Maintenance Intervals - Enterprise Rent A Car

[mrsilv04]

Found this sticker in the last rental that I had...

"NEXT PM DUE"

GM products, Ford products, Volvo, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, Suzuki = 6,500 miles

Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Saturn = 5,000 miles

Mazda, Toyota, Volkswagen = 4,000 miles.


Does this make any sense?

Why is Mazda so much shorter than Ford?
Why is Saturn (for what it is worth) shorter than GM?
Why is Toyota so short?

 

[bepperb]

It needs to be the lowest common denominator for the brand. Several Toyota's are still 5000 miles.

 

[brandini]

Toyota has sludgers in their lineup
Mazda has the rx8 if it's ever used as a rental car
???? for saturn...

 

[dparm]

The 4k for VW is puzzling.

 

[javacontour]

Not if you don't use VW spec oil. I suspect if you change oil frequently enough, in most cases you can get by with anything.

No, I don't mean you can use the SA oil you find in the C-store. But if you use a plain, OTS oil instead of one of the VW special spec oils and change it frequently, you'll get the car through it's time in your rental fleet.

 

[mrsilv04]

Of course, I can't edit the base note anymore...

I posted this to document the "guidelines" that one of the major rental car companies uses for the intervals on oil changes.

Now, when it *actually* gets changed is a whole different story.

 

[Hallmark]

Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
Why is Saturn (for what it is worth) shorter than GM?


A reasonable question, but likely a moot inquiry. I doubt that there are few, if any, Saturns in the Enterprise fleet since they went out of production October 2009.

 

[eljefino]

Wife actually got a Saturn SL2 from Enterprise back in 2003 or so. Must have been one of the last off the line; who knows, maybe CAFE made them jam bunches of them in fleet hands.

The service interval would have been appropriate for the oil burners at least.

 

[ERAC94]

I used to work for Enterprise for about 15 years and the last 5 at the administrative level..The manufacturers set the oil change and tire rotation limits...I think they base it on the type of vehicles that are being rented and I am sure resale is factored in to that as well..Each year we would get a memo from our home office that showed all the manufacturers LOF guidelines. That was then programmed into our computer system and would "remind" the rental agency when it was time to have service performed.

 

[hounddog]

Toyota still has sludgers? Thought thats was a long time back?

 

[JHZR2]

My Avis rental that I had for many months was 10k but check in once a month, so I ended up going almost 15k.

 

[Jakegday]

so do they change it after break in? or do some cars actually go 6000 miles before their first change ever?

 

[tomcat27]

Originally Posted By: Jakegday
so do they change it after break in? or do some cars actually go 6000 miles before their first change ever?


no break in. they change it at the interval. As do some of the Car magazines that have "long term test" cars. and, oddly enough, they seem to follow the easier/longer of the maint schedules.

 

[Hallmark]

Originally Posted By: tomcat27
...oddly enough, they seem to follow the easier/longer of the maint schedules.


Nothing odd about an interim driver with no vested interest in the durability of the vehicle performing only minimally required maintenance.

 

[hounddog]

There are fleets and use to be on the road salesman/reps that put a few hundered thousand miles on vehicles doing the maintance 'by the book'. Usually with not a maintance related failure. I have a friend that is retired from SEIMANS. Was a rep/salesman of medical equipment. He has told me about the some of the cars and vans that he rolled 300k with nothing but a wheel bearing failure or alternator etc. Some he remembers other employees buying after the sales guys turned them in for cheap cause of such high mileage on them.

 

[kb01]

My office has a few Enterprise lease vehicles, as well as long term rentals, all of which are covered by the Enterprise fleet plan.

We were instructed to follow the manufacturer's recommended schedule for maintenance. The only odd thing is, our Toyota dealer doesn't accept the fleet plan, so we take all of the vehicles to our Ford dealer, regardless of make.

 

[The Critic]

In my conversations with the Enterprise managers, they told me they get the vehicles serviced every 5k or less at the local shop.

The last Fiesta rental I had was serviced on time at 5k, and had about 8500 miles on it when I rented it.

 

[Rand]

Thats why my rental edge said oil change due NOW everytime I started it and it had 12000miles on the original oil...

it also needed a tire rotation bad.

it had the intelligent computer oil monitor etc