I'm not a fan of Rent2Buy, but I have a Hertz Car Sales lot at the airport which is a better option if you have it. The cars can sometimes be a little more ($500-1000), sometimes they're the same price as Rent2Buy, but they've been detailed, had an inspection + oil change + new tires/brakes if need be, and they'll repaint one or both bumpers for free.
I agree that the prices are VERY good. Each time I go to my local Hertz Car Sales lot, I see tons of Camrys and Corollas with "SOLD" on it - the sales guy said all of the local dealers buy them for resale. And they're right, I see them in the newspaper and on dealers' websites for +$3-5K!
The reason why I'm not a fan of Rent2Buy is that although HNL has been a participating location for a while, they still didn't quite know how to do the whole thing. Once they were able to find the car we reserved to look at, it was scratched and dented all over the place. As you already know, it's sold as-is so that's just how you get it. This brings up another downside of Rent2Buy - you can't know the actual condition of the car you're booking. There were lots of Civics to choose from so I just picked one for my aunt and we went down. She ended up buying her Civic from the Hertz Car Sales lot which was in prestine condition.
When the topic of buying an ex-rental car comes up, everyone is quick to say "well,
I would never buy one, think about how they've been driven!" and when I ask how many have actually bought one and had a bad experience, no one answers because they're just spouting crap. Go figure.
I bought my '05 Camry from Hertz Car Sales in '06 and it's been a great car. My mom's '95 Camry is an ex-Hertz rental too, it has been ridiculously trouble free. My gf bought her '09 ex-Hertz Camry in '10 w/ 25K miles for $13.9K which was a good deal. My aunt bought her '09 ex-Hertz Civic in '10 and couldn't be happier. My other aunt bought her '04 Accord from a dealer but she didn't know it was an ex-Enterprise (yuck) rental, but it's been a great car.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I plan on buying ex-rentals from Hertz for a long time to come. They're timely with their oil changes (you can look at the service records) and they have a good variety of cars to choose from. I would NOT buy an ex-Enterprise car because I always see Enterprise rentals around with expired inspection/registration and the one time I rented from them, our Escape's TPS was tripping because some times were at 45psi and some were at 20psi. Doesn't seem like they maintain their cars well, at least not here.
Good luck! I'm curious what your experiences are. I know the cars at SFO were all in good shape (a lot of them had their tires sprayed too, which I thought was odd because it was such a small detail; sure made the cars look nice!) so if your airport is like that, maybe you'll be happier than I was with the scratched up Civic we looked at.
May I ask what kind of car you're doing the Rent2Buy program for?
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1..._2448896_n.jpg
My '05 ex-Hertz Camry
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...07/09camry.jpg
My gf's '09 ex-Hertz Camry