Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car

Feb 27, 17 8:06

Post #1 of 17 (1780 views)

I don't have a daily commute. The car sits in the drive-way an awful lot. There are probably about 50 days in the year where I really need a personal vehicle - for work. There are a number of other days, that there are some easy-work-arounds to not need a car or look at alternative transportation.

My current car is at that tipping point of age, where it's running great. I could probably still get $4,000 - $5,000 for it. I bought it used 6 years ago paying cash in-full for it at the time. Ongoing expenses now - insurance and yearly maintenance (which will only go up from here)

My wife for her work does need to have a car. She does not have a daily commute either but her work does have her driving on a need-to basis many more days out of the year than I do. So we would have one full-time vehicle in the family/house. Son now out of the house, so it's just the two of us.

I'm not ready to really take the plunge with this - but there seems to be a case to made for selling my current drive, and then just renting when needed on those 50 or so occasions each year. I've called Enterprise ( 5 mins from our house) and they do have a "Corporate" rate they can guarantee me all year, as well as an assurance that they would have a vehicle for me on 24hrs notice at any time of the year.

For me being self-employed, 100% of car-expenses are a business write-off expense.

Thoughts?

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 8:13

Post #2 of 17 (1768 views)

I have a friend who does this exact thing - lives within biking of everything he needs and rents a car when needed . . . he rents a car about every other month for a long weekend or so.

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 8:15

Post #3 of 17 (1764 views)

We sold both our cars last sept / oct. When my wife is here - qatar - i rent. When she is not i Uber.

We've just bought / ordered 1 car in advance of moving to france primarily for her and kids.

7 seater for visitors.

I have bikes. Close to shops in france.

We do have more than one vehicle there but they are not daily drivers - campervan and motorbike. Cheap to insure and we are family of four.

The no car thing as a single person has been great. Renting with family here has been ideal. No maintenance or insurance etc

The number of occasions we both need it us extremely rare.

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 9:16

Post #4 of 17 (1724 views)

We only have one car, neither of us need a car for work, but in the 18 months or so that we have had only one car I think we have only rented about 3 times. You might find that even your estimate of 50 days is high, especially if your needs are flexible and can plan to use the one car on days when your wife doesn't need it. From there I would just compare your 50 days of rentals vs ownership costs (Insurance & maintenance and depreciation), I would think that you would pretty close either way. I'm not sure but depending on your needs think about other options, we use Car2go on occasion for us work and home are in the home area, but don't rule out Uber or taxi they can be cheaper than rentals if you don't have to go far.
As far as having your own business these are still expenses, and while they will be lower it just means more income to pay out.

Ben

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [LorenzoP] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 9:17

Post #5 of 17 (1723 views)

he rents a car about every other month for a long weekend or so.

My usage would be more frequent than that - as I said about 50+ uses per year. Mostly weekends. Enterprise told me that the "Corporate Rate", Sept 1 - May 1 would be $15/day and from May 1 - Sept 1 would be $30/day. Insurance extra - but I have coverage through my credit card, and would also get some form of extra liability coverage thru our current insurance provider - but this premium would be much lower than what I am paying now per month, about $100/month

There are occasional mid-week needs - but I would know about these in advance. Enterprise told me, with their "Corporate" deal, all they would need would be 24 hours notice.

To/From the airport when I am traveling for work (10+ times/year), would become interesting, as there is no other way to get to the airport economically. There are public transit options - that would take a very long time (about 2 hours each way) or a costly shuttle $70 each way(but no parking charges while at the airport!) - so could be a wash!

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Last edited by: Fleck: Feb 27, 17 9:21

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 9:29

Post #6 of 17 (1702 views)

The Enterprise next to my house has a weekend special. Only $9.99 per day on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. You get 100 miles per day included.

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 9:33

Post #7 of 17 (1696 views)

Fleck wrote:

he rents a car about every other month for a long weekend or so.

My usage would be more frequent than that - as I said about 50+ uses per year. Mostly weekends. Enterprise told me that the "Corporate Rate", Sept 1 - May 1 would be $15/day and from May 1 - Sept 1 would be $30/day. Insurance extra - but I have coverage through my credit card, and would also get some form of extra liability coverage thru our current insurance provider - but this premium would be much lower than what I am paying now per month, about $100/month

There are occasional mid-week needs - but I would know about these in advance. Enterprise told me, with their "Corporate" deal, all they would need would be 24 hours notice.

To/From the airport when I am traveling for work (10+ times/year), would become interesting, as there is no other way to get to the airport economically. There are public transit options - that would take a very long time (about 2 hours each way) or a costly shuttle $70 each way(but no parking charges while at the airport!) - so could be a wash!

look into "Non-Owner insurance" - not every insurance company offers it, but it will likely be cheaper than buying liability every time from the car rental place.

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [ChiTownJack] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 9:39

Post #8 of 17 (1687 views)

I have rental car insurance. It covers the deductible anywhere in the world.

Its well worth it as i rent 10 weeks or more a year

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 9:46

Post #9 of 17 (1678 views)

I used to own a truck, and then realized that the added cost of a truck vs car was not worth it when I could just rent a truck whenever I needed it.

Having said that, you'd need to consider how convenient you need the car to be when you do need it.

-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 12:00

Post #10 of 17 (1630 views)

Fleck wrote:

For me being self-employed, 100% of car-expenses are a business write-off expense.

Thoughts?

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 12:43

Post #11 of 17 (1598 views)

I think it is a good idea. See if it works.

