"Torque Affair" (torqueaffair)
11/01/2016 at 21:48 • Filed to: None
2
43|
"Torque Affair" (torqueaffair)
11/01/2016 at 21:48 • Filed to: None | 2
| 43 |
I have a gazillion apps on my phone, much like everyone else, but you might surprised to find out which one I use the most. Or maybe not.
Nope, it’s not Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat or blah or blahblah or blahblahblah.
It’s !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Yep. It’s been my favorite one for a while now because on Turo, you can rent cars like this.
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Or this.
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Or this...
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Hahaha. You would have to pay me to rent a minivan from Turo.
I’ve been renting cars from Turo for a while now, back when it had a different name: Relay Rides. After an acquisition by a larger company, Relay Rides was renamed to Turo but it’s still the same thing. I fell in love with Relay Rides early on because with the app you’re no longer stuck to renting a boring Cruz or Cobalt from Enterprise. Instead, with Turo, you can rent one of the worst cars ever made—a 2008 !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .
It’s kind of a crazy notion to put your car up for rent, because if you think about how people treat rental cars, Turo cars must not be any different. I’m sure that if I put my M5 up there for rent, it would be destroyed within a few minutes and I’d have to go pick it up from the side of the road.
But I’m glad Turo exists because although I wouldn’t make my own car available, I love renting other people’s. I just wish there were more options on the site for Austinites. Depending on where you live, you could have access to a large variety of cars or nothing at all. I took a quick glance at Houston and there are way more options than what I normally come across in Austin—like this nice Cayman for $157 per day!
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What I don’t understand is how Turo can be profitable for car owners? Wouldn’t you spend way more than $157 to fix a tear in the seat the previous renter left you with a week ago that you’re just now noticing?
Financial viability aside, Turo is great if you need a car right away and want to avoid dealing with rental car agencies and all that paperwork.
Click a few buttons on the app and voila—your car will be ready to go. No paperwork required.
Cancellation Fees!!
Booking a car using the Turo app might be super simple but if you decide to cancel your reservation after you’ve booked something, you’ll have to pay a fee. This is unlike reserving a car through an agency where you could book multiple cars at various rates and then cancel all but the cheapest one you can find. Shhh..don’t tell anyone I do this.
I’ve had to cancel a Turo rental a couple of times, but had good reasons to do so. Luckily, Turo support credited back the extra charge but not without asking a bunch of questions. If you cancel just because you don’t feel like renting that specific car anymore, then you’re out of luck.
On the flipside if the owner cancels, then you get a nice Turo credit you can use on future rentals.
The fee makes sense so that both owners and renters are protected from rampant cancellations by either party—you know—specifically if someone wants to do what I just stated above. If you want to avoid dealing with a potential cancellation fee, a rental agency might be a better option but the downside to that is that—well—it’s a rental agency.
Great for enthusiasts
Turo can have a great selection of high-end sports cars to choose from like a 911, AMG, S5 depending on where you live and your choices will vary quite a bit. Also, owners can sometimes charge an exorbitant amount for driving their car—like $350 a day for a C7. No thanks. Not when I could drive an M4 for less than half the rate.
But you can negotiate on Turo because you’re dealing with normal people instead of a gigantic corporation. It’s not the easiest thing to do since you need to book the car first before you can talk to the owner. I worked something out recently with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! when I negotiated with the owner to pay a flat $60 fee for 150 additional miles as opposed to 75 cents for each mile. When I turned in the car, there were even more miles—about 200—but the owner was nice enough not to charge me for it. That’s the beauty of Turo—everything is negotiable.
You could probably end up driving a Turo car for free if you’re an expert negotiator but if you’re able to pull this off, let me know how you did it, because I haven’t been able to do so yet.
Insurance
There are insurance policies through Turo that you can get and I would highly recommend it. I’ve rented about 6 cars from Turo so far and fortunately haven’t had to use the Turo coverage for anything yet, but it’s good to have it in case something does go wrong. Maybe the insurance you already own would cover any damage, but it’s more peace of mind to get Turo’s insurance so that you don’t have to worry about anything when someone rear ends your Turo GT-R when trying to take a picture of a double rainbow.
You are renting cars from random people
With Turo, the only assurance you have that you’ll be dealing with a nice owner are the reviews. So far I haven’t dealt with any jerky owners but it’s absolutely possible which is why I only stick to owners who have great reviews.
There’s a chance that you might end up renting from someone with a severe case of OCD who will complain about a speck of dirt found underneath the accelerator on the floorboard. Or someone who busts out a magnifying glass and finds your dirty fingerprints on the steering wheel when you turn the car in. But let’s hope you don’t end up with someone like that.
