How I bought a car for myself and Turo hosting on weekends
Time to Buy a Car
For the longest time, I have been living in the hearts of cities; Portland, Seattle, and now San Francisco. Those specific cities have many transportation options, which made owning a car optional. This is a major trend in US cities that is only made easier with peer-to-peer platforms, like Turo.
Recently, things for me have changed. I now commute at least three days a week from SF through the valley with multiple stops, at a variety of locations, with more equipment than would be practical to carry. There’s just no way I can do it all without my own car.
Using Turo to Offset the Cost
Owning a car is expensive, especially given that I really only need it a few days a week. To help offset my costs, like parking, fuel, and insurance, I am going to offer the car on Turo for others to use on the weekends.
I like the idea of car sharing. In the age of Airbnb, it seems natural to offer access to cars in a similar way. In addition to the revenue potential (which of course I love), I like the idea of creating a community around cars, increasing accessibility and affordability for more people, like me.
The first time I rented a Turo, I got a Scion TC with a sunroof. It was fast, fun, good looking, and more affordable than a typical rental car, especially given all the fees that pop-up when you go to check out with the latter. And, of course, I got the car I wanted, rather than whatever was left on the lot.
I’ve used ReachNow, Car2Go, and Zipcar in the past for running errands or taking weekend trips. This made the idea of hosting a car in the city make sense to me. Other people want the same thing, right? That will be my focus for hosting on Turo.
My target car
I decided the most important things to me were:
- The cost of car ownership
- Commute time
- The ride
- Ability to host it on Turo.
I settled on getting a newer hybrid, from a major automaker. A hybrid would, of course, minimize fuel expenses, and has the added bonus of allowing me to drive in the carpool lane anytime I want, even without passengers. Given commute times in the Bay Area, this could have a huge impact on my life.
It had been a long time since I bought a car, so I looked for ways that would reduce my time traveling. Things that would offer flexibility if I wanted to stop owning a car, get a better one, or otherwise change my mind.
Turo Car Calculator — “Carculator”
Once I had a good idea about which cars would best serve my work needs, I worked to narrow down to those that would generate the best revenue on Turo. The folks at Turo offer a “Carculator” that allows you to take a specific car and look up its estimated revenue. It is all based on historical Turo booking data, so it is a good baseline but doesn’t necessarily predict future market demand.
This tool is probably best for those who already have a car and want to see what it’s “worth” if they host it. I am uncertain about its utility when exploring which cars to add to a fleet.
Top Earning Cars and Market Guide
In the footer of the Turo Calculator page, there are two other helpful resources that may offer a better ‘direction’ for those who are buying a car solely to host on Turo. The “Top-Earning Cars” and “Market Guide” seem much better at giving direction than the calculator, so I’ll be using these them when buying my next car, which will solely be for hosting on Turo.
Buying a Car Without a Dealer
I don’t own a car, so driving to dealerships isn’t much of an option. I have my own path to financing, so I don’t need those dealer services. I also have a good knowledge of cars and have many resources to ‘verify’ a car, so I decided to look for a way to buy or lease directly from an owner. This granted me the opportunity to try some of the new flexible models of vehicle ownership that have appeared in recent years.
Swapalease
I didn’t want to be locked into expensive payments or a restrictive lease, so I first looked on Swapalease (Swap A Lease). It’s meant for people who want to hand over the remainder of their car lease to someone else. I like the idea, but the experience overall is dated, with paid banner ads, and a constant push to create a paid account.
The worst part was that many of the results seemed incorrect or incomplete, and after I contacted a handful of folks I was left wondering what the next steps were. I have never received a notification from Swapalease telling me a seller had replied, and when I tried to log back in, there was no account registered to my email.
Overall it is an interesting idea, but for me, it just didn’t make sense. After my failed attempt, I was informed that the leaseholder remains responsible for collecting the payment each month from whoever takes it over. This seems to be a dangerous situation for the leaseholder, so I am guessing they “vet” the buyer heavily beforehand, but I didn’t get that far so I can’t comment further.
