Car rental firms confident of meeting Toyota recall

Enterprise Holdings have agreed with other major hire car firms in saying they have confidence in meeting the recall of Toyota cars to the manufacturer. The recall of an estimated 5.2 million vehicles is one of the largest ever after an apparent fault with uncontrolled acceleration from around eight of their models. It is expected to cost the Japanese car maker millions as rival operators in the Far East bid to replace the rental cars with their own brands.

Enterprise Holdings, who are the parent company to Enterprise Rent A Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car, say they will have no problem with getting the vehicles recalled to the manufacturer. It will also not have a big impact on their fleet control as Toyota brands make up only four per cent of their cars.

Some other rental firms will not be so lucky and they will desperately be juggling their fleet around for next month’s President’s Day Celebrations. This is the first peek in the rental market for 2010 and it needs to be a good one for consumer confidence for the rest of the year. A severe lack of cars could well reflect badly on the firms, so they will be a lot of movement of their fleet in the next month.

Hertz has around 20 per cent of its fleet that consist of the affected Toyota models being recalled. They said that supply could short in some areas over President’s Day weekend, but that they would shift to other vehicles and hold off on retiring some older cars to cope with expected demand.