OV9

Last Friday I picked up a new car with the intention of renting it out on Turo. I thought it could be interesting to document the process on here, if I remember to post

For those who don't know, Turo is like AirBnB for cars. You can list your own vehicle for rental and the Turo platform handles the insurance and roadside assistance when the car is being rented.

In true man-maths style, I managed to work out that it was much more profitable to buy a premium vehicle like a BMW 4 or 5 series, rather than a cheap hatchback like a Peugeot 208 or Fiat 500. The reason being is that the BMW daily rental rate is 3-5x the smaller car, yet it's running costs are not the same multiple. Therefore a monthly break-even point is reached after fewer rental days, and profit per rental day is higher after that break-even point.

Based on the numbers available, it should be possible to cover all running costs and fully repay the cost of the car within two years. Best case scenario is that the car will create additional profit on top of that. Worst case scenario is selling the car after a few months due to very low amount of rentals.

My criteria for a car were:

- Good looking (Sport or M-Sport)
- Automatic
- Black metallic
- Small diesel engine
- Black interior with sports seats
- Ideally 60-80k miles
- A few options above basic spec
- Happy to have scuffed paint and wheels as they'll get hammered anyway
- <£12k

It was a lot to ask for my budget, so I had to be a little flexible on a few items. 4-series get a huge premium for low mileage as there are so many ex fleet 100k+ miles cars out there, so I ended up with a 2014 BMW 418d Gran Coupe Sport on 85k for £11,750 with FSH and recent major service. Most of the 60k cars are in the £15-18k+ price bracket.

Picked up the car on Friday evening, then listed it on the Turo app Saturday afternoon https://turo.com/gb/en/car-rental/unite ... es/1093949

There are a lot of account settings to run through which took a surprisingly long time. Things like buffer time between rentals, buffer time between booking and collection or delivery locations/radius etc. At first its best to offer a cheap daily price with as many free extras as possible to get some reviews. My starting price is £58/day and this will move up to £75-100 once I have 10+ feedback.

Turo works on a feedback process, whereby hosts and customers leave reviews for each other. It's important to get 5* reviews and once you reach 10 x 5* you become an All-Star Host which equates to higher customer trust, higher search rankings and more bookings. This means your daily rate can go up too.

One reason why this can work for me is because I'm well placed to serve the central London market and rarely leave the house

First job was to get some feedback and luckily some friends and family were interested in booking the car. Within 12 hours of getting my first review, the car got booked by someone else for a 2 day rental.

That's all for now, I'll update this as and when I remember.

Do the hirers have to come to your house to pick up the car? Collect keys from you etc?

And is there a cap on the number of miles people can do within the hire fee without being charged excess mileage?

Also how does the income tax work for this? You can't offset all the costs from the vehicle against income as you'll also use it for personal use etc. So how will you be reporting it and have you factored tax into your break-even/profit calculations?

Jobbo wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:23 pm Do the hirers have to come to your house to pick up the car? Collect keys from you etc?

And is there a cap on the number of miles people can do within the hire fee without being charged excess mileage?

Hiya Jobbo, how’s life?

Hirers come to your car’s location, or which might be your house, or in the case of London, to a street near my home You can also offer delivery and set the criteria for that, such as cost and locations served (via a radius or specific places such as airports)

Mileage defaults to 200/day but can be set at any level or unlimited. You can also create add-ons, such as £xx per day for unlimited mileage or returning with low fuel.

Simon wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:29 pm Also how does the income tax work for this? You can't offset all the costs from the vehicle against income as you'll also use it for personal use etc. So how will you be reporting it and have you factored tax into your break-even/profit calculations?

This is a side gig as a sole trader so definitely can’t claim any vehicle costs. Tax has been factored, but the whole thing is a suck-it-and-see trial, as there aren’t any reliable rental figures available to base the sums on, so any forecast is a guesstimate anyway.

All good cheers Gav - hope you're well too

Gavster wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:49 pm

Jobbo wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:23 pm Do the hirers have to come to your house to pick up the car? Collect keys from you etc?

And is there a cap on the number of miles people can do within the hire fee without being charged excess mileage?

Hiya Jobbo, how’s life?

Hirers come to your car’s location, or which might be your house, or in the case of London, to a street near my home You can also offer delivery and set the criteria for that, such as cost and locations served (via a radius or specific places such as airports)

Mileage defaults to 200/day but can be set at any level or unlimited. You can also create add-ons, such as £xx per day for unlimited mileage or returning with low fuel.

how are you doing the physical keys part?

