Turo

Turo Review:

Turo is a peer-to-peer car rental service that allows you to list cars for rent, setting your own price, availability and terms. The site markets the car on its website and provides insurance in exchange for a commission.

Turo’s commission rate depends on the amount of insurance coverage you, the vehicle owner, choose for your car. Buyers can also buy insurance coverage to protect them from having to cover deductibles and losses that are excluded under their own policies.

How it works

Listing a car on Turo is fairly easy. You register and take photographs of your vehicle and decide what to charge to rent it out. Turo has pricing tools you can use that estimate rates based on car rental rates in your area. However, if you’re renting luxury cars on Turo, there aren’t a lot of comparables. Generally speaking the site suggests that you list your car for a little less than comparable cars list on sites like Avis and Hertz.

If someone wants to rent your car, they message you through the site with the dates and their trip details. Vehicle owners determine whether or not to accept the rental. If they accept, they instruct the renter on how to meet them and exchange keys. Car owners say business is brisk, with even new cars paying for themselves purely through the site’s rentals. (For more details, see our blog post: “Making Cars Earn their Keep.“)

Pay

The vehicle owner gets from 90% to 65% of the rental fees, depending on the type of insurance coverage they choose. Waive the insurance and you get 90% of the rental fees; take full coverage and you get just 65%.

But don’t waive the coverage without a back-up. Unless you have commercial lines coverage on your vehicle, your ordinary auto coverage is not going to cover your car when you have a renter. Moreover, a typical policy has a deductible that would prevent it from kicking in when someone simply dents or scratches the vehicle.

If you take out Turo’s premium coverage, which has no deductible, it will compensate you for lost rental fees and provide a replacement vehicle while yours is being repaired. In our opinion, it’s worth the cost.

Owners are paid roughly three days after the rental is complete via Stripe, PayPal or direct deposit.

Recommendations

Turo is the best-rated opportunity in this category. However, we recommend the comprehensive insurance and that you carefully inspect your vehicle the moment it’s returned. Although Turo does some background checking on renters, it’s also worthwhile to out the renter’s reviews.

it works best when you’re renting out an inexpensive used-car in a tourist area. One Colorado car-owner says it’s worked so well for him that he’s purchased four used cars (all for between $3,000 and $4,000) and earns a $300 to $400 monthly profit on each.

Do make sure you have adequate insurance coverage on the car. Other sites where you can rent your car to other drivers: GetAround and HyreCar. We don’t recommend any of them. Want an idea of what can go wrong? Read the comments on our HyreCar review or this Ron Lieber column in the New York Times.

However, we do recommend signing up with Giggster, if you have a classic car that might be interesting to photographers and filmmakers. Cars rent on that site by the hour for, sometimes, hundreds of dollars per hour.

What their car listers say:

What happens when someone crashes your luxury car ;

Claims resolution is a nightmare! After over 100 rentals of my cars and 3 cars listed, I can never get resolution with one phone call. Recently had a 21 year old renter that booked my BMW. I choose to deny the booking, yet Turo charged me $25 to cancel reservation.

“I rented out my mini Cooper. The renter returned my car with the scratches on the rim, cigarette burn on the seat and ashes all over the floor, and a permanent scratch on the dash. I have reported this within 24 hours. They deny the claim saying that the renter says he have received the car in this condition although I had pictures to prove it that the car was immaculate when I give it to him.

My second 2016 Nissan Rogue car was totaled by a renter. The cars KBB fair value was $18,000 But Turo offer me $3,854.77. Their excuse was that my car was in bad condition and was not safe for driving. But guess what the car pass MD state inspection like 2 months ago and is still under warranty. How bad condition could it have been?