Anyone have experience listing on Turo?

Ask the Hackrs
21

What about the fact that most (if not all) lease companies prohibit renting out your car?

Also it seems some of the cars (like Corvette) only had 2 rentals. Are those also still money making with so few rentals?

22

I think many places that do it professionally or semi-professionally only use Turo for occasional rentals, especially if they’re using a business name and not their actual name. Either they rent the car out through other means or directly, or it’s a car they’re going to sell and just rent it out temporarily until it’s sold. That’s my impression anyway.

23

I see I can’t post my link :(.

I got those on the 5th of June. It’s only been half a month. One of the Corvettes has already been booked for June 30-July 30 for over $2500 net to me. The monthly payment on a base stingray finance is around $900/month.

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24

I often wonder what the highest profit margin cars to list are. I see tons of corvettes and jeep wranglers for sure. Considering a wrangler rents for about double what a car with similar MSRP would and they don’t depreciate much that’s probably a good one. Corvettes I have no idea but according to your post it’s pretty good. I also see a ton of Maseratis on there for over $100 a day that probably were under $600 to lease.

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25

I think when you were able to get the i8 in the $1000/mo range that would prob have been a good one for turo

26

Yeah I see a lot of non-standard rental cars on there which makes sense as people use Turo to rent cars not normally rentable. In terms of exotics I see alot of Maseratis (mainly Ghiblis), Porsches, Range Rovers, etc. There’s a 4 year old Jaguar F-Type S Convertible that rents for $250 a day and has had 29 bookings, a lot of people have no idea it’s a $45k car

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27

Or he dropped the price

28

I have a family member who looks at several cars available every morning and thinks that means they just sit around gathering dust and no one is interested in renting them. Has anyone every experienced that? I have not read one single experience of one person who lists a car and can’t rent it, assuming the price is reasonable or competitive. I’d really like to start this business but the one obstacle I keep running into is this fear that the car will sit there and not rent. Anyone ever experience that?

29

It really depends on the car and price, but of course a car will sit some days and not rent out everyday. I’d imagine it’s maybe a 50/50 split.

30

Do it under an LLC otherwise your personal liability is essentially unlimited

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31

I have realized that if your car is less than $400 a month, you will make good money on Turo. By the time you list a car that is leased over $400, you will be worried about too many miles on the car, wear and tear. I learned with my Lexus. I rented it out at least 10 times at $125 a day but my monthly was stupid high. I was too worried about going over miles, someone hitting the car or whatever.

32

Did you have permission from the leasing company to rent it back out? Based on my research nobody permits this - although BMW launched a program last year I think where they would permit it for an extra fee.

Hacking a deal here and then renting it 4 days a month to make your money back seems like a no-brainer if you’ve got extra miles (or can rent it for enough to pay for the miles). But it’s generally not permitted.

33

It’s only a no-brainer if you’re in denial about how much liability you have, considering your personal insurance will probably deny any liability for an accident and Turo’s $1M policy is just way too low for a serious accident

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34

Ignoring being responsible for a totaled lease car (if that’s the direction one goes) being personally liable on all damages over one million dollars seems to be something no one wants to talk about. Wouldn’t even take that serious an accident to get to a million dollars in damage. Medical bills get expensive real quick, especially when the insurance company is seeking indemnification instead of arguing them down.

I wonder if there are public stories about accidents in turo cars that lead to liability for the driver.

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35

Car was sitting around since we got the Volvo s90 and lexus was basically paid off. I did contact Turo about it prior to listing, they said as long it’s not in contract, they can’t say anything. I’m sure NOW every manufacture has the clause in their lease but in 2015 I didn’t see it

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36

I’m not an insurance expert nor a lawyer, but how could you be liable as the owner of the car if someone else uses it, while under contract assuming responsibility for that use, to cause that damage?

I agree that getting to $1m+ in damages in a car accident is easy to do, but if your car is used by someone through Turo you’d be liable behind the driver and then behind Turo. Yeah they could try to sue you but I don’t see how you could carry any responsibility. And $1m insurance will cover a lot of court costs…

37

From my understanding it comes down to whose vehicle is it from a legal perspective, and who let the person have the keys. If you’re leasing/financing that effectively means you. That’s normally how it works when it comes to parents taking legal responsibility for their children getting into trouble, or owners taking responsibility for things they’ve leant to other people.

Given the size of Turo now it’s only a matter of time before there’s a major accident (unfortunately) and the whole thing gets tested in court. The biggest accident I could find was this: https://jalopnik.com/here-s-what-happens-when-someone-on-turo-crashes-your-a-1792048817 but would still be way off the $1m limit.

38

Turo’s agreement with owner and renter is able to limit their potential liability. They essentially are a intermediary. The law allows this.

Then as ajgraham said, it’s like if your kid gets in an accident driving your car. You aren’t allowed to say it wasn’t me, not my problem. You are right that the driver is going to be primarily responsible. But asssume that driver doesn’t have insurance or has minimum insurance and has killed someone. The damages are going to be far greater than the drivers insurance/assets. Then the injured parties are coming after you.

To make it worse, the concept of joint and several liability comes into play (link below). So if you have more assets then the driver, the injured party or parties are going to sue you, force you to defend the suit and then force you to sue the driver to seek indemnification.

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39

All of this depends on the state. In California, owners of vehicles are limited to $15k of liability per person and $30k across all people + $5k for property damage, unless the driver is an employee of the owner. More info here. Across the US, the Graves Amendment also limits a Turo owner’s liability. Turo verifies all drivers and checks their license and before every rental the owner checks the renter’s license, which seems like a fairly tight process. You can get sued for negligence above that, but as this doc shows, that appears to be relatively hard to prove; here’s an excerpt from a case:

Blockquote [T]he tort requires demonstration of actual knowledge of facts showing or
suggesting the driver’s incompetence—not merely his lack of a license. . . . For
liability to exist, knowledge must be shown of the user’s incompetence or
inability safely to use the [vehicle].

All that said, settlements of over $1mm are very uncommon. This article suggests that only 2% of bodily injury claims settle for over $300,000. Jury verdicts are higher but few cases go to trial and many verdicts are then negotiated down.

I’m not a lawyer and of course this is all fairly complex. In New York it seems like a particular problem. But my interpretation (right or wrong) is that this may not be as big a risk as some are worried about.

40

This is why lawyers have to be licensed in the state they practice. You are right about California. Seems like you have very little risk exposure there.

As for the Graves Amendment, I would guess that doesn’t apply to individual who rent cars and are not incorporated. That law states there is no liability if “The owner (or an affiliate of the owner) is engaged in the trade or business of renting or leasing motor vehicles; and…”. Someone who occasionally rents their personal car out on the side, in their own name, probably isn’t engaged in the business. That is just a guess though since it doesn’t seem like any cases have made it up to the Federal Circuit courts concerning car sharing liability.

If you were incorporated as a car renting LLC, it would almost certainly protect you.

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