The Car Sharing App You Probably Didn’t Know About

“It’s like Airbnb for cars”

I have always been the driver in the group and will happily drive if I have the gas to do so. Some people think it’s crazy to not be shaken by a 7-8 hour drive but unless I’m in the way back seat, I have zero issues driving for long periods of time. Except when driving through states like Wisconsin and Idaho. I’m sorry, but there is no way to make those boring drives fun. However, driving in a beautiful landscape like west Canada or states like Colorado or Montana, it’s like being in an outdoor documentary.

Somewhere along the lines, I saw an ad for Turo. At first, I was really unsure because using someone’s car seems a little more dangerous than renting out someone’s house because of insurance and the possibility of accidents. I didn’t and still don’t personally know anyone who has used it so I didn’t have a great frame of reference but I figured I would give it a chance!

* Not a paid endorsement or ad

While some may consider me a seasoned traveler, I haven’t been to enough places to be well versed in car rentals. The only time I have rented a car prior to this Canadian road trip was in Ireland in 2015 and 2017 – both times I was under the age of 25. Elaina is usually the one who does a lot of the back end when picking rental cars and learned a lot from booking for us in the past. Since she didn’t come on this trip (I don’t wanna talk about it), I was trying to figure out my best options for Canada. I turned to Kayak to price compare. I was finding pretty high numbers for SUVs and wasn’t all too sure if I was even doing it right. After paying so much for our rentals in Ireland, I was determined to find something without hidden fees and that wasn’t a billion dollars.

Canada

I knew I wanted an SUV for this trip and went to scouring Turo. Because it’s a fairly new site, there aren’t a crazy amount of options, especially not at the price point I was looking at. I found a red Chevy Trax for around $50 a day. It was a bit higher of a daily price than I wanted but the fact that there are minimal other fees with Turo means overall it’s still cheaper. We also needed a car that offered a fairly high amount of miles since we were driving from Seattle to Banff – which even further limited our pool of options. On Turo, the host can set their included mileage amount so some are very low, while others can come with a pretty huge amount. Unlimited mileage isn’t really an option with Turo, or at least I have never seen it. The Chevy Trax host included 2250 miles, which was plenty and then we didn’t have to worry about tracking miles along the way. I had done a general route and got an estimate of miles so we knew that we were going to be way under.

I think Turo has the potential to be a much cheaper alternative if done right. The major benefit of booking with Turo is the fact that there is always clarity with what you’re paying. I think the sketchiest part about rental car companies, like Hertz, is the open-ended quote price. By the time you’re checking out with them, especially internationally, a ton of fees suddenly appear on your bill and your quoted price becomes easily double or double and a half the quoted price. There are gas surcharges (they may say its x amount per gallon but they will surcharge on top of that), airport surcharges, one-way fees, and sometimes additional taxes. The only fees that come after drop off with Turo are if you went through any tolls or if you’ve incurred damage/left the car filthy. The price breakdown is very clear on the checkout page and you’re able to see exactly what is being paid – upfront.

While we did opt for basic insurance with our Canada booking (I now know I am covered by Geico and could waive this additional fee), it was only an additional $61. In the past, I’ve paid almost $260 in insurance while abroad (Looking at you BUDGET). And that’s not only for being underage. I have had family and friends rent in Ireland that paid around the same price for supercover insurance. I severely suggest talking to your car insurance company before renting a car on any type of platform AND calling a few times because each agent is very different and you want to make sure you get the right information because who wants to pay for something they don’t have to!

Overall, we paid $478 for our rental in Canada after my $25 off coupon, which sadly Turo does not offer anymore. Their referral program seems to have been discontinued.

Aside from the daily price, there is a “trip fee”, which is the service fee that goes directly to Turo. It can be up to 25% of the trip price but I have only seen it much lower than that when browsing. There is the protection (insurance) fee, which you can decline – again we got basic for this trip to be safe as newbies. Then there are additional options like “post-trip cleaning” or “refuel charge” if you don’t feel like bringing it back with a full tank and then there are different options for car seats, GPS, etc depending on what the host offers. We chose the post-trip cleaning because we would be hiking and we didn’t want to have to worry about washing the car or vacuuming before drop off.

Free pickup/drop off at the Seattle Airport was included with this car – major plus. Some hosts charge a huge fee to bring to the car to the airport or city center or have a certain mile radius with pricing. Always look at these details. For us, pick up was super easy. Our host ended up putting the car in the car park. He texted me a photo with the location and left the keys in the console. Seems sketch but it was easy! We paid the $4 to get out of the garage after he said he would reimburse us at drop off. We ended up going through a toll on the way back to Seattle so it evened out.

Colorado

This time around, Turo ended up being a lot cheaper than other rental car companies. No doubt about it. We went for a shorter time, could get a car with cheaper allotted mileage and we didn’t need to fit as many people or bags as the Canada trip. Our travel radius was a lot smaller this time around too so we opted to get a smaller car. I found a little Chevy Spark for $43 a day and we couldn’t wait to drive around the Denver area in it.

This experience was definitely an interesting one, to say the least. We opted for free delivery (because who wouldn’t) but we learned that our host loved to talk and loved to follow rules. Unbeknownst to me, exchanging cars at departure/pickup is illegal? … Thanks to my Seattle host being a YOUTH, I had no idea there was a law against it but this might be on a state by state basis, I’m unsure. Because of this, many hosts will pick you up at arrivals and bring you to a parking lot nearby to do the exchange. Sometimes the host will even need a ride home but it will usually be explained in the listing so make sure you read all the information AND the reviews! We did pick up and drop off at our host’s house in Colorado and for a lot of people that might be too awkward or uncomfortable so just make sure you ask questions or pick a listing with clear instructions.

Our price breakdown for the Colorado trip:

As you can see, we declined the insurance and had to pay for $4 in tolls (plus a processing fee). When I looked at cars on Kayak, I was seeing prices closer to $400 for 4 days, so this option was really more affordable. To reiterate, I had confirmed with Geico that my policy covered rentals – including Turo – so I would always double check with them before declining any type of insurance!

The best way to describe our Turo host in Colorado is Fred Armisen doing a sketch on Portlandia. It was so spot on that I honestly had to hold back laughter because I thought we were being punked. The dude was super nice and full of information but he had this distinct Fred Armisen character voice – kind of like Peter in the sketch couple “Peter and Nance” from the show. It was amazing.

TLDR; I would give Turo an 8 out of 10. What I really enjoy about Turo is that the whole thing is paid ahead of time, similar to Airbnb and that there are no hidden fees. We also didn’t have to wait in long rental car lines or put a huge hold on our credit card when declining insurance. It was convenient, comfortable and I really liked the booking experience. The platform is pretty user-friendly and their customer service was really great (I called a lot before I booked the first time). The one thing I don’t really love about Turo is that the host can decide how to the pickup and drop off works and there’s no “standard” practice to rely on. The experience will always be based on the host meaning they can decide if they leave the car in a car park, if they will pick you up and do the switch somewhere close or if they will have you meet them at their place that is nearby the airport. I did learn that at some airports, like San Francisco, they have Turo valet which eliminates the situation with host pickup or drop off. Keep an eye out for that.

Note: This is a republishing from my original travel blog. Back date April 2019