Overall, I can’t complain about Turo because it’s worked out great for me every time. I don’t even use it out of necessity-mostly I’m using to drive new cars like the Telsa. I suppose that I now have another monthly payment— Turo rentals! Oh well, I’m addicted to Turo and there’s a price to be paid for all addictions.
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!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is about exploring my fascination with cars. I’m always on the lookout for things that interest me in the car world.
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ToyotaFamily
> Torque Affair
11/01/2016 at 21:59 |
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having the ability to rent cars like that definitely seems fun. but putting my personal car up for rent? i dunno.. i don’t even drive anything special and i don’t like other people driving my car.
smobgirl
> Torque Affair
11/01/2016 at 22:02 |
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I mostly rent for work. I tried Turo once, when every national car rental agency in a particular city was out of cars.
I spent about 4 days of people ignoring rental requests, followed by a “book immediately!” that never responded to texts or showed up with the car. I was then stranded 80 miles from where I needed to be with no car, and I had to argue with Turo for days to get a refund (on my company credit card, of course).
I like the idea, but they have a lot of things to work out before I’ll try it again.
E92M3
> ToyotaFamily
11/01/2016 at 22:03 |
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Would you take a free 911? You could buy a new 911, and have other people pay the monthly payment for you. Sute it won’t be your pristine baby, but you could have a free 911 to drive the few days a month it’s not rented.
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E92M3
> Torque Affair
11/01/2016 at 22:05 |
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Turo is great for extended test drives. If you’re thinking about buying a car, but you want more than the 3 mile dealer loop to get a feel for it and make your decision.
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ToyotaFamily
> E92M3
11/01/2016 at 22:12 |
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who wouldn’t take a free 911? I guess if you go into it with that mentality it’d definitely work out great. If you were able to make a 3-4 months worth of payments i’d consider that worthy of doing.
Jonathan Harper
> smobgirl
11/01/2016 at 22:13 |
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Turo seems more like a luxury kinda of ‘let’s get a car’ on a whim, than, ‘let’s rely on this for business’ kind of operation. That said, I’ve never used it, just the impression I get.
FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com
> E92M3
11/01/2016 at 22:15 |
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If you’re legitimately close to a deal on any car above $20,000, and the dealer won’t let you take it home for the day, you need to find a better dealer. If the dealer won’t let you drive it home and park it in your garage on a test drive, you need to find a better dealer. I’ve taken a 20+ mile test drive in a used VW CC from a GMC dealer of all places back to my house - taking the twisty back road - to pick up my wife and see how she liked it. Heck, the local Porsche dealer offered to let me keep overnight a used Jetta of all things.
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smobgirl
> Jonathan Harper
11/01/2016 at 22:24 |
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Yeah, definitely no whim involved. Most rentals require 8 hours of waiting to know if you’ve been approved. I think some markets are better at responding, but obviously no one in this town wanted to make money!
iSureWilll
> Torque Affair
11/01/2016 at 22:25 |
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I haven’t actually rented a car through Turo before but I just signed to be a local photographer for them in the Philly area. First shoot is in 2 weeks with a 2014 Range Rover Sport. Hopefully after doing this for a while I’ll get a feel for how they feel about renting their car out.
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Torque Affair
> iSureWilll
11/01/2016 at 22:32 |
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Give it a shot!
Matsayz
> Torque Affair
11/01/2016 at 22:36 |
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So it’s Airbnb but for cars... I’m going to try it out soon as we need a rental on an upcoming vacation.
Do most insurance companies cover you as a renter of the car? How much is it to buy additional insurance?
I love me some Uber (the service, not the company) but maybe this could take off.
I added my 2013 VW Golf R... suggested price of $45/day, meh. Not worth the trouble
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iSureWilll
> Torque Affair
11/01/2016 at 23:19 |
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I’ll try to stay focused!
66671 - 200 [METRIC] my dash
> Torque Affair
11/01/2016 at 23:23 |
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Tl dr I’m not old enough lol
The age requirement for standard and performance cars are different right? Isn’t like 25 or something, maybe higher?
Nick Has an Exocet
> Torque Affair
11/02/2016 at 00:47 |
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Out of curiosity, has Turo approached you about sponsorship?
Tapas
> Torque Affair
11/02/2016 at 02:37 |
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Agreed! Have used Turo when it was relay rides. It’s pretty sweet!
Party-vi
> Torque Affair
11/02/2016 at 08:11 |
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lelz let’s look at Baltimore Turo:
First up, a $175/day C-Class coupe, probably a C250. I can actually rent a 3-Series for less from my local Enterprise with the insurance boxes checked. Wow.
