1. One thing in your comments doesn't make total sense...You mentioned being attracted to the options in the car...but MOST rental cars are not really luxury equipped.
Because of the near collapse of the SUV market, dealers and manufacturers are choking on 2 year old cars coming back off lease..these are one owner..usually far better equipped than rental cars..and you can usually get a full warranty AND very low financing...it's indeed a buyer's market now..so you might well do better...I'd suggest doing some more looking...
2. Depending on what state you live in, I think it may be illegal for the dealer to represent a car bought from a rental company as a "one-owner" car. I'd suggest calling your Consumer Affairs office...If the dealer has indeed committed a big "boo-boo"..and we all know car dealers are ethical icons right?...then you may have some BIG leverage to employ..
In re the "options" question, I was not looking for full luxurty appointments, but rather had a set of criteria for things that I wanted in the car. This vehicle met all those criteria, so in that sense it had everythin I was looking for.
Second, they did not represent that it was one owner, the sales guy said that he did not know if it was a lease return or something else. He offered to get me a Carfax report, and I opted to buy it for myself instead. Just felt better about getting it direct, then I know that there was no chance for tampering.
I've been looking for a while, but can't find anything I wanted at this price. I wanted a Trailblazer or Envoy and looked at a lot of cars. All had higher miles, or had serious "defects" (i.e. something I did not want or like as opposed to damage). For example, one would have an exterior color I really liked, coupled with an interior that can only be described as from "Pimp My Ride while you're smoking crack". Some has bad stains on the carpets, indellible mars on the the dash, things like that. I saw a lot of 03s and 04s that just seemed too "used" and too overpriced.