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GM Car Owners With OnStar Now Can Be Their Own Rental Agencies
The Los Angeles Times reports that the world of micro-rentals just got a whole lot more crowded, with the introduction of a nationwide partnership between GM and ride-sharing company RelayRides. RelayRides has been arranging short-term car sharing in just a few cities for several years; car owners can sign up to make their own cars available for short-term rentals to others, so their expensive investment (especially in cities where parking is like a second apartment's rent) isn't sitting idle. Now, the two companies are rolling out that system in a much larger market: the rest of the U.S. Owners of GM cars new enough to be equipped with OnStar monitoring systems will be able to sign up to take part with the OnStar system providing the ability to unlock and track those cars remotely, which might make the bargain more attractive to many owners who'd like to earn money from their cars (and reduce the total number of cars needed in a given area), but reluctant to hand the keys to a stranger. (Cars without the system can still be enrolled, but will require a key hand-off.)
Even though this seems like a good thing, there is a corporation involved so I'm sure there is evil involved.
Gentlemen of Slashdot, affix your tinfoil hats and let's start dissecting this!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Erm...no, it's covered by RelayRide's car insurance.
RelayRides will take a 40% cut and provide a $1-million insurance policy for the owner and $300,000 for the renter.
Great news for people who want the shit beat out of their cars by random strangers.
You don't sue cars, you sue people. That old woman crossing the street can sue the driver of the car, not you. It is him who has been negligent by running her over, not you. Otherwise it'd be sort of like lending your brother your gun and then being liable for any damage he did with it.
And you can also sue the driver of the car for negligence in damaging your car.
How much you'll get out of him is another question, of course. You might like to check that he is insured before you rent your car to him.
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There are a few questions that would need to be cleared before I would even consider such an idea. Burden of proof on damages, specialized insurance (I'm pretty sure your normal car insurance won't cover it), wear, cleaning, smokers, tickets...
The point is rental companies see their cars as an investment that is supposed to bring in some profit before being phased out. Private owners consider their own cars as "my precious" and renters as "who cares, it's not my car" and hope the rental company doesn't note the new scratches.
If you think rent a car places are bad about dents just wait for this.
Better take a video of the car before pick up so you don't pay for old dents.
My closet is full of clothing just hanging there unworn.
And my sock drawer is a virtual gold mine!
So when my car is rented by someone who slips the clutch like a driver's ed student and puts five years worth of wear on the clutch plates in two days, I'm supposed to be happy about this because hey, Onstar?
No thanks.
You don't have an automatic, unlike 94% of cars sold? That's easy, this program is not for you. I bet they wont even enroll a standard transmission car, it's not worth the hassle of requiring another check box on the web form.
...unless the owner can establish that [...] The motor vehicle was, at the time of the violation, in the care, custody, or control of another person...
Like having rental details available from RelayRide that says the renter was operating the car?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
If I'm renting my car out under this arrangement, how can I be sure that the renters aren't abusing it in subtle or hard-to-detect ways? Burning up the brakes, doing donuts in parking lots, weird stuff with the transmission... there are lots of ways to damage a car that won't be immediately apparent. By the time it's noticed, it may be too late. And even in the case of overt damage, expect a major fight with the insurance company over just who caused it and whether your insurance or Relay Rental should pay. Dealing with insurance companies is always a nightmare, every time.
For rental recipients, this poses its own set of problems: how do you avoid being blamed for damage you didn't cause? How can you be sure that the car isn't missing basic functionality – you wouldn't be happy to get a rental in the middle of July with broken A/C.
I was in a collision scenario around 10 years ago where the driver was definitely not the owner. Someone hit me at a red light; all 3 passengers got out of the car QUICK and bolted from the scene. The passengers all got rounded up in front of the local police department (why, oh why would you run towards the police lol) but they could not easily determine the driver of the vehicle. Neither could I, as I only had an instant to relax before the hit - I saw them coming in the rear view and my immediate concern was for the service manager who was in the passenger seat on a test drive to help solve an intermittent misfire. The car that hit me turned out to be an over due rental - and none of the occupants were the renter of the car; it was one of the passenger's sister who rented the car. Eventually the insurance company covering the rental (turned out to be a dealership across from the location I was getting my car looked at) paid for the damages to the car.
In any case, I would be very leery to rent out my car unless I had additional insurance protection to cover this scenario - and I would have to think that between the extra hike in insurance costs plus GM's cut of this process, it would probably not turn out to be a whole lot of money unless I was renting a few cars at a time.
Karnal
I have purchased 2 cars through Hertz's Rent 2 Buy program. The first purchase was a very specific minivan that had a tow package installed (suspension but not a hitch). I bought it with about 40k miles on it. It was at least $2000 below KBB, and I've had it for 2 years now. It has given me NO trouble whatsoever. I just purchased a small SUV from their program and it was basically cherry. Again, $2000 below KBB and it too has been wonderful so far.
I've had a lot of people raise their eyebrow at this. They typically recount a story where they treated their rental like crap. But they've rented many cars. Most are rented at the airport by business people who drive to a hotel and an office, and back to the airport to go home. Most rentals are like that minus the horror stories you hear.
The nice thing about the Hertz program is that you rent the vehicle after finding it online near you. You can rent it for 3 days at $50/day. You get to drive it and see if the tire pressure sucks, or the car shimmies, or the tranny doesn't shift right. You bring it to a garage and have them inspect the car for damage and general road worthiness. If you decide to buy, you go to their website, click "Buy" and keep the car. They send you an fedex with all the paperwork, and even do financing through Chase or BoA. After you send them the downpayment, they send you the completed registration and plates for your state. You can even transfer your old plates if you sell your old car separately. I dumped a 100k+ mileage Honda Accord hybrid on CarMax. They paid me 4k for it, and the AC didn't work and there was significant body damage. We now have a 2011 late model SUV with 37k miles, the AC works, and the car has been like a dream in comparison. Gets the same mileage, and is from a reputable Japanese manufacturer.
For all those who are going to reply that the car will be trouble down the road, I'd ask you to tell me how you treated your last lease vehicle. That is what you're going to get on a used car lot. One driver who didn't change the oil, and didn't give a crap about the car because it was just a lease and they will trade up in 3 years anyway. Is there really any appreciable difference? Yes. The rental company had an incentive to make sure the car was in its rental fleet, and so they did the maintenance regularly. It all depends on your POV... if you want to roll the dice that you got a good lease car over a bad one, okay. Or, you can buy the rental for thousands less, with the chance that a small number of drivers abused the car, while most treated it with care lest they end up having to pay the rental company for damage. I'll take the latter.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
Its worth remembering what happened to a poor boston student who rented her car for a carshare out using relay rides (and their liability insurance (same 1 million dollar liability insurance GM is using):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/your-money/relayrides-accident-raises-questions-on-liabilities-of-car-sharing.html?pagewanted=all