ If you're trying to avoid a prior rental be sure to make full use of Carfax. When searching for a car in this price range recently we found a surprising number of past rental cars sitting on normal dealership lots. Thankfully the dealer itself provided the Carfax reports.
I've found that the main issues with prior rentals are easy to spot. Most of the ones we test drove had very easy to see cosmetic issues. Mechanically they're probably as reliable as anything else due to maintenance standards that are certainly far stricter than the average person holds their own vehicles to.
Yeah, I would be a little wary of rental cars myself but I agree the maintenance standards are a huge positive.
It makes me curious why people drive differently in a rental. I certainly don't. If I am stomping on the pedals, I'm killing my gas mileage and paying for it at the pump out of my own pocket and more importantly, I correlate more aggressive driving with a higher risk in getting in an accident or receiving a ticket. If you are getting the rental on a company's dime, I could see the allure of joy-riding a bit but still the safety issue and the financial penalty aspect would prevent me from changing my style. My wife and I always tell each other that driving is the most dangerous thing we do* and will be until the heart disease and cancer factors start to catch up in the 60s.
*on aggregate, if you drive less than average you are exposed to less risk, I didn't want to rehash the safety is an expensive illusion article as I agree with most of the sentiment expressed there. Just saying, for me driving differently in a rental isn't worth it as the negatives outweigh the positives. YMMV
All that said, the rental car stereotype is that surely they are being driven hard although the aforementioned maintenance exists for them. This would be perhaps difficult to measure but I wonder if the cheaper cars to rent (small/med sedans, 4 cyl cars, etc.) are driven harder than the more expensive ones (minivans, large sedans, SUVs, etc.). I would think that all else equal, a rental car driven with multiple people in it will be driven more safely compared to a rental driven by a sole person. I can hear my wife saying to me "Precious cargo!" if I am driving and make an aggressive pass (in her mind) or get too close to the back of a semi while coasting in traffic for her liking. If the size of the rental vehicle is a (even a weak) predictor of driving behavior, then buying the more expensive vehicles from rental companies would be a safer bet. Of course, Mustachians would be more likely to buy the smaller cars. Oh well, interesting dichotomy with rental cars vs. non-rentals.
