Best Kept Secret in Car Rentals

Anyone religiously watch Matt Farah's One Take series? His latest upload was a '74 Alfa Romeo Montreal, and he had a plug at the beginning for Hagerty's new classic car rental service, DriveShare. 

Having been an enthusiastic patron of the Turo car rental app (think AirBnB for cars) for a couple years now, I was thrilled that there's now another company in the mix. 

I wanted to put the word out to GRMers in the hopes that these peer to peer rental services become more common, more owners sign up, and ultimately more fun cars for me to rent! So far I've rented an S2000, 1990 Nissan Skyline GTR, Scion FRS, and a 2011 Shelby GT500. If you live in a metropolitan area there should be some interesting rides available - the Bay Area CA in particular seems to be a hotspot for fun cheap rentals. Filter by manual transmission and have at it...

www.turo.com

www.driveshare.com

The only one in Columbus, OH is a red 1988 944 for $124/day. No thanks...

Haha, I would totally jump on that. 

YMMV depending on your ratio of time spent driving vs. time spend looking at pictures of cars on the internet. Very rarely do my daily activities bring me into contact with the cars I love so it's worth it to me. 

Also seems like a bargain compared to renting a Ferrari or Lamborghini from an exotic rental company for $800 per day. I would be just as happy with a 944 for 1/5 the price, which I think are cool but I've never had the pleasure to drive. 

I signed up with Turo a year ago but I have yet to try it out. There are a ton of rideshare cars available here in Atlanta, including a few I have my eye on: Corvette C7, Maserati GranTourismo, BMW I8 & Bentley Flying Spurr.

Looked at Haggerty Driveshare, nothing that got me interested in Milwaukee.  Interesting concept, I was thinking of listing my Viper since thats something that people would actually want to take a spin in.  But I fear it would be wrapped around a telephone pole as soon as it was out of sight.  

Looked at Turo, there were no deals in Phoenix.  Needed a midsize SUV for a week, cheapest on there was a mid 00s 4runner with something like 200k miles on it for $75/day.  Was able to get a brand new 4runner with 16k miles on it for $34/day from Hertz.  Even after taxes and fees, Hertz was cheaper by a decent bit.  

Our AirBNB in Tucson, however, was fantastic and way cheaper than a hotel.  

You can rent my Cobra on DriveShare, and even use it for autocross!

My area seems to be full of gems. You can rent the world's most tacky Porsche for only $499/day!

Edit: Forgot to include this fine picture from the ad:

I have two cars in my area.. a green viper and a fake Ferrari Daytona Spyder

Wow, I have to say that this would be a pretty great way to scratch my enthusiast itch with cars that I wouldn't other wise drive. Porsche, Tesla et cetera for a hundredish/day  in my area.

Hmmm . The good news: Viper GTS Coupe within 40 miles.  The bad news, $357 per day.  Just curious, how does this work as far as insurance goes? 

Awesomesauce: www.driveshare.com/car/86/?p=1&i=3&l=Washington,%20dc&d1=02/22/18&d2=03/24/18&s=distance&lat_ne=39.35786684058&lat_sw=38.42932605942&lng_ne=-76.450249765899&lng_sw=-77.578902234101&z=0&t=basic&c=0&o=0&mk=0&md=0&y1=1900&y2=2018&p1=0&p2=2500&ta=1&tm=1&f=000000000

There's also a droptop r8.

haha, I was just looking at that on the DC listings.

Everyone in my area must never actually rent a car. I can get most of the cars listed for 30-40 per day from either national or silvercar. There were a few teslas and a couple of other kind of interesting stuff but overall most were so over priced it is laughable. $205 a day for a 64 star chief 4 door? $350 for a 65 mustang 200ci convertible? No thanks. 

My Turo rental prices after insurance, tax, etc.:

S2000 - $73.75 - tastefully modified with Ohlins, exhaust, seats, etc. Drove through the California hills.

2011 Shelby GT500 - $95 - 600HP+, manual transmission. Nuff said. 

Scion FR-S - $96 

R32 Skyline GT-R - $250 - 325whp

Had each car for 24 hours. 

Sometimes Hertz blows.  Sometimes they don't.  I landed at IAH Monday night and headed out like always to the President's Circle.  I was surprised that there was only one or two cars.  Everything else was a pickup or full size SUV.  I ended up with a brand new Infinity QX80.  6 (SIX) miles on the clock.  I've never even driven a car that still had the original gas in it.  It cost the same $34 a day that my ordinary full size would.  I asked the rep what was going on.  "Oh there's an oil convention going on and we ran out of cars last night."  My colleague arrived 3 hours later and scored a Hemi Charger.  I've had plenty of 300's and Chargers but NEVER a Hemi.  I was super jealous.  By the way, that QX80 is fast and comfortable but it drives horribly.  My Rubicon would beat it on a road course.  Seriously.  The Infinity is terrible.

irish44j said:

haha, I was just looking at that on the DC listings.

Split it for east coast rx national challenge?

I love the idea of these things. 

Seems that most of the negativity in this thread is regarding a lack of options, which is also a lack of competition, which is relevant to complaining about pricing. So, to me the solution is get more interesting cars on the service, and in all likelihood prices will fall!

If someone would rent a miata or a competitive Autocross ride, Then sign me up!

It'd be interesting to see if enough people are using the service that one could finance a car and have the bill paid by renting it out a few days a month. Probably wishfull thinking, but you never know... 

At this point, it sounds very regional. I'm seriously thinking of taking out a late model rear-engined Porsche for $129/day. What's not to like about that?

Kreb said:

It'd be interesting to see if enough people are using the service that one could finance a car and have the bill paid by renting it out a few days a month. Probably wishfull thinking, but you never know... 

At this point, it sounds very regional. I'm seriously thinking of taking out a late model rear-engined Porsche for $129/day. What's not to like about that?

 

I actually wondered if "$375 per day Viper guy" on the local listing isn't calling it a business.  If someone pays your outrageous prices, win.  If they don't, try to write the payments off as a "business loss".  Also win, at least until the audit. 

DD#2's erstwhile boyfriend's father had a couple cars - a recent Maserati, and something else - that he had up on one of these services.  I talked about it with the BF briefly, and on that small basis, I have 2 concerns about the idea:

1)  As an owner, say I put the Manic Miata up there (similar to the S2000 mentioned above) - what assurance do I have that it won't get the crap hooned out of it?  These are, by definition, cars that are not appliances, or else they wouldn't be up there.

2)  As a renter, I have to wonder why someone would put their interesting car up on Turo unless they needed the money.  I sure as hell wouldn't risk it (see above) for fun.  And if they need the money, can they really afford the car and its maintenance, etc?  Does that make me comfortable driving their car?

Knowing how many on this forum treat rentals, I can't imaging ever signing up for this as a car owner. 

One of our sales execs used Turo to rent a BMW 8 series convertible or some such on an Atlanta trip. Enjoyed it, but the owner filed a claim for a damaged wheel afterward which automatically charged him several hundred dollars on his CC without a notification. The car wasn't damaged. Last I heard he was still fighting it but hadn't gotten anywhere..

In reply to Toyman01 :

No idea what you're talking about!

There is no racecar like a rental car.