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Had two car-owning friends that did RelayRides (now Turo) during the peak sharing economy a few years ago. Both cars were involved minor collisions within mont

Had two car-owning friends that did RelayRides (now Turo) during the peak sharing economy a few years ago. Both cars were involved minor collisions within months. Turns out renting in the city to people that don't drive much, might be prone to accidents. Making sure cars weren't parked on street-cleaning side and dealing with tickets also seemed like a huge hassle. Cars have a really high administrative burden compared to homes, especially when things go wrong, which they do at a higher rate. I've rented cars myself via Turo a couple times in the past few years. Two of the guys were operating their own small rental businesses (5+ cars, parked around on local streets). At a couple hundred bucks profit per vehicle per month, depending on utilization, having a few cars like that seems the only way to make it worth the while. As a part time job of sorts. In the East-Bay, AAA is making a massive investment in car-sharing with GiG. I wonder if it will work out financially given state of the world with cheap ride-sharing by Uber/Lyft.

Hydraulix989 9y ago
I had a minor collision as well within months, as well as two tows. A lot of the renters did not correctly follow GetAround's 24 hour restriction-free street parking policy as well and so I got a lot of street cleaning tickets. Even when they did, if street cleaning often was in 25-48 hours, so I had to repark my car multiple times per week. The thing that made me leave was that GetAround Connect started drained my car's battery like crazy and started requiring jumpstarts every few days. I think there might have been a short. Meanwhile, GetAround support insisted that this was normal.
- pimlottc 9y ago
  What was GetAround's support like for these issues? Did they cover the cost of the parking tickets, or the repairs? Were you using GetAround's insurance?
  - Hydraulix989 9y ago
    Their support is OKAY, but not great. They are helpful, but not always responsive, so you feel like an engineering manager chasing after your junior direct reports, constantly pinging and babysitting them. I've had to argue with them over points of minor contention in the past before, like one time a renter claimed my car was "dirty" and so I had to record them a video showing its immaculate interior. They also didn't want to help me chase down a renter who didn't refill my gas tank for me, as required by GetAround, but I eventually was able to resolve that as well. GetAround completely covered the cost of parking tickets, repairs, and towing. They also made the process really hassle free. The towing was also handled decently well, but as a renter, I DID have to _notice_ my car got towed (not something I checked every day) before contacting GetAround to have them take care of it. AFAIK, you automatically opt-in to using GA's insurance (but still are required to carry your own personal insurance on the car). Overall, I found that renters just didn't treat my car well enough for me; they treated it like an ordinary rental car rather than borrowing a friend's car. After nearly every trip, there was garbage left behind in the car (straw wrappers, tissues, spills, stains), most did not following the parking rules, and the vast majority just didn't bother getting gas for me like they are required to by GetAround. One renter (I couldn't pinpoint the exact person) stole my mobile phone dashboard mount, my cigarette lighter USB charger (which was there mostly to help the renters!), and my SD card. The brakes also squeal now, so I suspect somebody was driving with a square wave shaped braking pattern.
    - jjawssd 9y ago
      Brake squeal is commonly caused by the lack of anti-squeal compound on the back sides of the brake pads. It might not be correlated with brake pad wear.
    - x0x0 9y ago
