Budget Travel - deals on car rental/lease for longer stays

Any suggestions for how to go about getting a deal on a car rental here in the US or abroad for >1 month. Is it possible to do better than the daily or weekly rate when one is going to want to keep the vehicle for longer periods.
Is it ever possible/feasible to rent from a private party, or too messy and/or expensive to arrange details like insurance coverage? At what point would it make sense to consider buying a used vehicle and re-selling it later?

If one bought a $10K vehicle from CarMax and tried to sell the same vehicle back to them one month later after 1-2K miles and no worse for wear, would they be likely to give you $9K for it, or do they take a bigger cut?

dont try buying at a dealer, then trying to sell it back..

try buying a car from ebay for say $10k (or craigslist) or local paper..

then checks the wholesale price (kbb etc) , if the wholesale price is still 10k then its a good deal. and you should be able to sell the car for $9k when you are done with it..




otherwiswe, car rental (if over age 25 in us) its avg $150/$200 a week for rental.

dont try buying at a dealer, then trying to sell it back..

try buying a car from ebay for say $10k (or craigslist) or local paper..

then checks the wholesale price (kbb etc) , if the wholesale price is still 10k then its a good deal. and you should be able to sell the car for $9k when you are done with it..

otherwiswe, car rental (if over age 25 in us) its avg $150/$200 a week for rental.I think what you suggest is probably the most practical, and maybe only financially reasonable solution. I would prefer a "lease" so as not to be obliged to get a purchase vetted by a mechanic, assume risk of needing repairs later, finding a buyer later to close it all out, incurring titling and insurance costs, etc. I like the "turn-key" features of a rental, and would like to get something like that with a longer-term rental or a lease, but don't know that there is any neat solution to the intermediate term of say 6-weeks to 6 months here and/or abroad.

Rent a car for up to 3 or 4 weeks and accept the costs, since no likelihood of more reasonable alternative; lease a car for 3 years (do they do 2-year leases?), because that is a very well-established business. But no one does the greater than a lesser than in-between do they, because there may not be enough demand to bother with it. Would be good if a CarMax did it, since they are all the time buying and selling used cars, but I don't think they do.

if you opt to buy, make sure you figure out what your insurance and registration costs will be.

if you opt to buy, make sure you figure out what your insurance and registration costs will be.Right. And there's sales tax, which is yet more reason why it would be nice to "lease," that is rent on other than a daily basis.

We are traveling today and will be renting a car for the next 12 days. Of the amount we will pay ($~$310), 40% or so will be in all the taxes and fees localities and states impose because they can do it on mostly travelers. (The taxes and fees on car rentals must be the worst of all, substantially more onerous than "occupancy" taxes on hotels, even when they may run 13% or so atop the room rate.) Since I have always bought cars, never leased them, I don't know how taxes and fees work on leased vehicles, but I don't imagine with leasing there's anything like the added costs of a rental.

Rent your vehicle from one of the off airport locations that most of the rental car companies have. You will still get the same price at the airport, but your taxes are set for the state you are renting in (6-8% or so). Hertz for example, you book the vehicle you want to rent at the Hertz Local Edition. Find out the locations phone number and arrange pick up, many of them will pick you up from the airport and if they give you a hard time, just tell them what they would prefer you do to get to them as you are flying in to the airport. Hertz will compensate taxi charges, send someone to get you, or help the best that they can. Companies will set up their employees on HLE rentals to save the big taxes on longer rentals. Enterprise, Alamo, Dollar, Thrifty, Avis, etc. all have off airport locations and all do leisure travel.