Extra income- car next door

Most cars are only driven for less than 5% of the time. The rest of the time they're doing nothing, but still costing the owner money. So it doesn't need to be a second car or one bought for the purpose. It makes most sense when people have a car already and just want to offset the standing costs. e.g. if you pay around $1500 - $2k/year in rego and insurance, your car can earn that by being rented when you're not using it, and you still get to drive when you want to.

 

It's not like car rental, because you get a small number of local people regularly sharing a particular car. The owners often get to know the regular borrowers. And the incidence of accidents is lower than the average, because all of the borrowers are screened and they're extra careful because they know they are driving a real person's car. The lower excess reflects that.

 

The whole point of doing it through a platform is that all of the 'messy' potential is taken out by the system. If you were trying to rent your car out through the classifieds or something, it would get messy. But like AirBnB, Uber, Airtasker, or any other sharing platform, the technology and the online platform take the hassle out. So it becomes a question of not 'why would you bother?' but 'why would you waste the opportunity to get some cash from an expensive, idle asset'?

 

how is the 'screening' process different from normal car rental company?

why would they be extra careful? They would drive it as they drive any rental car!

 

We have just started putting our car on carnextdoor (just last week). We had our first booking yesterday and are still on the fence about it.

One the one hand, we rarely use our car (you could even argue we don't need one)- we both walk or take PT to walk and live within walking distance to everything so we basically use it only for road trips, camping and the occasional trip to Bunnings. So we figured, why not put this idle asset to work? The other benefit is our insurance (through carnextdoor) has come down.

On the other hand however, our first booking was for 12 hours and the renter drove 130km and we made $47.50. It's nothing to be sneezed at and even if we only had one booking a week, that would still get us ~$2500 (for nothing) over the course of a year. But we do have a two year old car in good condition and we'd rather it stayed that way- so is it worth the risk? Watch this space !

 

$47.50 for 130km to let who knows who use your car, who knows how, you'be be lucky to break even in the long run considering the extra maintenance require, brakes, tyres, fluids, interior and exterior wear and tear, not to mention the hassle involved and extra risk too.
They probably gave you less petrol back too.

 

Was thinking the same, $47.50 for 12 hours without my car and 130km on the clock doesnt really compute in my mind. Maybe if my car was a crappy old rust bucket datsun though.

 

Could it be worth buying a crappy old rust bucket just for this purpose? Spend $2k on an old commodore if you're in the inner city... Maybe then you're onto something.

 

Maybe the Uber car costs debate in the other thread be overcome by utilizing a Carnextdoor car regularly?

pinkboy

 

So the borrower smashes up the car and pays the excess. So far so good.

And we will assume no arguments so that angst is removed.

But the car is off the road for a week or two. And it is just a day or two before the owner had planned a drive interstate to see a sick relative.......

Does the owner get compensation for the time the car is unavailable??

And what about tolls? Unless the borrower fesses up, who tracks down the payment as it takes a couple of days to show up electronically?
Marg

 

I look forward to driving it :

 

Mate has 5. 3 in Sydney, 2 in Melbourne from memory.

Rents vans purchased for this specific purpose, not cars. Has car sitters who have to keep, maintain, and pass on the keys to a carnextdoor users, in return they have limited use of the car for 'free'.

Does okay out of it as a side business. Won't replace her income.

 

As a end-user why would I use services like this? I can hire a car from Budget/AVIS/Hertz etc for not that much money. Less than a year old Kuga/X-Trail is about $35 to $40 a day with unlimited mileage. I never get excess insurance from the rental company. Either buy from 1tripcover or use a platinum credit card that covers car rental excess

 

Broken my Driver side front door during installation and just walked away!

I tried to use this service as car owner for first time but ended up with a nightmare! I own 2012 Holden Commodore Equipe.

Someone named Scott from their installing team came for installation. During inspection he banged the driver side front door and damaged it (I witnessed it). When I wanted to stay there as he was roughly handling the car (due to his hurry on other jobs), he wanted me to leave car with him for his inspection/installation as it would take 1 hr and stressed on me to leave the spot.

After he broke the door, he simply stated it was existing before and tend to escape from his mistake, and walked away without addressing the problem despite of my concerns, though he would certainly knew it was not existing before! This installer had refused to give me his details and flew away without any response. Then I had to chase with his manager about this concern. It looks like his manager had given him these instructions to fly away even after he heard about the damage that has happened to the car!

Now the car is not drivable due to front door simply not lock (it flip opens automatically when moving the car). I end up spending more money on hiring other cars whenever needed, as the escalation team work on their own pace! No professional ethics and customer service. I will have to keep waiting for their next response without any clue and end up multiple reminders with no luck.

So I am finding them bit dodgy in this business, so I would warn anyone look for utilizing their service!

 

Some people prefer not to own a car: often greenies, but sometimes just people who know they won't use them often enough to justify the cost. Of these, many occasionally find that they need or want a car. It might be the weekly grocery run or an occasional trip to visit a friend on the other side of town. They can use Uber, but that isn't always what they want.

If you live in the suburbs, traditional rentals are not convenient -- you need to get to the city centre or an airport to pick up the car. If, on the other hand, there is a rental car available on the block where you live, it is going to be much more convenient.

 

I think it's a reasonable next step.

It won't be too long until self drive is legal and you will be able to order an Uber without a driver, which is their entire future business model...

 

Except customers wont want to pay the $75K cost of a yaris with no driver. The uber costing model says near new cars that are cheap !! Ever seen a BMW M4 as a taxi ? No.

And the owner wont want unsupervised passengers in a $75K yaris either.

The whole concept of driverless cars lacks some subjective elements. Its like why arent Hybrid camry's walking our of dealerships ? Because they cost double a petrol model.

Why is everyone talking up cars yet (drone) aircraft flights are an actual possibility with automated t/o and landing and positioning quite achievable. Already teams of pilots in vegas fly real life missions on the other side of the world and have for years. But regulators know that human factor intervention is necessary. eg radio's, TCAS avoidance and more. Would you fly on a plane that has no pilot ? . A human needs to factor in thing like Sully landing on the hudson or choices about turbulence or a apparent cow on a runway. A computer probably wouldnt.

 

I recently wanted a cheap rental for a day or two. For a decent length trip

Rental car was $50ish per day

Car next door, all the even crappy models were about $30 per day plus 33c per km.
So if i did 100kms. It would cost me $70


No thanks

 

When you rent a car for the day and pay $50, you still have to put petrol on top of it.
With carnextdoor, petrol is included.
So it really depends how far you want to go.

For the convenience, I definitely prefer carnextdoor

 

Self driving cars are not just a possibility. They exist and are much safer than a real driver.
The tech is already there and they can already greatly reduce costs by putting them into cheaper vehicles.
Self driving cars are a much more real reality than everyone flying in drones like back to the future. I agree it’s already possible but the costs and regulations will far exceed that of self driving cars.

Self driving cars are the future.
No more car ownership (unless you want to rent out your car)
No more accidents
No more traffic
No more parking