Rental Car Industry Not Regulated Yet They are Largest Purchaser of New Cars...say what?

"The rental car industry is the single largest purchaser of new cars, and the single largest source of used cars in North America, yet they have escaped all regulation and oversight from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)," Houck says.

USA Today
By: Gary Stroller
2/20/2012

Raechel and Jacqueline Houck died in a fiery 2004 crash in a rental car that "was essentially a ticking time bomb," their mother, Cally Houck, says.

The vehicle — a PT Cruiser under a safety recall for a power-steering fluid problem — was not repaired and had been rented to three other renters and then the Houck sisters at an Enterprise Rent-A-Car facility in Capitola, Calif.

The power-steering fluid leaked and caught fire, Cally Houck says, causing Raechel, 24, and Jacqueline, 20, to lose control of the car, which slammed into a semi tractor-trailer.

Enterprise admitted liability, and Houck was awarded $15 million in damages by a jury two years ago. She says she will keep fighting to improve auto-rental safety until Congress makes the industry adhere to federal safety regulations.

Documents submitted to NHTSA by Chrysler and General Motors do not reveal how many recalled vehicles were rented out before they were fixed, but they show that it can take months, a year or more before rental companies repair a recalled vehicle.

The documents show that no major auto-rental company fixed all its recalled vehicles within a year. GM documents, for example, show that a year after getting a recall notice about a shift lever indicator problem in 2009 Buick Enclaves, Chevrolet Cobalts and seven other types of vehicles in their fleets, Avis Budget had fixed 35% of them. The documents show that Enterprise fixed 34% of these types of vehicles in their fleets within 30 days after the recall, 52% within 60 days, 62% within 120 days and 74% within a year.

Hertz, according to the documents, fixed 18% within 30 days after the recall, 36% within 120 days and 52% within a year.

Hertz Senior Vice President Richard Broome says data submitted to NHTSA by auto manufacturers are inaccurate. The data include "countless instances" of vehicles that rental companies had sold before recall notices were issued, he says.

Consumer-safety advocates aren't convinced that rental companies are so conscientious about fixing their vehicles. Rosemary Shahan, president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety (carconsumers.org), says lobbyists for rental car companies told her last year at a meeting in the State Capitol Building in Sacramento that their companies sometimes needed to rent cars under recall, particularly during busy holiday weekends.

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