Next is the $170 2001 Mustang with a cowl induction-looking hood. Sure, $170 is a lot for an almost 6-year-old Mustang, but you gotta pay to play if you want to run over pedestrians.
The fanciest up for use is this $500-per-day Hellcat, which, sure, 707hp, but that price had better include lines of coke on the dash or at least a crack pipe in the passenger seat.
This two year old CLA seems like a deal for $142/day, because you get to roll around sitting behind that sweet tri-star emblem. Or you could lease one for $3,643 down and $299/month, which would be way better than renting this faux-cedes at the equivalent rate of $4,319/month.
last but not least, we have Steve’s Tiburon. A decade old also-ran of a coupe that will cost you $135-actual-American-dollars-and-not-Pesos-or-Yen-I-checked. Possibly the crack-pipeiest of all Turo cars I saw today.
Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> Torque Affair
11/02/2016 at 15:22 |
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I have used Turo successfully three times now, and had a great experience every time. It is truly the only way to affordably get a manual rental car. The number one reason I hate traditional rentals is solely for that reason. Anyways, I have found that my only complaint about Turo is generally the mileage limits. The majority of cars have 100-200 miles a day limits. If I am renting a car, I am almost guaranteed to be driving it all day to really experience the car. But like you said, negotiating could help a lot. I really wish you could contact the owner without booking first (similar to Airbnb) just to make that process way easier. Either way, any time I need a rental anywhere, the first place I check is Turo for sure!
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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> smobgirl
11/02/2016 at 15:26 |
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Oh yeah its definitely dependent on the town you are renting in. People respond quickly in Los Angeles and it is just as simple as renting from the regular agencies. I even tried out the airport pickup/dropoff on my last trip and it was pretty neat. They have a traditional rental car lot there which streamlines the whole process. Definitely a small operation though.
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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> E92M3
11/02/2016 at 15:29 |
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I think the Cayman I rented recently was used like this. It had pretty high mileage for a Porsche so he probably picked it up on the cheap, takes care of the maintenance, and has the Turo renting fees basically pay for upkeep on the car. I imagine you could afford to drive around some pricey to repair stuff if you have renters to help pay for it. The guy was definitely a real car guy so it made sense to me.
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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> Matsayz
11/02/2016 at 15:35 |
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It really is like airbnb but for cars, that is what I tell people all the time. It is a much smaller and less developed company for sure but it is the same concept. Insurance is dependent on the value of the car so it really depends for that cost. My last Turo car was a 2009 Porsche Cayman that I rented for 3 days; Cost breakdown was $297 trip price, $29.70 Turo Fee, $44.55 Insurance ($371.25 total).
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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> 66671 - 200 [METRIC] my dash
11/02/2016 at 15:38 |
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That depends on however the owner sets it. Generally it is 25 for most cars on Turo, but some of them only require a drivers license (plus a pretty affordable underage fee). However, there are also cars I have seen that require renters to be 30+. I wouldnt want to rent a car like that at any age though because I imagine they are going to be extra picky about rock chips and such.
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E92M3
> Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
11/02/2016 at 17:31 |
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Seems like a good idea to me. The only problem is getting a bank to lend you money for the purchase. They’ll want to make sure one can afford it even if it isn’t rented. The mileage alloted isn’t much. If the car starts racking up miles, you’d be bringing in pretty good additional mileage fees.
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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> E92M3
11/03/2016 at 08:34 |
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Well I was thinking the cost to purchase should be pretty affordable but its the cost of maintenance that would be the struggle. So no banks involved there. Alternatively, it would be something you could afford payments on but would just be an unnecessary hindrance on finances. By having the renters, you would have a much easier time justifying the luxury.
Enoch
> E92M3
11/04/2016 at 14:27 |
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You’re going to the wrong dealerships. The best dealerships are the ones that hand you the keys and tell you to come back when you’re ready. Audi and BMW seem to have this down.
RedlininRedneck
> iSureWilll
11/04/2016 at 14:37 |
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iSureWill, how did you get that gig? I’ve been renting with Turo for a couple years now and I’m also a freelance photographer who’s always eager to take on extra work...
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E92M3
> Enoch
11/04/2016 at 14:42 |
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Go try to test drive a M2 for more than 3 miles. Then ask to drive a M3 home to take your wife to dinner in, so you can get her approval.
328i, no problem. Some cars they just won’t let you put miles on.
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iSureWilll
> RedlininRedneck
11/04/2016 at 18:51 |
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I saw an ad on CL under the “Creative Gigs” section and sent them an email. You could try sending them an email and asking how you get involved in your area. It doesn’t pay great but my guess is that once you get your workflow down it isn’t too bad for quick gigs here and there
https://support.turo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
B_dol
> Torque Affair
11/04/2016 at 18:58 |
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Used Turo to rent a classic 65' Mustang Convertible for my wedding day, $250 for 2 days. Superb experience and the most reasonably priced part of the whole wedding weekend.
