Anyone listed their car on Turo?

[jamesbond007]

I am curious if anyone listed their cars on Turo. They say I can be fetching about $45/day and I get to keep 70% of it. So it is $32 per day for my 2014 Mazda. How realistic is it? Anything I am missing?

[bwichner]

I am curious if anyone listed their cars on Turo. They say I can be fetching about $45/day and I get to keep 70% of it. So it is $32 per day for my 2014 Mazda. How realistic is it? Anything I am missing?

I've looked into this but haven't pulled the trigger.  One consideration is your car insurance and if you need extra coverage when putting your car in Turo.  Turo says they have insurance to cover the gap however when I talked to my insurance guy he said it wouldn't be enough coverage and may need more.

Also, it's worth considering your time to keep your car clean and washed and how you get the car to a renter (drop off or they come to you to pick up) and possible increase in maintenance needed. 

I think it could still be worth it it the numbers work out.

[Jon Bon]

In my MBA classes they always said the only company you never wanted to own was an airline, and a rental car company was worse than that.

There are two ways to look at this.

1. Renting Regular Cars
2. Renting Unique cars.

Option 1 is you, you are competing on price and lending your car to people who are going to trash it. This does not feel wise.
Option 2 is you are renting trucks, or sports cars, or jeeps. Usually used in specific circumstances that are absurdly bad for the car. Moving 150% of the trucks limit in gravel, redlining the car or rock crawling the jeep. Would you ever let your friend do these things to your car? Likely not. How about a complete stranger when you are not even in the passenger seat?

There are easier ways to make money.

[researcher1]

I am curious if anyone listed their cars on Turo. They say I can be fetching about $45/day and I get to keep 70% of it. So it is $32 per day for my 2014 Mazda. How realistic is it? Anything I am missing?

All you need to do is picture how most people treat rental cars (me included).
Do you really want people using and abusing your personal vehicle like that?

You'd earn just $30/day. 
But out of those funds, you need to SUBTRACT...extra insurance costs, income tax, wear/tear, cleaning, ect.

Look at it this way...
If the average renter drives 150 miles/day, the GROSS revenue from your car is only $0.20/mile.
The IRS mileage rate, which is "intended to cover all the costs associated with operating a vehicle", is $0.58/mile.

[jamesbond007]

All great points. This was precisely my intent. I was sure I got carried away :) Thank you. You are all correct.
1. I wouldn't even let my wife drive the car most of the time. So, no question of a random stranger.
2. I understood that it doesn't make sense when time, maintenance and costs are considered.

This is like DoorDash. It doesn't make sense.

[spaniard999]

I had mine listed for all of last summer.
It went pretty well. I got total around $2000.
Then I decided that it was kind of limiting for me to have to be there for pick up and drop off just to check if there were any issues with the car.

I had one issue with a driver. I listed my car as non smoker. and someone decided to smoke and then take it to clean. I could still smell it, so I reported it and they paid a cleaning fee.
But overall very good service.

[researcher1]

I had mine listed for all of last summer.
It went pretty well. I got total around $2000.
Then I decided that it was kind of limiting for me to have to be there for pick up and drop off just to check if there were any issues with the car.

I had one issue with a driver. I listed my car as non smoker. and someone decided to smoke and then take it to clean. I could still smell it, so I reported it and they paid a cleaning fee.  But overall very good service.

So how many total miles were put on your car by Turo renters?
Did you have to get additional insurance/riders on your personal insurance to cover the car as a rental?  If so, how much was it?
Do you have any idea how much you cleared after taxes on that $2000?

[Runrooster]

So how many total miles were put on your car by Turo renters?
Did you have to get additional insurance/riders on your personal insurance to cover the car as a rental?  If so, how much was it?
Do you have any idea how much you cleared after taxes on that $2000?

I'm not the person you were asking, but my brother was once buying cars to list on Turo.  He ran his business for about 2.5 years with around 8 cars at the peak.  He stopped in part due to HOA insistence, and is looking at places to run the business elsewhere. 
He said he was clearing around $150,000 per year.  My impression is that taxes are basically irrelevant because mileage and other expenses (uber to pick up the car, cleaning) exceed income.  Major problems include tolls and speeding tickets which he often ignores until they double or triple.  Turo will pay if you are prompt though.  A lot of the labor (booking, cleaning) is done by his teenage son, and he feels like its good business experience even if there is a small loss.  I cant even imagine the paperwork (mileage logging, expense tracking) it would take to run the business properly; it would make me crazy.  Ive been surprised by how many long term renters he has had.  He has a mix of cheaper cars, bmw/ten years old, and teslas.  Also, he has gotten repairs covered, sometimes with some effort, but he doesn't get paid for the loss of income while a car is being fixed.  I'm not aware of any additional insurance he purchased.

[Car Jack]

I can't remember the handle, but I watched a bunch of videos from a guy who along with 3 of his friends formed a business.  They bought 8 cars and rented through Turo.  Things I took from his videos include that they consider gouges of less than 2 inches to be regular wear and tear and won't re-emberse you, even if you take the lower payout for better insurance.  Of all the cars they bought (from memory, 456, Boxter, Corvette, Jaguar....), when sold, the business lost money.  They did this on a very professional level with accounting and a business plan going in, including an exit strategy.

He also talked about Turo changing the rules as they went along.  This made things difficult because you don't know from the start what the rules are.  In every case, according to him, the rule changes favored Turo.

Ed Bolian from Vin Wiki also talked about current trends in renting exotics and said that the rentals are a great deal for those renting and a horrible deal for those renting out their cars because the market has dropped prices below the cost to operate the cars.

I have read reviews where fly by night used car dealers rent cars through Turo that seem to barely or won't pass most state safety inspections.  I remember one review in Florida where a car would die, the dealer would drive over with a flatbed with another car on it......soon after, it would die.  So the dealer did fine with junk cars bringing in Hertz kinds of income but the renter spent his vacation swapping cars.

After watching a ton of videos and reading a ton of reviews, I decided to pass.  I own 5 cars, so renting out a car would be pretty easy for me to do.  Not for me.