Enterprise sold cars without air bags

Enterprise Rent-A-Car chose to “delete” a standard safety feature from thousands of Chevrolet Impala fleet vehicles, saving millions of dollars, The Kansas City Star reported over the weekend.

After the company rented out 2006-08 model vehicles, Enterprise and dealers nationwide offered them for sale without side-curtain air bags.

A Star investigation found that hundreds of Impalas already sold were incorrectly advertised on the car rental giant's Web site as having the feature Enterprise chose to exclude on General Motors’ factory floor.

Enterprise officials defended their decision to delete the side air bags on roughly 66,000 Impalas as one that did not violate any federal mandate, The Star reported. That decision saved the company $175 on each Impala, or $11.5 million in total, The Star reported.

Enterprise determined that 745 Impalas sold from Enterprise’s used-car lots “were marked incorrectly, only online, as having side air bags and they did not,” Enterprise spokeswoman Christy Conrad told The Star. Enterprise said it would notify the 745 buyers.

Enterprise, the largest privately held company in St. Louis with more than $13.1 billion in 2008 sales, employs more than 4,000 people in St. Louis and more than 75,000 worldwide.