      I don't understand people who rent their things out yet are surprised when folks treat them like a rental rather than borrowing something from a friend. The thing is, when I borrow vehicles or skis, or stay in a friend's house, I don't pay them. I may refill the tank or refrigerator, but otherwise, it's free. Once you demand money from someone, it's just a transaction and no you no longer get the friend treatment / stuff treated with kid gloves. Now I (obviously) don't go out of my way to trash rental things, but I certainly don't treat them with as much care as something I borrowed from a friend. When I rent cars, I think it's fine to leave minor messes in them; it's implied as part of the rental service they'll vacuum carpets or recycle a stray bottle or two.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
Making sure cars weren't parked on street-cleaning side and dealing with tickets also seemed like a huge hassle. Cars have a really high administrative burden compared to homes, especially when things go wrong, which they do at a higher rate. Oh gosh, don't get me started on this. It's theft, plain and simple. Or rather tax. Owning a car in a city is a massive pain in the butt, and it's cost me like $2k per year. Whether it's bullshit tickets, street cleaning gotchas, expired plates (got a ticket one day after it expired just yesterday), being parked in a valid parking spot that is nevertheless a tow zone for mysterious reasons, having to go in front of a judge to point out that it was bullshit for me to be towed because the facility that I had to visit to pay for the ticket was closed due to a holiday, on and on and on. You get the idea. I've sort of resigned myself to it just being "car stuff," so whenever another crap ticket appears on my window it doesn't bug me much. Just more tax for the city. Whatever. I know a few of the tickets are my fault, but geez, it seems almost impossible to be a perfectly law-abiding car owner in a major city over the course of five years. It's actually tempting to rent out my car to someone else just to cover the administrative cost of owning a car in a city.
- ghaff 9y ago
  More or less. I don't even live in the city but I still get a ticket per year or so, for often inscrutable reasons, when I come in. It doesn't help that so many of the signs related to parking are sufficiently complicated that I rarely have full confidence that I'm 100% legal. The latest naked revue grab is switching a lot of the 2 hr. parking meters from ending at 6pm to ending at 8pm. It's not so much paying for the extra 2 hours of parking but that, when coming in for dinner and a show, I pretty much have to be parked before 6pm. (And I've been ticketed for feeding the meter.)
- snug 9y ago
  If you're playing $2k/year in tickets, you should be paying closer attention, at that point you have nobody to blame but yourself.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    It's not just tickets. It's tickets + permits + insurance + plates. I wasn't blaming anyone else, either. I assume you're perfectly vigilant in every aspect of your life? Meh, never mind. By the way, a friend just tried to park in the spot that I got towed out of. That's how unassuming it looks. That's just a thing you get to learn if you happen to live here, and the only way you learn it is after you get towed. Not a damn thing you can do about it other than pay up. And how about the $120 ticket the other day for making a left at a light that was green but happened to be labeled no left turn without an arrow? No reason not to be able to turn left, as long as it was green. There wasn't any oncoming traffic. Yeah we missed the sign, and for that we get to pay $120 to follow the silly rule. The tickets add up faster than you think.
santaclaus 9y ago
> In the East-Bay, AAA is making a massive investment in car-sharing with GiG. I love seeing my neighbors in Oakland lose their minds over GiG because the cars are stealing 'their' parking.
- meditationapp 9y ago
  Mostly I just associate them with having terrible drivers. I have already been nearly run over at crosswalks by gig drivers twice in two weeks.

