Has anyone rented a car from Turo?

[LivingAlmostLarge]

What did you decide to do? I've done turo and it was ok

[disneysteve]

What did you decide to do? I've done turo and it was ok

I haven't decided yet. I'm planning to go on October 14 so I still have a little time. I think I'm going to reserve the Turo van I've been looking at as they have free cancellation until the day before. Then I'll keep checking availability from Home Depot and see if any of the locations in my area become available. I don't want to deal with going into Philadelphia.

[disneysteve]

I went ahead and reserved the van on Turo. The price is good and the location is convenient, about 20 minutes from us and we don't need to drive into Philly. You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance so if I find something better, I can always change it but at least this way I don't risk that vehicle being unavailable. With their standard insurance ($500 deductible) it comes to $283.66 plus $0.28/mile over 600. The direct trip is 445 miles door to door each way. I figure another 100 miles for pickup, drop off, rest stops, and such so about 1,000 miles total. The extra 400 miles will be $112+tax bringing the total to about $405. That's less than 1/3 of what it would cost me with Penske.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

That sounds like a good deal

[cypher1]

Turo for renting a car on short notice trips for small duration I've had no issues with. The only negative one I experienced was renting a sedan in Phoenix to drive to Sedona (round trip), which I found a number of mechanical issues very quickly. From what I remember front brake rotors shaking/worn, alignment off, at least one front sway bar link off or making a clunking noise, AC intermittently worked. It wasn't horrible, but I could see others driving it being concerned. Those experiences are very rare but something to be aware of.

As others pointed out, you want to consider insurance coverage which can add up in fees. Given the distance and size for your need, it may still be better to do a rental service. I assume your CC has additional rental protection which is definitely worth the peace of mind.

[disneysteve]

As others pointed out, you want to consider insurance coverage which can add up in fees. Given the distance and size for your need, it may still be better to do a rental service. I assume your CC has additional rental protection which is definitely worth the peace of mind.

CC rental insurance is secondary to our personal insurance. The same is true for the Turo coverage - it's secondary to our own policy.

I need to check now because I probably don't need the Turo coverage if our CC offers the same deal. I might be able to save myself some money.

[ua_guy]

On a related note, I've been terrified into purchasing rental damage waivers even though I carry excellent coverage on my own cars. I've read and have been told:

-The rental company may choose not to work with your insurance and demand payment for repairs from you, up front. Including towing and storage fees. While that doesn't scare me too much, getting any money back they weren't owed might be an ordeal. They can do this because the rental contract is with you, not your insurance company.
-Maybe it's not a repair, but a theft. They can demand payment for the value of the car as soon as it goes missing. Your insurance may take 30+ days to settle a theft claim.
-Personal automobile policies may not cover loss of use / lost revenue from a rental that's out of service. And they may not cover diminished value claims from the rental's fleet owner. Rental companies can come after you personally for these items.
-Definitely make sure anyone driving the rental is also listed as a "driver" on the rental policy. Any additional coverages (credit card, for example) require the driver at the time of loss to be on the rental policy, which must match the purchased policy. Anyone else is an "unauthorized" driver and your personal policy may balk at that. They could say you did not have permission to drive the car and therefore we will not extend coverage.

I'm sure there's all kinds of state law, and every rental agreement is probably slightly different. And that's the point...the rental companies want to terrify you into purchasing their $25+/day damage waiver, and $10++ daily fee for any additional drivers on the contract. But that may be worth its weight in gold if you have an incident.

[QuarterMillionMan]

On a related note, I've been terrified into purchasing rental damage waivers even though I carry excellent coverage on my own cars. I've read and have been told:

-The rental company may choose not to work with your insurance and demand payment for repairs from you, up front. Including towing and storage fees. While that doesn't scare me too much, getting any money back they weren't owed might be an ordeal. They can do this because the rental contract is with you, not your insurance company.
-Maybe it's not a repair, but a theft. They can demand payment for the value of the car as soon as it goes missing. Your insurance may take 30+ days to settle a theft claim.
-Personal automobile policies may not cover loss of use / lost revenue from a rental that's out of service. And they may not cover diminished value claims from the rental's fleet owner. Rental companies can come after you personally for these items.
-Definitely make sure anyone driving the rental is also listed as a "driver" on the rental policy. Any additional coverages (credit card, for example) require the driver at the time of loss to be on the rental policy, which must match the purchased policy. Anyone else is an "unauthorized" driver and your personal policy may balk at that. They could say you did not have permission to drive the car and therefore we will not extend coverage.