I have zero interest in doing this personally (and not living in the city I can see limited appeal) but it is fascinating.

Who deals with disputes?

- if I say I returned it full and you say I didn’t?
- if I say the fart stain on the drivers seat was already there and you say it wasn’t?
- if I have to pay an insurance excess for bumping the car, and I rent it 3months later and it’s clear that it was never repaired?

(Other scenarios are available)

Jobbo wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:56 pm All good cheers Gav - hope you're well too

Cool doing fine here

Rich B wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:58 pm

Gavster wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:49 pm

Jobbo wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:23 pm Do the hirers have to come to your house to pick up the car? Collect keys from you etc?

And is there a cap on the number of miles people can do within the hire fee without being charged excess mileage?

Hiya Jobbo, how’s life?

Hirers come to your car’s location, or which might be your house, or in the case of London, to a street near my home You can also offer delivery and set the criteria for that, such as cost and locations served (via a radius or specific places such as airports)

Mileage defaults to 200/day but can be set at any level or unlimited. You can also create add-ons, such as £xx per day for unlimited mileage or returning with low fuel.

how are you doing the physical keys part?

The app lets you tag the location of the car, so I can either meet the customer in the street, or hide a key inside the car and when the customer arrives unlock the car using remote services, allowing them to get in and drive off contactless.

mik wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:10 pm I have zero interest in doing this personally (and not living in the city I can see limited appeal) but it is fascinating.

Who deals with disputes?

- if I say I returned it full and you say I didn’t?
- if I say the fart stain on the drivers seat was already there and you say it wasn’t?
- if I have to pay an insurance excess for bumping the car, and I rent it 3months later and it’s clear that it was never repaired?

(Other scenarios are available)

Both host and customer have to document condition of the interior, exterior, mileage and fuel level by uploading photos to the platform at check-in and check-out, therefore it should match. If someone tried to somehow scam me, then I guess the platform would intervene. I absolutely expect the car to pick up quite a few scratches and marks which I won't be able to claim against over the course of these 2 years and of course there are plenty of ways that people could try and scam or game the system, which all goes with the territory.

I'll make sure to give you a shout as things start to go wrong

Hope it works out, some tasty stuff on there but excess will put most off I'd imagine e.g 15k on a lambo.

I'm pondering putting the Aston on there. It's already sitting here not being used so any rental - even just a day - would be almost straight profit.

Until someone f**ks the clutch or similar....

Sundayjumper wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:26 am I'm pondering putting the Aston on there. It's already sitting here not being used so any rental - even just a day - would be almost straight profit.

Until someone f**ks the clutch or similar....

I would have thought a bigger risk would have been 'watch this' moments from someone with a couple of hundred quid to spend and who think they're James fucking Bond.

Beany wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:42 am I would have thought a bigger risk would have been 'watch this' moments from someone with a couple of hundred quid to spend and who think they're James fucking Bond.

That's what insurance is for ! A proper write off wouldn't, shouldn't, leave me out of pocket. Lurking mechanical damage that only comes to light later is a bigger risk IMO. But I guess that's all factored into the day rate.

Suppose that's true enough - I'm thinking of it from a 'one car' owning perspective where some chump wiping the car out would be a major problem, not the perspective of someone who owns about, what, fucking nine cars?

If it’s an object you’re not overly emotionally attached to then long term accelerated wear and tear would be more costly to you as an owner than accident damage which it’s insured against.

I can see it being a really good tool if you have an EV sitting around. You can’t really abuse those mechanically and anything you do will be cosmetic so easy to claim from Turo afterwards.

Beany wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:55 am Suppose that's true enough - I'm thinking of it from a 'one car' owning perspective where some chump wiping the car out would be a major problem, not the perspective of someone who owns about, what, fucking nine cars?

Nine was a high-water mark for me back at the start of last year, we've down to seven now.

Sundayjumper wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:43 am

Beany wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:55 am Suppose that's true enough - I'm thinking of it from a 'one car' owning perspective where some chump wiping the car out would be a major problem, not the perspective of someone who owns about, what, fucking nine cars?

Nine was a high-water mark for me back at the start of last year, we've down to seven now.

You're failing us, SJ. Buy something else stupid.

We'll wait.