Rentals for trips

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Originally Posted by KrisZ
Nope, unless the vehicles I have are not up to the task, but with a minivan, there aren't too many taks it cannot do.

Personally I don't get the idea of saving your own daily driven vehicles. Saving them for what? Another owner, the auction lot? Because sure as heck they will not last forever and those extra long trips are not hurting anything. In actual fact, they may be a benefit for those that short trip a lot.



I can see someone having an unreliable ride or something that is too small, too thirsty, too uncomfortable would want to rent for a road trip, this way they don't have to get a new car too soon, or cars that aren't good commuter but only good for road trips.

My solution is to rent baby strollers instead of a car that can hold them on a road trip, or buy a big van or SUV just for that.
 
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Typically we fly to somewhere warm in the southern U.S. in early spring, and rent a car for a week to sightsee.

My wife can't make it this year (her elderly Mom needs to be cared for right now), so I'm going solo and renting a Harley for a week. Haven't done a solo trip in over 30 years, but I'm looking forward to the adventure.
 
I rent fuel misers for some road trips. My Grand Marquis is nearing 213,000 miles and is still reliable but aging. At 22mpg avg on hwy a fuel miser gettign 40+ like the Nissan Altima I rented recently actually saves me money on a 1,500 miles roundtrip. For a 2 day weekend trip I can often get a car around $50. So assuming $2.30 per gallon for gas if I rent less than $70 I am saving money. My Chase credit card provides rental insurance.

1,500 / 22 x 2.3 = $157

1,500 / 40 x 2.3 = $86

$157 - 86 = $70
 
I have two long trips coming up, and they both happen to fall within a certain week in March. I am thinking putting 1500+ miles on a rental is worth keeping the miles off my two new vehicles.
 
As others said, if I didn't trust my car for that long of a trip, I need to find something else. Avoiding putting miles on a car unless it's a $100k collector is stupid IMO. I paid for it, I better get as much use out of it as I can. Just bought my V8 Genesis as my 20k+ mile a year daily driver/commuter. Maybe once I'm sick of it I'll go back to something more economical, but for now I'm gonna enjoy comfort and lots of power
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My old trusty beater Camry, I'd take anywhere.
 
Originally Posted by Nick1994
Avoiding putting miles on a car unless it's a $100k collector is stupid IMO.


Its not stupid if you are effectively extending your warranty by doing so. If you have a 5 year, 60,000 mile warranty, thats an average of 12k miles a year. I am slightly ahead of that mileage pace in one of my new vehicles, and significantly ahead of that mileage pace in the other. Besides that, the rental will have better MPG than my truck, which will mitigate the rental costs to a degree.
 
I rent for 300+ mile trips....

Why?

I drive a EconoBox Nissan, small and lightweight is hellish on the interstate, I do not want to drive a commuter car on a long trip! So I rent a Dodge Charger so I have a smooth trip, plenty of power. Also it gives me a chance to drive other vehicle and see if I like the ride, etc.
 
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I have never rented a vehicle. Don't know how too. Guess if I ever needed to, might have to ask one of the kids how.
We got a couple great running vehicles, and I wouldn't hesitate a long distance drive with any of them.
Maybe some day, maybe never.
 
Unless my cars under warranty like my wife's then I rent. I had a very well maintained ford windstar blow a torque converter going through the smokies loaded for Florida with a family of five and my youngest was 1. We wound up in a Chevy Malibu and finished our trip while the local tranny shop fixed the van. Family of five loaded with gear in a Malibu. My eye twitches just thinking about that trip.
 
Originally Posted by D1dad
Unless my cars under warranty like my wife's then I rent. I had a very well maintained ford windstar blow a torque converter going through the smokies loaded for Florida with a family of five and my youngest was 1. We wound up in a Chevy Malibu and finished our trip while the local tranny shop fixed the van. Family of five loaded with gear in a Malibu. My eye twitches just thinking about that trip.


After bootcamp my dad rented a focus hatch. Imagine a family of 5 in that going through the Cali mountains at night.
 
I did that. Then a couple of UOAs convinced me that that was counterproductive given my normal driving patterns, that are very short hop.

Dad used to do that in the 70s for family vacations. It was hard getting a reliable, durable car in those days. So he drove unreliable cars around for his daily driving but would rent for those trips. The rentals were dirt cheap, for one thing.

Hard to believe, but if you didn't have to live with it long term, a Dodge Aspen station wagon was delightful on such a trip.
 
Originally Posted by gfh77665
Originally Posted by Nick1994
Avoiding putting miles on a car unless it's a $100k collector is stupid IMO.


Its not stupid if you are effectively extending your warranty by doing so. If you have a 5 year, 60,000 mile warranty, thats an average of 12k miles a year. I am slightly ahead of that mileage pace in one of my new vehicles, and significantly ahead of that mileage pace in the other. Besides that, the rental will have better MPG than my truck, which will mitigate the rental costs to a degree.

The warranty isn't going anywhere. If you have a 5 year/60k mile warranty, and drive 10k miles a year, if the transmission blows after 4.5 years or 45k miles, it's covered. In that time frame you've spent hundreds of dollars renting cars to do long drives.
Then say you drive 20k miles a year, the transmission blows at 45k miles still. It takes a little over 2 years. Transmission still blew at 45k miles
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driving more would be more beneficial since the parts aren't gonna get as old by the time you replace the car. If you have a goal to replace the car after 100k miles, it may take 5 or 10 years to get there depending on your mileage. Some things break based on time, like airbag sensors or an oil pressure switch, not exactly based on miles driven. So then you'd have gotten rid of the car by the time the parts got old.