Shift
Then I tried an “alternative dealer” called Shift, mainly because they offered to bring the cars to my front door for the test drive. This is appealing when you don’t have a car to drive around to meet sellers and test drive cars. The search experience was ok, but the person who brought the car was uninformed, unhelpful, and didn’t seem to want to be there.
The car they brought wasn’t a good fit, so I talked with the rep who brought the car about exactly the types of cars I was looking for, and my price range. I offered to come down and test drive a few if he lined them up for me. I then got numerous emails, but none of them were for the type of car I expressly requested. It seems that the “app” is completely separated from the folks executing the test drives and sale of the car. It has potential, but since it is basically an app tied to a dealership, it is subject to the ability of their staff to execute on the dealerships vision.
Fair
I’ve looked at Fair in the past, and it seemed like a good fit for those who want a car but don’t want the hassles of a large up-front payment, a loan, or the responsibility of selling the car when they no longer want it.
Using the app to find a car was a great experience, but when I went to purchase, I found some information in the fine print which stated that it is not an open-ended lease, but an open-ended rental car. Only the purchasing/leasing customer and “members of their household” can drive the car at any time. It even had language that seemed to directly imply that you cannot ‘share’ or ‘host’ your car on a platform like Turo. In essence, they own the car, and you are paying to drive it each month. This made it a non-starter for my needs.
TRED to the rescue!
I knew TRED from my time living in Seattle. I describe TRED as a trustworthy ally to those buying and selling cars peer-to-peer. Buying from private owners is good because it typically saves money, but there is a lack of trust that exists because there is no larger organization that can be held responsible if something goes wrong. Also, buying peer-to-peer requires buyers to have the total amount of cash needed on hand, or have financing secured. There is also uncertainty around the paperwork needed to complete the sale. Plus, you have to go to the DMV to process the change of ownership. That, by itself, is enough of a turn-off to make me want to avoid buying straight from an owner the old-school way.
TRED takes care of all of that. They vet the vehicles, the owners, act as the intermediary, handle all the paperwork and registration, and even have financing options available!
TRED being oriented toward service, rather than sales, allowed me to focus on finding the right car at the right price, without any pressure to spend more. I liked knowing that once I found the right car, they’d be there to help me buy it, one way or another.
TRED high-level user experience
TRED’s car search function was intuitive. When I found a car I liked, I simply messaged the owner, and the car was added to my “dashboard” list. This conversation with the owner turned into us agreeing on a time to take a test drive.
I switched fluidly between the iPhone app and the website. The site is clean and straightforward, with were very few distractions to waste time. I wasn’t asked to create a paid account, I wasn’t hounded by the sales staff, and when TRED did message or call me, it was timely and helpful.
Pulling the trigger
Once I met with the owner and did a test-drive, I verified my identity with TRED, made an offer for the car. Once my offer was accepted, TRED handled everything else. When I traveled back to go pick up the car, TRED offered a checklist of things to do. Per the checklist’s recommendation, we met at a FedEx, where we could print the single required document and fill out a packet that TRED had provided to the seller, which would complete the purchase.
The packet had all the documents with cut-outs and included highlights clearly marking the required fields to fill. The entire process took less than 30 minutes, including a call into TRED to be sure we were handling everything correctly. We then stuck it all in a pre-paid envelope which FedEx scanned for us. They also provided a shipping receipt and mailed it for us.
Call support was phenomenal
It was so easy that I was concerned I was missing something. I hadn’t bought a car in over ten years, so I wanted to be sure we weren’t missing anything. I called TRED, and the person on the phone knew both myself, and the buyer by name. They also knew where we were at in the process and were able to alleviate my anxiety quickly.
Expiring tags
I noticed the tags on the car were about to expire, so I text messaged “Bret” at TRED, who had been helping me through the process. He told me that it was handled, and that
“One of the many benefits of purchasing a car through TRED is never having to step foot inside a DMV office :)”
Thanks, Bret, that one fact alone will likely drive many people I know to buy/sell their cars via TRED.
Cheers!
About the Author
Tyler Phillipi is the CEO of Halo Automotive and has been building and launching software and hardware products for over a decade with a focus on transportation for the last five years.
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