41–50 of 90 posts
Another nice hit-piece by the NY Times. This is why I stopped reading their "articles" a while ago. Sad to see nothing has changed, even after they apologized for their pathetic coverage of the election.
I put my car on Getaround for a few months in Oakland, got tired of it smelling like weed and McDonalds eventually. Damn device also ended up draining my battery.
That's seriously impressive to drain a car battery. Makes you wonder what in the hell that thing was doing. A phone-sized battery should probably be sufficient for their use case.
Different analysis: it's much more likely that a car can be damaged & completely unusable, leaving the owner in an expensive and inconvenient bind. We read about the occasional Airbnb horror story, but I think that scenario is relatively rare for property. Second, idle cars have a lot of value to owners. The car in my garage right now is giving me optionality and convenience, and that is worth a lot. In fact, I may e…
Had two car-owning friends that did RelayRides (now Turo) during the peak sharing economy a few years ago. Both cars were involved minor collisions within months. Turns out renting in the city to people that don't drive much, might be prone to accidents. Making sure cars weren't parked on street-cleaning side and dealing with tickets also seemed like a huge hassle. Cars have a really high administrative burden compar…
I love seeing my neighbors in Oakland lose their minds over GiG because the cars are stealing 'their' parking.
So that was the experience for me as a customer. With airbnb it's completely different. I feel I often get more from the things I want (e.g. kitchen access is very common in airbnb's, no Airbnb ever tried to charge me for wifi) and the prices are often massively cheaper than hotels.
They have been a much easier option than a traditional rental car company.
They meet you at the airport.
You can rent hybrids.
You deal with a consumer who owns the car not a customer service rep who could care less about their job.
My complaints are that the app and website have terrible user experiences. Terrible is an understatement.
They were cavalier with my drivers license data going so far as to email it around to vehicle owners as an image. Though I emailed their CEO and he stopped that years ago.
Still, I'm a big fan of Turo.
GetAround is my second choice. They have much more restrictive mileage limits so I stay away.
Curious about people's experience w/Turo. Seems like a good way to enhance a new car-buying experience. Other than that, it seems weird from the car owner's perspective.
It also allows you to test the car you always wanted. After a week spent driving a powerful convertible I have decided that I don't want one.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making sure cars weren't parked on street-cleaning side and dealing with tickets also seemed like a huge hassle. Cars have a really high administrative burden compared to homes, especially when things go wrong, which they do at a higher rate. Oh gosh, don't get me started on this. It's theft, plain and simple. Or rather tax. Owning a car in a city is a massive pain in the butt, and it's cost me like $2k per year. Whe…
If you're playing $2k/year in tickets, you should be paying closer attention, at that point you have nobody to blame but yourself.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're playing $2k/year in tickets, you should be paying closer attention, at that point you have nobody to blame but yourself.
It's not just tickets. It's tickets + permits + insurance + plates. I wasn't blaming anyone else, either. I assume you're perfectly vigilant in every aspect of your life? Meh, never mind. By the way, a friend just tried to park in the spot that I got towed out of. That's how unassuming it looks. That's just a thing you get to learn if you happen to live here, and the only way you learn it is after you get towed. Not…
I'm by no means "perfectly vigilant" but if you're getting them with any regularity then that's just carelessness. That is something fixable by you, personally, rather than suggesting the systemic changes that you seem to want to see.
Personal responsibility for the small stuff, systemic change for the big stuff.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What was GetAround's support like for these issues? Did they cover the cost of the parking tickets, or the repairs? Were you using GetAround's insurance?
Their support is OKAY, but not great. They are helpful, but not always responsive, so you feel like an engineering manager chasing after your junior direct reports, constantly pinging and babysitting them. I've had to argue with them over points of minor contention in the past before, like one time a renter claimed my car was "dirty" and so I had to record them a video showing its immaculate interior. They also didn'…