<p>My kid will be away for two months. They suggeted she try to arrange to have a car. Too young to rent or lease. Is buying a used car and selling at the end of summer is the only option?</p>
<p>What was suggested in another similar thread was that the kid use one of the parent’s cars and the parent rent a car for the time period. Kids under 26 renting cars is just very expensive.</p>
<p>If your kid has, or can get, a USAA account, he can rent a car from Hertz for no extra young-driver fee. If he was 21, he could get the regular rates from all four of the agencies USAA partners with. </p>
<p>No such luck, no USAA. The place is too far to take the car from home. It is so spread out where my kid is going that just getting groceries would require a car.</p>
<p>How far? My son has driven cross country and back during break. You can also just drive it one way and have it shipped back or vice versa. There are services that will ship a car. Ideally, you have a junker, commuter type car that you can do this with. And you can short term lease or try to make do. That’s what I’d do.</p>
<p>About 2000 miles away. Too young to stay at a motel alone on the way. The car we have available is not a junk yet. Got 9000 miles on it but it looks new and runs great. Is shipping a car risky? That seems the least expensive.</p>
<p>Not according to my friend who shipped two of them to CA in the last couple of years. Start researching car shipping companies and rates to do this. If you can buy a junker, that might work too, but then you have the risk of repairs needed and then the added hassle of selling it thereafter, though I know folks who live that way in terms of cars. Buy as cheap as possible as long as it runs and then ditch and sell later. My son drove 2000 miles home a number of times, always with someone riding shot gun—including me, and I did do a marathon that way. DId not stop at all on the way. Anyone he or you know enroute that could be a resting/visit point?</p>
<p>Will he be with other people his age? Will someone else have a car? It may be that he doesn’t need his very own car, just access to one from time to time.</p>
<p>The thing is the kid is trying to strike it on her own, a real first take on independence. Doesn’t want parents in the car, may take a friend along who’s going that way.</p>
<p>On a trip that long with a friend, find a mid way point where she can stop before dark, have dinner and stay the night. Pick the hotel online so it’s not something just on the interstate, but where she pulls off and goes into a reasonably nice area, make the reservations ahead of time. As for what she wants, if she really is striking it on her own, she’d be making the arrangements, not you. Sometimes independence means being big enough to understand that things like a parent in the car for a day or two is the tradeoff for having a friggin’ car for two months. You can drive with her there and fly back with a one way ticket. I’ve done that a lot in visiting my kid. Don’t even have to stay the night in their town when I do that. Dump him off, return the rental(in your case, there is no rental involved) and sleep on the plane trip home. </p>
<p>If it’s 2000 miles a way, I’d be inclined to have her fly there a day or 2 early and buy a cheap car once she gets there and then sell it after the two months. We sold an old car through Carmax a few months ago and it was painless. We went in , they appraised it, made us an offer, and we had a check. Only took a couple of hours. There are places like that all over these days. May or may not work but may be another option to research (for both buying and selling). Good luck to your daughter!</p>
<p>Thank you, sevmom. I could look into Cramax. Great Idea.</p>
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<p>Ya well, don’t we all know what strking on her own at 20 means. It’s kinda cute. I am keeping my mouth shut.</p>
<p>I agree with the Carmaxx idea, though you do have to come up with the upfront money if you buy from them or have the credit to do so. We’ve bought and sold through them a lot. You can turn around and sell in the two months, but I have no idea what their differential which is their profit margin would be. I guess you can pick a car, have them appraise what they would buy it for and then do the math as to whether that differential would work out.</p>
<p>Also, you can ship your DD out there via plane and YOU and your husband or friend make a trip of it cross country, with the car, meet her there and fly back. Fly back to get the car and drive it back. If you don’t have the time to do it twice, maybe do it one way and ship it the other. It can be a nice cross country trip if you aren’t trying to get there in 40 hours like we were.</p>
<p>Is this for an internship? Is there any public transportation at all to get her to the employee site? If she doesn’t need the car every day, could she rent a Zipcar or something like that occasionally? Could the employer help her with any carpool info ? Just musing. It does seem like alot to have to get a car or ship a car for only a 2 month period. </p>
<p>My in-laws shipped a car from NJ to WA. Shipping it cost about $1000. It was on the lower rack of a car carrier, and the vehicle above it dripped transmission fluid and ruined the paint job on the hood, both front fenders, both front doors, and the roof. It was about $5000 and 2 months to get it fixed, paid for by insurance but a total PITA.</p>
<p>I bought a 1999 Saturn for the kids, $825 three years ago. I was hoping to get a year out of it. I did have to put a new clutch cable on it but it still runs like a champ.</p>
<p>I would check and make sure there is no public transportation first. I know it seems like that is a big city thing but even when I lived in a small village in Michigan they had a bus that would pick people up and take them to the grocery store in the town 14 miles away…</p>
<p>Not sure, why kid cannot rent, no credit card? Shipping car for just 2 months is very very expansive. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t want my 20 yr old to try to buy and sell a used car on her own. Your D would also have to deal with registering the car. We have shipped a car cross country and it worked out fine. Not cheap if you need to do it both directions.
Driving multiple days. One of mine has done it a couple of times. The first was to and from a summer internship. She wanted to do it alone. With the help of several CCers I helped her plan a safe route with safe recommended places for each night. I arranged the stops so she was settled before dark. I also had her agree to check in with us each evening.
During her last year of school in the Midwest she drove to Ca and back. By this point the novelty of being independent had worn off and she was thrilled to have her Dad fly and drive with her. </p>
<p>^Buying and selling a used car sounds complicated. She’d probably lose more money that way than the shipping cost. That they warned her to have a car to get around makes me think that one really needs a car. Maybe we could ship the car one way and fly out to help her bring it back at the end?</p>
<p>I would not want my 20 y o to drive for about 33 hours. No way. if it is 2000 miles away, that means it is about 33 hours to drive. I would definitely not let her drive to CA from Midwest thru the desert. I am talking about my D. who had driven herself since she was 16. She had driven in various snowstorms in various unfamiliar cities. I hope that she would be way smarter than driving for 33 hours. She would rent using her credit card since buying for 2 months does not make sense either. However, what seems to be not logical for one, might be perfect for another. Everybody has a different set of priorities and act upon this personal set. So, I am not sure what our experiences have to do with the OP’s D. i do not see any connection at all.</p>