Renting out an older pickup on Turo?

[roomtempmayo]

Ready the face punches: I'm thinking about buying a pickup.

No, not that kind of pickup.  I'm looking at a 15-25 year old half ton for $3-5k.

I use a truck occasionally (not a daily driver), and I've usually rented when necessary.  With the rental car shortage now, Enterprise's commercial division is the only good option near me, and they're up to about $135/day after fees, and that's a no towing deal with mileage restrictions.

I'm thinking I could buy an older truck and rent it out with Turo to defray the costs of ownership and maintenance.  Looking on Turo locally, it looks like people are asking $60-80/day for older pickups, often with three day minimums.  If I could net even $500/mo renting it, owning a truck seems like a not-awful option.

However, I've never used Turo in any capacity, and I'm guessing there are hidden costs and nightmares. 

Can anyone fill me in on the details of why buying an old truck to rent out is a bad idea?

[APowers]

I can't speak to whether or not it's a bad idea per se, but I do know that when I tried to use Turo with an SUV that I bought as a flip--- there ARE age and mileage requirements. Mine was over 200k miles, which was not allowed, and as an '03 model year, was only just barely new enough. These requirements were not brightly obvious before trying to sign up with a particular vehicle, so before you jump in with your wallet, make sure you actually figure out what the vehicle eligibility parameters are.

[Morning Glory]

It looks like Turo has a section for classic and vintage cars. I found a couple of other sites with a similar service. I didn't look at the details for year, condition, etc. but it's worth a try.

[Paper Chaser]

If rental places are hard to find near you, have you checked local hardware stores? I've seen both Lowe's and Home Depots that offer rental puck ups for pretty low fees.

And if you do end up purchasing and renting to others, obviously you'd need to plan for increased maintenance costs. 15-25 year old trucks will need some parts replacements, and the people renting cheap pickups for a day or two at a time won't be gentle on them.

[roomtempmayo]

Thanks for the feedback, folks.  I'll dig a little deeper, but if the requirements translate into needing the vehicle to cost much more than about $5k, I'm not interested.  It's one thing to hand off a beater to a stranger, but I'd feel differently about a somewhat nice car.

[joe189man]

Sorry to re-hash an older post but i felt this was better than starting a new thread

did anyone end up trying this?

i just looked at turo to rent a truck to go hunting with and the range in price/day and vehicle type vary wildly for my area

some 4 year old full size trucks rent for ~$150+/day and others rent for ~$60-80/ day for a 2020-2022

a F-150 from enterprise was about ~$100 / day for comparison

Seems like an interesting way to possibly subsidize a vehicle purchase, likely not fully pay all expenses

[GodlessCommie]

Seems like an interesting way to possibly subsidize a vehicle purchase, likely not fully pay all expenses

I tried doing that (with a new-ish car near a major airport). What made me stop was the amount of time I had to spend. It made the earnings completely inadequate. Maybe things can be optimized and I simply didn't have patience to figure it out.

[dandarc]

Seems like an interesting way to possibly subsidize a vehicle purchase, likely not fully pay all expenses

I tried doing that (with a new-ish car near a major airport). What made me stop was the amount of time I had to spend. It made the earnings completely inadequate. Maybe things can be optimized and I simply didn't have patience to figure it out.

I'd imagine the key is longer rental periods - if you're renting the car every other day you've got a much bigger hassle than if it is a week or two at a time. But then you've got a more limited market. I think the folks who are really successful are basically operating a small rental car company - 5 to 10 vehicles. And then it really is a job.

[joe189man]

Seems like an interesting way to possibly subsidize a vehicle purchase, likely not fully pay all expenses

I tried doing that (with a new-ish car near a major airport). What made me stop was the amount of time I had to spend. It made the earnings completely inadequate. Maybe things can be optimized and I simply didn't have patience to figure it out.

I'd imagine the key is longer rental periods - if you're renting the car every other day you've got a much bigger hassle than if it is a week or two at a time. But then you've got a more limited market. I think the folks who are really successful are basically operating a small rental car company - 5 to 10 vehicles. And then it really is a job.

i think you are right on the money there, a week long rental could be roughly the monthly vehicle payment +/- 30%, at least for the trucks i was seeing at ~$80 a day for 7 days is $560, which is about a $30k car loan (5 year term 3% interest)

[GodlessCommie]

Turo makes 100% perfect sense for owners of used car places. They have cars sitting in a lot anyway, and with the amount of business they can generate, hiring more people pencils out - if their existing staff can't handle it.

It also supposedly works better in denser areas, where people can walk or take transit to your place, and you don't need to arrange to meet them somewhere. You can even use a lockbox or remote door-opening apps, and avoid the need to be there to hand over the keys.

[KarefulKactus15]

I did a deep dive on starting a turo business.  Ultimately the math did NOT work out no matter how many ways I crunched it.   And also there is an age and mileage requirement so it would be hard to make work with the age of pickup that would be required. 

I think many operators operate under the true cost of doing business since they view it as just a little extra help making the payment on the car and not as a business model.


It looks great on paper till you punch in average vacancy and insurance.   What about insurance? Thats the really big gotcha. As far as I know the correct way is to have a commercial policy specifically for vehicle renting.  While many insurance companies now have a rideshare option I couldnt find one that supports car share. 

If you make this work Id be interested to hear how.          Otherwise utility trailers are amazing and can be rented from many places for very cheap.   

[KarefulKactus15]

Turo makes 100% perfect sense for owners of used car places. They have cars sitting in a lot anyway, and with the amount of business they can generate, hiring more people pencils out - if their existing staff can't handle it.

It also supposedly works better in denser areas, where people can walk or take transit to your place, and you don't need to arrange to meet them somewhere. You can even use a lockbox or remote door-opening apps, and avoid the need to be there to hand over the keys.

The best of the best do make it work in urban areas.  They are 100% hands off and everything happens remotely. They have their cars wired up to start with a code or similar.  Additionally the renter of the car is required to take a set of photos of about 8 different places of the car before and after their rental.

I think one person I read about leaves several of his cars parked at the airport in long term parking or in a lot close to it.

[joe189man]

I did a deep dive on starting a turo business.  Ultimately the math did NOT work out no matter how many ways I crunched it.   And also there is an age and mileage requirement so it would be hard to make work with the age of pickup that would be required. 

I think many operators operate under the true cost of doing business since they view it as just a little extra help making the payment on the car and not as a business model.


It looks great on paper till you punch in average vacancy and insurance.   What about insurance? Thats the really big gotcha. As far as I know the correct way is to have a commercial policy specifically for vehicle renting.  While many insurance companies now have a rideshare option I couldnt find one that supports car share. 

If you make this work Id be interested to hear how.          Otherwise utility trailers are amazing and can be rented from many places for very cheap.

This is probably the only approach I would take with it, subsidizing a purchase i want (not need), interesting to think about the insurance piece, i assumed Turo offered the insurance.

[roomtempmayo]

did anyone end up trying this?

I didn't. 

What I recently discovered is that my local car sharing program added a Tacoma that's stationed in a parking ramp about two miles from my house, which is easily bikeable.

The costs are fantastic compared to renting from Hertz or Enterprise.  I'm going to give it a try the next time I need a truck.

The best truck for the job is usually someone else's truck.