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View Full Version : Social crowdsourced car communities.



thesameguy
November 13th, 2014, 02:08 PM
Dunno about all ya'll, but I've made fairly extensive use of Lyft and I love it. It's soooo much better than traditional cabs it's not even funny. In places like NY where cabs come in streams it may be less of a consideration, but even in SF finding a cab is sometimes difficult and being able to order one on your phone and know it's going to show up (and when) is amazing. Love it.

Fiat just spammed me with this:

https://www.getaround.com/

which seems like Lyft/Uber meets Zipcar and I'm intrigued. I just can't justify a payment on a new car that spends a fair amount of time sitting around, but if I had someone driving it around while I wasn't, making the payment for me - then I could be free to have a new or near-new to enjoy on the evenings or weekends. I haven't even remotely thought it through, but I'm thinking about making the XJR available for a little while just to see how it goes.

Crazed_Insanity
November 13th, 2014, 03:10 PM
Seems like a great idea if everyone does this and we can unlock cars all over town when needed!

Assuming renters all have ratings and we can choose to only rent to good renters and our cars will never be damaged or see excessive wear and tear, the only drawback I see is that what happens when you eventually find out that your XJR is now parked in New York somewhere after a cross country trip... Will getaround help you ship it back? ;)

For folks with multiple cars in their garages, this may be a good idea..., but then again, folks with multiple cars in the garage probably don't need to make the extra cash...

neanderthal
November 13th, 2014, 03:11 PM
I baby my cars (my way!) and i'd be concerned about some dolt driving my car. If I had a newer Toyota or whatever, i'd probably do it, since Toyota's have no soul, but not my W124, my 2002, or any other car i'd wanna drive.

thesameguy
November 13th, 2014, 03:57 PM
I wouldn't rent out my SPG or Fiero, but I'm not that concerned about the XJR. If something happened, I'd buy another one. I would have to believe that interests of both parties are insured in some way or another - you wouldn't want to rent a car that had its airbags defeated any more than you'd want someone renting your car and damaging it. My experience with Lyft has been that people tend to treat peoples' property with respect - talking with drivers it's a very rare occurrence that someone comes in and is intentionally or unintentionally destructive. There are exceptions (someone had a puker in their Dodge, for example), but the vast majority of people are cool to deal with. I certainly wouldn't put something essentially irreplaceable up for rent (which is obviously most of everything I own!), but in my price range, all new-ish cars are 100% replaceable. If I'm making payments on a 2011 CTS-V and a worst case scenario unfolds, I'll file a claim and get another one. No worries. ;)

You raise an interesting point about the Toyota though - I still kinda want a Veloster Turbo and/or a Focus/Fiesta ST. I could go buy one tomorrow, rent it out 10 or 15 days a month, and have the rest of the time for free. Who wouldn't want to rent an ST? ;) And as interesting as I find all three of those cars, they are totally appliance-y - built for mass consumption and covered by a warranty, etc. That could be a great setup.

21Kid
November 14th, 2014, 08:05 AM
Could be useful... I use Zip Car or rather Enterprise Car-Share now. But, those include gas and 200 miles a day. I'm guessing I'd have to pay for the gas when I rent your car? Are there any overnight discounts? Or can you negotiate with the owner?

thesameguy
November 14th, 2014, 08:44 AM
Seems like details are limited on the website - maybe you have to sign up to get the rules. But it sounds like as with Lyft/Uber the company sets the rates, and you just return the car as you found it, where you found it. But really, if I could make $25/day renting out a Veloster it'd pay for itself entirely in ten or twelve days, leaving the remainder of the month for me to do whatever I want with it. That's not a bad deal. The nice thing about a service like this is that finding a car to rent nearby becomes a *lot* easier, which is typically a problem with normal rental agencies where they get clustered around airports or city centers. If you're in the suburbs and need a car or even a different car, you don't have a lot of options. I guess one roadblock for me would be that any car I'd want to own would pretty much be a manual - and how many people in this country could drive one even if they wanted to? I wonder how an electric Focus would fare? ;)