I have two cars for just me. But they are both old 87 and 97, I need a car daily but have two cars for the time when kids come home for summer and when one is in the shop (i.e. on jack stands in my driveway). I don't carry collision insurance, just liability. Insurance is much, much cheaper when you don't need collision.

When I take road trips I usually rent a car from Enterprise as my cars are not so reliable and the more reliable one, 97 Suburban, gets terrible gas milage. But my car costs are far lower than if I bought a new or few year old car.

________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 13:07

Post #12 of 17 (1584 views)

What kind of car is it? How likely is it to need maintenance and how expensive is the maintenance? Your insurance is too high, figure out a way to get it lower or drop to liability only. We have an older car worth $4-5k that we use as a commuter, it costs me $44 per month for full coverage, $25-30 for just liability. It is a 97 Lexus GS300, we got it for $3k and it only had 130k on the clock. Maintenance has been very minimal in the year we have owned it even with putting 18k miles on it.

Depending on what it is your car sounds to be close to fully depreciated, if it isn't a maintenance whore and you can get your insurance costs down it would seem to make more sense to keep it for the convenience, especially if renting isn't going to save you much.

One other thing to think about is you are getting a multi car discount on your auto insurance for having two cars and two drivers. Drop one car and the insurance on the car you keep is going to go up.

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [H-] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 13:48

Post #13 of 17 (1565 views)

H- wrote:

I think it is a good idea. See if it works.

I have two cars for just me. But they are both old 87 and 97, I need a car daily but have two cars for the time when kids come home for summer and when one is in the shop (i.e. on jack stands in my driveway). I don't carry collision insurance, just liability. Insurance is much, much cheaper when you don't need collision.

When I take road trips I usually rent a car from Enterprise as my cars are not so reliable and the more reliable one, 97 Suburban, gets terrible gas milage. But my car costs are far lower than if I bought a new or few year old car.

Car rentals are so damn cheap these days, I've taken several long trips where I've rented a car just to spare the abuse/mileage on my own vehicles and/or 'upgraded' to more space rather than packing in tighter. Cost-wise, it'd be way cheaper to just rent whenever rather than carry the full-time overhead of a newer/higher-value car; as Barry says, the premium is on the convenience of having a car readily available whenever you do need it without having to re-acquire one each time.

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [OneGoodLeg] [ In reply to ]

Feb 27, 17 14:33

Post #14 of 17 (1548 views)

Quote:

Car rentals are so damn cheap these days, I've taken several long trips where I've rented a car just to spare the abuse/mileage on my own vehicles and/or 'upgraded' to more space rather than packing in tighter.

Same here. We have two cars for four drivers (two kids). We will almost definitely move to one car plus Uber when/if we are empty-nesters.

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]

Feb 28, 17 17:05

Post #15 of 17 (1439 views)

I haven't owned a car in 12 years, I cycle commute for day to day stuff and rent a couple of times a year, takes some adjustment but has worked for me.

Jim

**Note above poster works for a retailer selling bikes and related gear*

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [Fleck] [ In reply to ]

Mar 2, 17 18:34

Post #16 of 17 (1344 views)

Fleck wrote:

I don't have a daily commute. The car sits in the drive-way an awful lot. There are probably about 50 days in the year where I really need a personal vehicle - for work. There are a number of other days, that there are some easy-work-arounds to not need a car or look at alternative transportation.

My current car is at that tipping point of age, where it's running great. I could probably still get $4,000 - $5,000 for it. I bought it used 6 years ago paying cash in-full for it at the time. Ongoing expenses now - insurance and yearly maintenance (which will only go up from here)

My wife for her work does need to have a car. She does not have a daily commute either but her work does have her driving on a need-to basis many more days out of the year than I do. So we would have one full-time vehicle in the family/house. Son now out of the house, so it's just the two of us.

I'm not ready to really take the plunge with this - but there seems to be a case to made for selling my current drive, and then just renting when needed on those 50 or so occasions each year. I've called Enterprise ( 5 mins from our house) and they do have a "Corporate" rate they can guarantee me all year, as well as an assurance that they would have a vehicle for me on 24hrs notice at any time of the year.

For me being self-employed, 100% of car-expenses are a business write-off expense.

Thoughts?

We're in midtown Toronto and went car free in around 2001. Rarely had a problem renting, and this includes countless daily rentals to Elgin Mills for weekend /big rides, day and weekend trips, running errands in town, and so forth. I get the love that car people have for their vehicle, but I guess I just see it as an appliance and the cost-benefit made, and continues to make, it a clear decision.

The remedy for the airport will be one-way rentals. It adds a few dollars but still beats alternatives. Like the rest of Ontario, I'm not yet onboard with UP.

Re: Renting a Car When Needed vs Owning A Car [davetallo] [ In reply to ]

Mar 3, 17 8:48

Post #17 of 17 (1287 views)

Thanks, Dave.

As I said I'm not ready to make a move right now - but possibly down the road a bit. My situation is right now with 7 year old car, that I owe nothing($) on, is in great shape and very reliable, with low insurance payments - I'm at the point whereif I did the number crunch and the rental option came out a bit ahead - there's a good argument to keep the owned vehicle for the convenience factor alone.

The hard transition for me will come when this current vehicle does start to tip the other way in terms of maintenance costs (still probably several years away), or I decide that I would need something new or newer - then almost for sure, the renting option would come out well ahead on a monthly cost.

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Our Partners

transition-DOT-area-AT-slowtwitch-DOT-com

Advertise with us

©1999-2024 Slowtwitch, Inc., and Slowtwitch.com
Reproduction of material from any Slowtwitch.com page
without written permission is strictly prohibited.