Does anyone have any econiomical ideas on how to get a car for my college student to use for the summer- actually from end of May to August? I am in NJ
I am in a similar situation. 4 drivers at home for the summer with two cars. Along witha 5th teenager who needs rides to work. I am thinking about getting a long term rental for me and the other three drivers can share the two cars I own. They are too young to drive a rental. Not inexpensive but the best option I could figure out.
Uber?
Same situation. Letting him use one of our 4 cars (all with over 120,000 miles and over 8 years old – many fingers crossed that we make it through the summer). The two parents who work full time and two teenagers who will have summer jobs are going to share the other 3, but we likely will end up renting as needed or long-term for at least 5 weeks.
Suggestions are to work it out financially the cost of Uber as needed, car pool with someone else?, or buy a safe used car and then sell it at the end of the summer if no longer needed. If one is a AAA member, Hertz will rent to 20 year old without an extra fee. Other rental companies charge extra per day for 20-25 year olds. A few will rent to 18-20 year olds also.
My DH used to buy super cheap beater cars for the summer when he was working his way through college. He would sell the cars back to the owners at the end of the summer.
If this is for occasional use, look into Zipcars.
If your neighborhood uses Nextdoor you could post there…several people in my area have recently posted also looking to borrow/rent a car for the summer.
Same situation here. My current car lease is up July 31. Our plan is to “replace” this car now (basically early June since we will be away the end of May) while not turning the current car in until the last possible minute. That will give us an extra car at least through June and July. We will have to juggle for a few weeks in May and August.
Posting from the other side…we had a car with 250,000 miles on it that ran just fine (Honda Accord). We had an opportunity to buy another car…and sold the accord to a family whose kid needed to use it for the summer. At the end of the summer, they sold it for $1000. They paid us $1500 for it.
So…see if anyone you know has a used old car for you to buy for the summer…then sell it.
We did this once - bought a used car for the summer, sold it at the end of the summer.
I would expect this to be cheaper than some of the other options suggested here (Zipcar, car rental).
There are all kinds of options other than the usual car rental or Uber/Lyft or the occasional use model (Zipcar):
Rentamile - if in the SF Bay area, sort of like Airbnb for cars
Turo, Getaround, and Maven - are all peer-to-peer car rentals