I’ve rented a lot of cars over the years, but this was a first. Less than 24 hours into my latest rental, I got an email from Hertz. The subject line?
Enjoying your rental? Take it home.
Apparently, they were ready to make things official. I wasn’t even unpacked.
The Offer
The email featured a 2024 Ford Edge—the very car I had picked up the day before. Price: $27,192. It included a photo, the VIN, and a friendly little Buy Now button, just in case I was ready to commit to a long-term relationship after driving it the 5 miles to my hotel.
To be fair, the car wasn’t bad. It had a little over 30,000 miles and, as my wife pointed out, enough dings and scratches to suggest it had lived a full life already. But it drove well and was in decent shape.
That said, I wasn’t quite ready to finance a vehicle I hadn’t even driven long enough to need gas. Seriously—I didn’t even know what side the fuel cap was on. (Though if I had gotten that far, I could’ve used this handy trick we’ve written about before.)
Why the Sudden Push?
Hertz has been in a selling mood lately. Earlier this year, they famously offloaded tens of thousands of Teslas from their fleet, crashing the used EV market in the process.
Now that that chapter’s closed, it seems like they’re refreshing their gas-powered fleet—and what better way than trying to sell them to the very people who just needed something to get them from the airport to their hotel?
Watch Out for the AI
We were already giving the car a closer look than usual, since Hertz recently announced they’re using AI-powered vehicle damage detection. So instead of a rushed walkaround and a half-hearted checkbox on a clipboard, it’s now cameras and machine learning flagging every scratch, dent, and scuff.
So yes, I took a good look at the car before we drove off—because the last thing I wanted was to be blamed for a door ding left over from someone’s spring break trip to Daytona Beach in 2024.
Buy Now… or Else?
Of course, there’s also the worry that Hertz might forget I ever returned the car. They’ve made headlines for accusing customers of stealing vehicles they’d already dropped off, with some renters getting arrested.
In that context, maybe buying the car isn’t just a sales pitch—it’s an insurance policy. No one reports you for stealing your own car, right?
The Pressure Starts in the Aisle
I’ve written before about the ridiculous pressure I feel when I have to pick a car from the rental lot aisle. I somehow always think there’s a “right” choice, even though they’re all usually gray crossovers with 25,000 miles and a faint scent of air freshener.
Knowing I might get an email offering to sell me whichever car I pick? Yeah, that doesn’t help. Now it’s not just choosing what to drive for the weekend—it’s choosing what I might be guilt-tripped into buying later. That’s a whole new level of commitment I’m not ready for.
Final Thoughts
I get what Hertz is doing. Some people probably do fall in love with their rental cars. But for most of us, the relationship ends at drop-off. And that’s OK.
Next time, I’ll still check the car over carefully, make sure I know where the headlight switch is, and try to resist the urge to overthink my pick in the aisle (Note from Sharon, Joe’s wife: I don’t think he’s capable of that last part. Me: “Just PICK A FRICKIN’ CAR, already!” Every. Damn. Time.).
And if I get another “Buy Now” email, I’ll politely decline.
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