(CAN) Buying/ Renting / Leasing a car for a short term

[Lews Therin]

Hello all,

I'm crowdsourcing the best way to go forwards because sadly, our situation will most likely no longer allow us to be a single vehicle family (though if there's a good idea, we'd remain 1 car!)

We have a 2 year old that goes to daycare walking distance away.

My partner will be working as a paramedic, and has to be ready to leave for work within one hour during the probationary period (5 months). That means that at any point, the car can be gone, and could stay gone for days.

For sanity's sake, we do activities with my son during the weekend, and would need to have access to a car in order to do those activities.

TLDR: What is the best financial option to have a second vehicle for WEEKENDS.

Generally, we'd only need an extra vehicle on Sat-Sun, and even rarer occasions for a cottage trip.

Options I'm looking at currently, but have no previous information or knowledge on: Leasing, looking at long term rentals from places like AVIS, buying a used car and then reselling when no longer needed.

We currently have a bike trailer and will be bringing my son places it in, but I'd like to have the extra options for rainy days, since just sitting at home is not a long term solution for my morale.

Please add any information or experiences you have, we're looking for all types of recommendations!!

[Stashasaurus]

Without knowing the rental landscape in your area, I would assume a ride share would be the least costly see you option. This is mostly a hot take from Not Just Bikes. Episode below.

https://youtu.be/OObwqreAJ48?si=Ym14TmIJZ2t8_pno

[RWD]

Note: I'm using USD as that's what I'm familiar with, but principles should be similar.

The cheapest short leases (~24 months) are likely to run $350-400/month (plus operating expenses, insurance, etc.). A Lyft/Uber is roughly $1.50/mile, so if you need the second car less than ~250 miles per month then just using rideshare services would almost certainly be cheaper.

I do think the cheap used car option is a decent route. It's pretty easy to find something efficient and cheap (e.g. Chevy Volt) for roughly $8k. Let's say you keep it for a year. Tax of $1.2k (or $800 if purchasing private party), depreciation of $1k, basic maintenance for maybe a couple hundred, increased insurance cost maybe $500, and fuel/electricity $400 (adjust based on expected mileage) comes to a rough total of $2.9k-3.3k or $240-275/month. If you're owning it for more than a year then these numbers get a lot better (because you only pay sales tax once). I think I read up on Quebec sales tax correctly, be sure to double check my math.

So for a short term period (one year) if you are driving the second [used cheap] car less than ~160 miles per month then a rideshare service probably makes more sense still. If you need the car for two or more years that threshold drops to ~120-130 miles per month.

This is all back of the napkin math. And of course there is convenience in having a car already in your driveway compared to having to wait for an Uber every time you need it.

I briefly looked into long term rentals. Looks like they run like $1.1k/month? If you needed a car regularly for a very short period I think that could make sense. But not just for weekends. You'd be better served by renting a car for just the weekends you need it. A two day rental on the cheapest compact cars is maybe $120 (this can vary a lot based on location). So if you need it four weekends per month that's $480. If you only need the extra car for 5 months that is more attractive than leasing, though you'll still need to pick up and drop off the extra car every weekend. I don't think this option beats a cheap used car though.

[oneyearfromnow]

Most economical option is that you sign up with Communauto.  A brief look at the map it looks like there is a car in /near your neighbourhood.

https://gatineau.communauto.com/?lang=en&city=gatineau

Your partner will still have primary access to existing vehicle for work purposes.  If you find yourself in a situation where you need a car for an appointment or an adventure, then you can rent hourly.

There are different packages, we chose the mid level at $15/ month (total for both of us), and when we rent it is about $4.50 per hour plus mileage.   Gas and insurance are included in the hourly rate.

We have been car free for quite some time now, and even though we car share quite a bit - it has still proved to be half the price of having and maintaining a (fully paid for) car.

Added bonus, they have lots of hybrid vehicles, and a growing fleet of electric vehicles.

[Lews Therin]

Communauto would be around 100$/weekend + the monthly fee.

So not that cheap, and includes a drive every fridayand sunday eveening.

(It's not that close to get the car if we want to follow a toddlers schedule, so taking a bus to the communauto in the morning to go to a third location would be challenging.

[GilesMM]

The convenience of owning is worth the cost.  Leasing is expensive and risky (if you get the mileage or condition wrong).  I would buy a well-depreciated (e.g. 7-10 year old) Corolla or Prius for around C$15k.  You can drive the daylights out of it cheaply with minimal depreciation.

