Rental companies in Greece are running out of cars!

Thousands of businesses from the car rental industry are at risk of being left without cars as the delays in the delivery of new vehicles still has not happened and big leasing groups no longer hold auctions of used cars!

According to News Auto, car rental businesses now see the acquisition of vehicles from some imported used car dealerships or subletting from used car dealerships.

The reason is none other than the problems that still exist in the deliveries of new vehicles which cause a domino of developments throughout the car market.

Initially the rental companies were given a life extension of their older fleet of vehicles, due to both the coronavirus and the problems recorded in deliveries. Now the age limit for the vehicles is 14 years from the previous 12 years.

However, the age of the older vehicles has reached the 14-year mark, at which point they must be withdrawn from circulation as commercial rental company vehicles and replaced by new or newer second-hand vehicles.

But both new and newer used ones are literally hard to find on the Greek market for two reasons.

In the new ones, the deliveries are done by the dropper and in the used ones, the domestic leasing companies, where the vast majority of the newer used cars come from, do not hold vehicle auctions, but make sure to sell them to private consumers themselves, thus making huge profits.

Of course, any owner of a car rental company who wishes can buy a used vehicle from the available fleet of leasing groups, but the acquisition costs are really huge.

So rental car owners have turned to imported used car dealerships or subleasing vehicles from used dealerships.

In the first case the big "thorn" is the condition that the imported used vehicle is actually in as there are several shrewd dealers in the market who sell used vehicles with high mileage, with falsified service books and crashed vehicles.

In the second case of subletting used cars, the owners of rental companies do not have the fear of the condition of the vehicles, but they are now faced with the exorbitant cost of subletting from used car dealers, knowing the problem that exists in the market, have literally skyrocketed the prices.

George K. Andris is a columnist for News Auto. 

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