I have had luck in the past buying a rental car. I had the car, a Ford Tempo, more than 5 years and put over 80,000 miles on it myself.

The positive aspect about this is you are getting a low mileage vehicle (10K-18K) that is 6 to 13 months old. Normally you will all maintenance records and you know they changed the oil every 3000 miles. The risk is you get a vehicle that may have been driven harder and have more wear and tear on the suspension.

You can usually get these cars a little over wholesale since the rental company would prefer not taking the car to auction.

Buying this way, you can get a vehicle that is less than 1 year old and save several thousand dollars over a new vehicle. And if something is wrong, you still have 20,000 to 25,000 miles left on the manufacturer's warranty to fix the problem.

Is this a Foolish way to buy vehicles?