[techwiz]

Thinking back to when we had little ones proper car seat installation came to mind. This is not always a quick and easy thing to do and I would not want reinstall it every time I rented car.  Really depends on how much you would need to second vehicle.   A quick solution might be have the wife take the rental when she will be gone over a weekend. 

[Lews Therin]

Thinking back to when we had little ones proper car seat installation came to mind. This is not always a quick and easy thing to do and I would not want reinstall it every time I rented car.  Really depends on how much you would need to second vehicle.   A quick solution might be have the wife take the rental when she will be gone over a weekend.

Not an option, she has to be ready to go into work with an hour's notice.

It's a truly terrible job requirement for the probationary period. Your personal life is always ready to be cancelled.

[aloevera1]

I would probably go with getting a temporary second cheap vehicle, unless your insurance is insane and justifies car sharing.

I used zip auto really long time ago and it wasn't that cheap. Sure, it's $100 here and there but it does add up. + You have to go and look for a car yourself. So I don't know how it will work if you are watching a toddler and you also need to locate the car because your wife took off. I assume you wouldn't want to hire a car "just in case" before you actually need it (also costs $$).

[PoutineLover]

We have a cheap used car that we mostly only use on weekends, and it's convenient except when something breaks. When we were between cars we used communauto and just had the free membership. A 24 hour period is $50 and includes 100km so you could do something driveable on Sat and bikeable or walkable on Sunday, or go somewhere Sat afternoon and Sunday morning. The only issue is booking in advance, sometimes there's short supply on weekends, and if you want to do something on the fly you have to find a flex. It's also annoying installing a car seat every time, but I'd say before you rush into buying a car, try it out for a month or two and see how it goes cause it might be cheaper and work well enough. If not, try to find a cheap used car, bonus points if it's hybrid or electric.

[FLBiker]

How far are you driving?  Would it make sense to just use taxis?  We're a 1 car house, and decided that we'd just use taxis when needed.  I'm stubborn and willing to bike pretty much anywhere, so we almost never do it, but when I have it hasn't been that expensive.  If you're going very frequently or very far, though YMMV (ha!).

[ricelife]

How about just taking taxi and uber whenever you need to go somewhere with toddler on the weekend? If it is just a short trip around town this could be the most economical situation. There may be weekends where you are staying at home so 2nd car will just be parked there in your driveway.

If you are going to the cottage, then you can rent something for the weekend.

It will be a real big pain to move your car seat all the time (especially if you got a nice/fancy one) so it might be a good idea to get a travel car seat that's easy to install. I have this one personally and have taken it on planes
https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/cosco-scenera-next-convertible-car-seat-boulder-0468824p.0468824.html

[Novik]

Thinking back to when we had little ones proper car seat installation came to mind. This is not always a quick and easy thing to do and I would not want reinstall it every time I rented car.  Really depends on how much you would need to second vehicle.   A quick solution might be have the wife take the rental when she will be gone over a weekend.

Not an option, she has to be ready to go into work with an hour's notice.

It's a truly terrible job requirement for the probationary period. Your personal life is always ready to be cancelled.

That does sound awful. How far away is work and how often do other people say this sudden call-in happens?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the work requirement, but with an hour's notice to get to work, it seems like she could take a cab/uber most of the time. (and the times she can't ie. middle of the night and it won't get there in time, could you take a cab later / the next morning to pick up the car and she could cab home at the end of her shift?)

Second out of the box idea - do you have any neighbours / nearby friends who use their second car only for commuting and you could have an arrangement with them for weekend use as-needed?

[Lews Therin]

Partner has an hour to leave from our place to head into work.

Work includes areas from 15min drive to 1hr drive away.

So we could be out at a museum, have to turn around and get my s/o back home, and out the door in an hour, no matter how close or far work is.

The issue is getting called at weird hours, having plans get ruined, not being able to do anything further than 30min from home (including visiting family, since work is not commute friendly or plannable.

I've got a friend who is willing to let me borrow his, but he's 20min away ...

It's the  god damn 1hr notice to ruin all plans thats really destructive.

[ElleFiji]

If you haven’t already, I’d buy. We are a one driver family and on a good day I’m strapping the kids on the ebike and doing errands PLUS earlyon plus the park like a picture perfect mama. But if the weather is shit or I feel lazy and G can’t drive… sometimes I just don’t for like 3 days in a row. And then all 3 of us are cranky and or watching too much TV. With a car and bad weather or overtired, you are at earlyon or swimming or a museum or jumpy place by magic. Cars are a great invention I’m morally opposed to and also they are magic and solve problems. It’s easier to be smug and morally superior on foot or bike or bus when you made that choice vs having no backup.