Based on mpg, I guess I could see that. If I had a 20 year old pickup I might not want to get 15 mpg on a trip. But renting an econobox keeps you miserable in the comfort area. For some people, comfort is worth a price.
 
Never done it unless flying somewhere and driving there.

For road trips I prefer my RX as it has extremely comfortable seats with ventilation, great AC, it's relatively low miles and drives perfectly, has tinted front windows as well to help with summer heat for drives in hot places (makes a huge difference when the sun is coming right through the driver window in the high desert in July), I've maintained it in typical OCD fashion, and is AWD so it's good in all weather all year.

I also managed to get 26mpg trip average on a good run to Tahoe last summer
 
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Originally Posted by Nick1994

The warranty isn't going anywhere. If you have a 5 year/60k mile warranty, and drive 10k miles a year, if the transmission blows after 4.5 years or 45k miles, it's covered. In that time frame you've spent hundreds of dollars renting cars to do long drives.
Then say you drive 20k miles a year, the transmission blows at 45k miles still. It takes a little over 2 years. Transmission still blew at 45k miles
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The warranty isn't going anywhere? Really? The warranty is going away faster if you accumulate miles faster than 12K per year average. If you drive an average of 12K a year, you will stay covered for 5 years. If you drive 20K a year, you stay covered for just 3 years. Pretty simple math.

More stuff can and will fail over a 5 year period than a 2 or 3 year period. Not hard to understand.
 
Originally Posted by gfh77665
Originally Posted by Nick1994

The warranty isn't going anywhere. If you have a 5 year/60k mile warranty, and drive 10k miles a year, if the transmission blows after 4.5 years or 45k miles, it's covered. In that time frame you've spent hundreds of dollars renting cars to do long drives.
Then say you drive 20k miles a year, the transmission blows at 45k miles still. It takes a little over 2 years. Transmission still blew at 45k miles
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The warranty isn't going anywhere? Really? The warranty is going away faster if you accumulate miles faster than 12K per year average. If you drive an average of 12K a year, you will stay covered for 5 years. If you drive 20K a year, you stay covered for just 3 years. Pretty simple math.

More stuff can and will fail over a 5 year period than a 2 or 3 year period. Not hard to understand.


A 5 year old engine or transmission won't wear faster than a 2 year old one.
 
I can understand renting.

The wife and I may go to Tennessee (I think?) this year for a Datsun show. The only way to go to one of those is in an American muscle car.

In all seriousness, renting a luxury car for the weekend sounds nice. It's not that I don't trust my vehicles. It's just something different for a vacation.

Not trusting your car for a road trip, but daily driving it months on end issue free is more of a mind thing than a auto trust issue IMO.
 
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We don't own a vehicle that can carry all 5 or 6 of us if we go on a road trip as our youngest is 21. So instead of a convoy of two vehicles, we rent a minivan to pack everyone in.

I went from an IL suburb of STL to Des Moines IA last week. It was cheaper to rent than drive my own car based on reimbursement rates. While I would have loved to get the $0.555 or whatever the rate is now for mileage for the 930 miles I drove round trip, or about $500 tax free, my manger asked me to rent at $175 for the week and then probably about $75 in gas for the trip so about 1/2 of what the reimbursement rate would have been.

I'd have rather taken my Mazda3, but it was already going to be costly enough staying in downtown Des Moines and meals out every day, so I didn't push the issue.

Sometimes, if you know you are going to be driving more miles than you normally do, figure how many miles you are driving, and divide the rental rate with all charges figured. If you come up less than $0.25/mile, you are probably much better off renting than driving your own car.

I think my rental ended up being $0.188/mile + the cost of fuel, so about 1/2 the reimbursement rate. Mileage reimbursement would have been $516 vs $250 for a rental and fuel.

There certainly are smart fiscal reasons to rent for vacation vs driving your own car.

Probably not life changing money, but every little bit helps.
 
Originally Posted by gfh77665
Originally Posted by Nick1994

The warranty isn't going anywhere. If you have a 5 year/60k mile warranty, and drive 10k miles a year, if the transmission blows after 4.5 years or 45k miles, it's covered. In that time frame you've spent hundreds of dollars renting cars to do long drives.
Then say you drive 20k miles a year, the transmission blows at 45k miles still. It takes a little over 2 years. Transmission still blew at 45k miles
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The warranty isn't going anywhere? Really? The warranty is going away faster if you accumulate miles faster than 12K per year average. If you drive an average of 12K a year, you will stay covered for 5 years. If you drive 20K a year, you stay covered for just 3 years. Pretty simple math.

More stuff can and will fail over a 5 year period than a 2 or 3 year period. Not hard to understand.

If your transmission is gonna blow at 45k miles, it doesn't matter if it happens after 2 years or 4 years. You traveled the same distance. It's still covered under warranty.

In the meantime, in the 4 year situation, it means you rented a bunch of cars in the meantime and your transmission still failed.
 
Originally Posted by Nick1994
Originally Posted by gfh77665

More stuff can and will fail over a 5 year period than a 2 or 3 year period. Not hard to understand.

If your transmission is gonna blow at 45k miles, it doesn't matter if it happens after 2 years or 4 years. You traveled the same distance. It's still covered under warranty.

In the meantime, in the 4 year situation, it means you rented a bunch of cars in the meantime and your transmission still failed.


You cherrry picked "ifs" there. I could cherry pick refuting "ifs" too, but you still would not be able to understand. Do ask yourself this though: Why do mfg's put both mileage AND time constraints on their warranties??? Think about it... if you can.

Good thing I choose how I spend MY money. BTW, I won't go into detail, but I have done very well in life with my financial decisions. I decide to rent for 1500 mile trips and keep my new rides fresh and secure at home. Hope this don't upset you too bad, LOL.
 
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