I'm sure there's all kinds of state law, and every rental agreement is probably slightly different. And that's the point...the rental companies want to terrify you into purchasing their $25+/day damage waiver, and $10++ daily fee for any additional drivers on the contract. But that may be worth its weight in gold if you have an incident.

This right here is worth the extra $25 a day damage waiver.

[kork13]

On a related note, I've been terrified into purchasing rental damage waivers even though I carry excellent coverage on my own cars. I've read and have been told:

-The rental company may choose not to work with your insurance and demand payment for repairs from you, up front. Including towing and storage fees. While that doesn't scare me too much, getting any money back they weren't owed might be an ordeal. They can do this because the rental contract is with you, not your insurance company.
-Maybe it's not a repair, but a theft. They can demand payment for the value of the car as soon as it goes missing. Your insurance may take 30+ days to settle a theft claim.
-Personal automobile policies may not cover loss of use / lost revenue from a rental that's out of service. And they may not cover diminished value claims from the rental's fleet owner. Rental companies can come after you personally for these items.
-Definitely make sure anyone driving the rental is also listed as a "driver" on the rental policy. Any additional coverages (credit card, for example) require the driver at the time of loss to be on the rental policy, which must match the purchased policy. Anyone else is an "unauthorized" driver and your personal policy may balk at that. They could say you did not have permission to drive the car and therefore we will not extend coverage.

I'm sure there's all kinds of state law, and every rental agreement is probably slightly different. And that's the point...the rental companies want to terrify you into purchasing their $25+/day damage waiver, and $10++ daily fee for any additional drivers on the contract. But that may be worth its weight in gold if you have an incident.

In general my thought is that rental companies can "demand" all they want. I never buy the extra coverage, and if/when anything happens, I contact my personal auto insurance to start their claim process. Let the rental company make "demands" all they want while my insurance handles the claim. My insurance is pretty good, I'm not concerned. Even if the rental company tries to charge my credit card with wild fees beyond my rental contract, I can dispute the charges with the CC company, show them my rental contract & what's the actual agreed amount, explain that my insurance will settle the rest, and their excess charges will be frozen until insurance settles. If my auto insurance doesn't cover everything, the CC rental car protection can roll in as backup.

Note that this isn't quite the same with Turo (I don't think my CC rental protection covers car-sharing services like Turo, and not sure if even my personal auto insurance covers Turo). But still, there's not a chance in the world that I'm ever paying the rental company for their exorbitant damage waiver.

[ua_guy]

I think I'd be able to navigate the process if I was involved in an accident while in a rental car, as annoying as it might be. In more than 17 years of driving rental cars, I've been lucky to never have an incident. There are sometimes when I just wouldn't want to deal with it, and I have purchased their waiver. It's felt "worth it" to be able to walk away from any issue.

It is worth mentioning, if you don't carry comp/collision coverages on your personal car, you need them for a rental. Unless you want to be on the hook for those coverages.

My insurance company sends policy supplements seemingly every year regarding car sharing and ride services. I haven't read them as most of them seem to apply for driving your personal car to make money at Uber, Lyft, etc. I won't ever be doing that, but now I'm curious if they've slipped anything in there about car sharing services like Turo. It might be worth a few minutes to read up on it because I have considered renting from Turo before, for fun. People rent all kinds of crazy and interesting cars on there, not just everyday A-B transportation.

[disneysteve]

Turo offers 3 levels of insurance. The basic has a $3,000 deductible. The middle is $500. The premium is $0. I took the middle.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Good choice disneysteve. We don't want to see you posting later in the thread titled, "Did you ever not get insurance and regretted it later."