This does not surprise me.

I recall one of our rental agent commentators saying that small airports usually don't get brand new cars in-serviced. They have to rely on whatever one-way rentals they can get, or in their rare high demand periods, trucked in. We've also seen several examples of certain locations (ahem, cough cough, Hertz MIA) giving out junk they want to get rid of on one-ways.

So, let's put two and two together. People say Albany NY has lousy cars. People say Buffalo and Syracuse have lousy cars. Last winter someone said Des Moines Iowa had a limited selection and mostly junky cars. Now someone says Wichita Kansas has crappy cars.

By the same token, I passed by a Hertz HLE on Long Island recently. I was almost certain I saw a familiar tomato sauce red Cobalt with FL plates parked nose out in front. I couldn't tell if the license plate was in fact the same, but again put the pattern together. Spades said GM cars are the worst for turnback, and the car MIA gave me to drive to the northwest NY suburbs had a lot of cosmetic scratches. My local HLE manager said he might be tempted to give the worst car he has only for a short haul one-way like to JFK. Whereas my HLE does a lot of business in one-ways to and from Newark, JFK and LGA do come up sometimes. Likewise, Long Island gets occasional one-ways to and from EWR, but mostly to JFK and sometimes to LGA. I'll bet this car was bounced around since each location probably didn't like it either.