Car Advice

Looking to get a new ride for doing Urber right now. 

I have a rough idea of some cars, just looking at what thoughts on some of these if you guys have dealt with them or own them. Doing a budget of about 2500.

I know Subaru right off the bat, owned three of them. Love then legacy and outback.

2005+ hunyday sonata?

2005+ Mazda 3? A couple of people said to stay away for reasons. 

2005+ ford fusion?

Nissan Ultima?

Looking for cars that a bigger guys can get into and out of the backseat so a little bigger sedan if needed or small SUV. I am borrowing a 2010 rav4. The rear seatbelts suck trying to use them.

Don't know if it would be in budget but Toyota Avalon's are decently big in the back seat. 

Did you check the car requirements?  I thought they had to be newer than that 

dean1484 said:

Don't know if it would be in budget but Toyota Avalon's are decently big in the back seat. 

Don't they have reclining back seats too?

Justjim75 said:

Did you check the car requirements?  I thought they had to be newer than that 

It looks like it depends on the location - some places say ten years, some say up to fifteen years, but there are also mileage limitations (in Minneapolis cars between 11 and 15 years old must have less than 150,000 miles.)

Only one I know is the Mazda 3. And I will second stay away. It is reliable as a rock but the back seats have NO legroom and I’m a skinny 5’-8” at best.

Prius comes to mind for low running costs.

I did Ubereats as a side gig for a bit. I greatly recommend you look into it instead.

No weird people, no age requirements usually and very similar money. $18-20 an hour was pretty regular with almost always more

I can not stand the thoughts of going back to food delivery. i quite doing food after doing pizza since 2003 though 2018. I have been doing urber and lyft since then and need to get a new ride so I do not have to borrow a car from someone else.

Can not stand the thought of prius. 

I have looked at a mazda 3 and the back seat was pretty good, it was a wagon if that helped.

What I am looking for is if cars are pretty good or what to look for in a couple of cases. and Here is WI/IL its 15 years or newer.

Thanks for any help.

The Forte/Elantra both have larger than normal compact rear seats. Sonata/Optima are great choices. The V6 Sonata of that era is a great car and they run forever.

Whatever the year requirements are for your area, get one that is newer by at least as many years as you plan to drive for them.  They will straight up kick you out if your car falls outside of that model year requirement.  There is also a "flashy" quotient much like AirBnB which doesn't really affect things too much.  Most riders don't care.  They want to get from A to B, but the people with BMWs and Mercedes get better reviews and tend to be requested more.

I know several drivers who are "uber poor" because they had to replace their 2010 car with something newer in order to keep driving.  One driver that picks me up frequently had to ditch his perfectly-good 2009 Volvo with a newer Hyundai just to keep driving.  He was upside-down in the Volvo, so he took a major downgrade in rides which hurt business, was paying more, and had to upgrade his day job and work more Uber hours just to afford the car.  Lose-lose situation for many drivers.

There is an appeal process where you can submit pictures of your expiring car, but of the three I know that did it, they got an almost instant response of "no" along with a suggested ad for a local dealership.  Almost like it was an automatic robo-rejection plus the added backstab of "try something from our sponsor, because letting you drive an older car doesn't line their pockets."

Prius is the obvious answer if you want to keep the most money.  Less fuel burned and very low maintenance costs.  Check out the prius threads on here.

Civic or Corolla may be your next best options.

I should stay out of this but foremost, Cutris' advise/experience of "Uber poor" and loose-loose seems to be a popular experience with Uber.  

I would recommend instead  that if you want to drive then maybe look at Auto Parts delivery type work.  This would let you interact with "car-guys" much of the day.  This type of thing.  Doesn't have to be Napa.  There are others too.  

If you do stay with the Uber then look for a good deal on a car that other's wont buy.  What are those cars?  They are non-sporty cars with manual transmissions.  The younger generation is not learning how to drive manual transmission and the older generation is done with bothering to drive them.  Sure, in sporty cars like a Miata, a manual is desirable but in non-sporty cars like a Kia Soul a manual is not desirable and there are a lot of non-sporty cars out there with manual transmissions.

If you find a non-sporty car with a manual trans that seems to be out of your price range, you should still try to go look at it and make a low offer.  The reason that non-sporty cars with manual transmissions take so long to sell is not because people are offering too little on them.  The reason they take so long to sell is because NO ONE calls or comes to look at them.  