Hydraulix989 9y ago

I had a minor collision as well within months, as well as two tows. A lot of the renters did not correctly follow GetAround's 24 hour restriction-free street parking policy as well and so I got a lot of street cleaning tickets. Even when they did, if street cleaning often was in 25-48 hours, so I had to repark my car multiple times per week. The thing that made me leave was that GetAround Connect started drained my car's battery like crazy and started requiring jumpstarts every few days. I think there might have been a short. Meanwhile, GetAround support insisted that this was normal.

pimlottc 9y ago
What was GetAround's support like for these issues? Did they cover the cost of the parking tickets, or the repairs? Were you using GetAround's insurance?
- Hydraulix989 9y ago
  Their support is OKAY, but not great. They are helpful, but not always responsive, so you feel like an engineering manager chasing after your junior direct reports, constantly pinging and babysitting them. I've had to argue with them over points of minor contention in the past before, like one time a renter claimed my car was "dirty" and so I had to record them a video showing its immaculate interior. They also didn't want to help me chase down a renter who didn't refill my gas tank for me, as required by GetAround, but I eventually was able to resolve that as well. GetAround completely covered the cost of parking tickets, repairs, and towing. They also made the process really hassle free. The towing was also handled decently well, but as a renter, I DID have to _notice_ my car got towed (not something I checked every day) before contacting GetAround to have them take care of it. AFAIK, you automatically opt-in to using GA's insurance (but still are required to carry your own personal insurance on the car). Overall, I found that renters just didn't treat my car well enough for me; they treated it like an ordinary rental car rather than borrowing a friend's car. After nearly every trip, there was garbage left behind in the car (straw wrappers, tissues, spills, stains), most did not following the parking rules, and the vast majority just didn't bother getting gas for me like they are required to by GetAround. One renter (I couldn't pinpoint the exact person) stole my mobile phone dashboard mount, my cigarette lighter USB charger (which was there mostly to help the renters!), and my SD card. The brakes also squeal now, so I suspect somebody was driving with a square wave shaped braking pattern.
  - jjawssd 9y ago
    Brake squeal is commonly caused by the lack of anti-squeal compound on the back sides of the brake pads. It might not be correlated with brake pad wear.
  - x0x0 9y ago
    I don't understand people who rent their things out yet are surprised when folks treat them like a rental rather than borrowing something from a friend. The thing is, when I borrow vehicles or skis, or stay in a friend's house, I don't pay them. I may refill the tank or refrigerator, but otherwise, it's free. Once you demand money from someone, it's just a transaction and no you no longer get the friend treatment / stuff treated with kid gloves. Now I (obviously) don't go out of my way to trash rental things, but I certainly don't treat them with as much care as something I borrowed from a friend. When I rent cars, I think it's fine to leave minor messes in them; it's implied as part of the rental service they'll vacuum carpets or recycle a stray bottle or two.

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Making sure cars weren't parked on street-cleaning side and dealing with tickets also seemed like a huge hassle. Cars have a really high administrative burden compared to homes, especially when things go wrong, which they do at a higher rate. Oh gosh, don't get me started on this. It's theft, plain and simple. Or rather tax. Owning a car in a city is a massive pain in the butt, and it's cost me like $2k per year. Whether it's bullshit tickets, street cleaning gotchas, expired plates (got a ticket one day after it expired just yesterday), being parked in a valid parking spot that is nevertheless a tow zone for mysterious reasons, having to go in front of a judge to point out that it was bullshit for me to be towed because the facility that I had to visit to pay for the ticket was closed due to a holiday, on and on and on. You get the idea. I've sort of resigned myself to it just being "car stuff," so whenever another crap ticket appears on my window it doesn't bug me much. Just more tax for the city. Whatever. I know a few of the tickets are my fault, but geez, it seems almost impossible to be a perfectly law-abiding car owner in a major city over the course of five years. It's actually tempting to rent out my car to someone else just to cover the administrative cost of owning a car in a city.

ghaff 9y ago
More or less. I don't even live in the city but I still get a ticket per year or so, for often inscrutable reasons, when I come in. It doesn't help that so many of the signs related to parking are sufficiently complicated that I rarely have full confidence that I'm 100% legal. The latest naked revue grab is switching a lot of the 2 hr. parking meters from ending at 6pm to ending at 8pm. It's not so much paying for the extra 2 hours of parking but that, when coming in for dinner and a show, I pretty much have to be parked before 6pm. (And I've been ticketed for feeding the meter.)
snug 9y ago
If you're playing $2k/year in tickets, you should be paying closer attention, at that point you have nobody to blame but yourself.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  It's not just tickets. It's tickets + permits + insurance + plates. I wasn't blaming anyone else, either. I assume you're perfectly vigilant in every aspect of your life? Meh, never mind. By the way, a friend just tried to park in the spot that I got towed out of. That's how unassuming it looks. That's just a thing you get to learn if you happen to live here, and the only way you learn it is after you get towed. Not a damn thing you can do about it other than pay up. And how about the $120 ticket the other day for making a left at a light that was green but happened to be labeled no left turn without an arrow? No reason not to be able to turn left, as long as it was green. There wasn't any oncoming traffic. Yeah we missed the sign, and for that we get to pay $120 to follow the silly rule. The tickets add up faster than you think.

santaclaus 9y ago

> In the East-Bay, AAA is making a massive investment in car-sharing with GiG. I love seeing my neighbors in Oakland lose their minds over GiG because the cars are stealing 'their' parking.

meditationapp 9y ago
Mostly I just associate them with having terrible drivers. I have already been nearly run over at crosswalks by gig drivers twice in two weeks.