Chan - Mid-engine with cabin fever
> smobgirl
11/04/2016 at 20:33 |
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My friend had a similar problem with AirBnB. Property owner cancelled the day before his flight—awful experience.
I’ve rented with Turo twice; both were smooth and uneventful.
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DrScientist
> Torque Affair
11/04/2016 at 23:17 |
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the only problem with turo...
people, especially those in 2nd tier cities value their cars too much. will i rent your blah 10 year old bmw 328i 4 banger with an and no bluetooth for $99 a day, when i can get a serviceable brand new fusion for $40 a day from a standard rental company? no thanks.
the only places this is worth it is in major cities on busy holiday weekends, where the only cars left are chevy sonics and the rate is over $130. (yes this happens on some weekends in major destination cities.) in that case, YES, i’d be happy to take your 7 year old 650i convertible, even though it has an auto, yes, for the same $130/day.
other than that, totally great. i’ve had the second situation happen to me on a few occassions. so i ended up with that 650i, a 335i 6 speed convertible, an m5, a z4M, and even a mazdaspeed miata. they were all worth it in the situation. but there’s too many 6 cylinder mustangs on turo which you can get all day long at hertz or avis or enterprise for basically the same cash.
also, i might actually rent that minivan at some point in the next two months to help a friend move. have you seen what a rental place charges for a minivan!?!?!?!
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DrScientist
> E92M3
11/04/2016 at 23:20 |
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if youre getting a loan for the car you may be out of a bit of luck... ive seen new boxes on loan forms that ask if the car will be used for business or money making purposes. they will probably incorporate this into your rate. you can probably finance some of it, but everyone wants their piece of the pie.
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DrScientist
> smobgirl
11/04/2016 at 23:22 |
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if its a business trip, and there’s no rental cars available, you just call the limo company and get chauffeured around... expense that shit. :)
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DrScientist
> FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com
11/04/2016 at 23:24 |
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porsche dealer just probably wanted the jetta off his lot. ;)
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DrScientist
> Matsayz
11/04/2016 at 23:26 |
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there is insurance available for the car, but call your own insurance. i called mine, and they said all of the coverage that i pay for on my car extends to whatever car i am driving. not sure if this is standard, but take a look.
also, call your credit card, they sometimes have very good insurance on rental cars rented with the card. if they do have one, itsn usually a much better deal than what the company has to offer.
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DrScientist
> Party-vi
11/04/2016 at 23:27 |
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luvya b-more.
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FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com
> DrScientist
11/05/2016 at 09:46 |
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Hey now it was a low mileage GLI lol
For Sweden
> Party-vi
11/06/2016 at 23:06 |
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This is peak party-posting
AlphaGeek
> ToyotaFamily
11/07/2016 at 15:19 |
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There’s lots of people here in LA that do just that, except, they do it with 6-10 cars, and pretty nice ones at that. A co-worker of mine was contracting out here for a bit before coming on full time, and he used to Turo and AirBnB all the time.
He constantly ran into people who had multiple cars, or multiple properties that were making a living doing it, AND still driving their own cars for free because other people were paying for them.
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AlphaGeek
> Jonathan Harper
11/07/2016 at 15:31 |
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Depends on where you are, here in Los Angeles, there is a Turo “lot” where you can rent cars and there are pretty much always cars available. A co-worker used to use it exclusively when he was contracting here, drove a lot of NICE cars too.
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AlphaGeek
> smobgirl
11/07/2016 at 15:32 |
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Depends on where you are, Los Angeles has book instantly options that really are book INSTANTLY, they are sitting at the lot near the airport and you can just go pick them up without hassle.
ZoopZoopLoops
> DrScientist
11/07/2016 at 18:40 |
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I was wondering the same thing. Some auto insurance policies cover you as the driver instead of just the car, so if you borrow your friend’s car one day and get into an accident, you are covered by your own insurance.
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smobgirl
> AlphaGeek
11/08/2016 at 00:57 |
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Yeah, Los Angeles also has a million other rental cars available and work isn’t too keen on the liability of using Turo. I had to get special permission to rent there the one time I tried to use it but we were seriously desperate. I don’t travel much on my own dime so I doubt I’ll give it another go any time soon.
Future next gen S2000 owner
> Torque Affair
12/12/2016 at 18:34 |
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I rented a Focus RS with a friend on Turo.
The go pedal and brakes got a work out.