Real sample:  2010 Hyundai Santa Fe with manual.  

To further expand...the Santa Fe above will not get that good of mpg despite being a 4 cyl manual.  EPA says to expect 22 mpg combined.  However, also be mindful that fuel is not the greatest expense that you face if doing Uber.  When the 22 mpg Santa Fe is compared to the 46 mpg Prius the annual difference in fuel cost for 15k miles at $2.50 per gallon is $900.  That may seem like a lot but a set of tires can be $500 and it's hard to get anything out of a shop for under $300.  What I am trying to say is operating/maint/repair costs are probably more important and can be more costly than poor mpg.  The reason that I have multiple Gen2 Prius in my fleet is because they have a low maint/repair cost.  It's also nice that they return good mpg.  Further, it's nice that I can buy them cheap.   

For you, the way you are approaching Uber, the largest cost that you have (more than fuel or maint) is barrier to entry costs.  That is , Uber wants you to have a more expensive vehicle and that expense is your largest hold back to your success in Uber.  

ckosacranoid said:

I can not stand the thoughts of going back to food delivery. i quite doing food after doing pizza since 2003 though 2018. I have been doing urber and lyft since then and need to get a new ride so I do not have to borrow a car from someone else.

Can not stand the thought of prius. 

I have looked at a mazda 3 and the back seat was pretty good, it was a wagon if that helped.

What I am looking for is if cars are pretty good or what to look for in a couple of cases. and Here is WI/IL its 15 years or newer.

Thanks for any help.

It's up to you, fwiw my wife delivered pizzas for years too and described ubereats as "way way way way better" ( actual quote)

Uber poor is a thing too, it kills a lot of people from what I hear. Passengers also opens you up to all the dregs of society who can vomit, expell many bodily fluids, stab/harm you or your car and be general aszhats.

A plate of Chinese food does none of these things and it's biggest problem is it might be smell tasty. Your qualifying car is basically "anything that's a car" ( I did it in an 00 explorer and an 02zx2) and even bicycles if you like. People have to come to you to get the food so no walking around trying to find them.

I found it to be an easy gig

I don't think I could ever drive for Uber... not because I wouldn't want to, but because I can never afford a newer car.  My newest DD is a 1994.

Most of the drivers I know drive for all of the above; Lyft, Uber, Eats, GrubHub, etc just to make ends meet.  They'll do the Eats thing during the day which pays some, but the big money is in the vomit/blood/drool/zombie crew at 2:30am.  Rates for Uber nearly triple during that time.  Lyft raises rates a bit, but most drivers turn off the Lyft app so they don't have to take the cheaper fares.

If I take an Uber downtown it's $12.  Have some drinks and try to come home at 2am?  Then it's $32.

I'd way rather deliver food than people. 

I've never really done a driving job except when i worked part-time for the Census. That was pretty sweet. They paid my hourly plus $.55/mile  to cruise around all over the place categorizing buildings by looking at them from the street, lol.  I rode a 60mpg 150cc scooter for much of that, so the $.55/mile was adding up nicely. 

I do a lot of driving for my work as a mechanic, though. I'm in a base model Versa sedan today. It has a manual! As per normal for Nissan, it has a big back seat considering how small the rest of it is. BUT, at 6'0 I am brushing the headliner to sit in the rear seat because of the slope of the roof even though my legs are fine. Seems like an oversight but i guess you have to draw the line somewhere. I would definitely suggest a manual Cube, though. Those have a very good back seat for being a small car and you MIGHT find one around $2500. 

Car and driver magazine just did an article on this. You can do package delivery too. The key to making money was doing several deliveries at once, but it still wasn't much money in the end. Is this a side job or a full time gig?

Right Now its the only job. I got so burned out doing pizz derlivery I had to quit and do something else. I just do not want to do anything with doing food. Thanks for the advice.

My best friend was Ubering/Lyfting for a year or so. He picked up a 2009 Prius for 1200 because CarMax thought it was worthless with 200k on the original batteries. Doing maintenance and fuel math he said it would have been hard making minimum wage with worse fuel economy or higher cost. And he ubers in the Research Triangle which is a busy spot.

In any case, searching for a car is put off a few weeks since its hard to do much right now for research in looking at cars.