Hello, thanks in advance for any advice and help you can give me. Here’s my situation . . .
The lease on my Honda Civic ends October 14. I don’t want to renew my lease or lease another car because I plan on moving out of state sometime between October and next summer, depending on how soon I can find a job. I also don’t have the $$$ to buy the car. So I was thinking perhaps of a long term car rental, like from Hertz. Is this a good option? Or is there something better?
Shop around to see what the best price is. You might try Rent-a-Wreck and see if they have an office near you. Or a less expensive rental company like Budget or Enterprise. I think Enterprise owns Budget now.
I’ve never priced it but have heard it can be competitive, all things considered. But you have to carry your own insurance or buy theirs. You’d want to check the fine print. Also you might want to just check into a month to month extention of your current lease which might be cheaper.
Just to make sure we understand, are you saying you don’t need a car after you move?
Could you get by with a service like Zipcar for a few months? You would pay a membership and daily or hourly rental fees but it might cost less and include fuel and insurance.
Zipcar is great, btw. If you have to commute by car it may not be as attractive, but do price it out if they have service in your area. Different places have slightly different pricing models. Normally, you pay for hours (by quarter hour) and by mile, but every day you rent a car comes with a certain number of free miles. Here (San Francisco) it was 150 when we were using it a few years ago. For commuting that would likely be enough miles (unless you have a crazy commute), so you’d be paying the hourly charge. There is also a modest monthly service fee. If you don’t commute by car and they have cars near you, give it a try and I bet you’ll love it. We thought we’d be buying a new car in a couple of months when ours was wrecked, but we stayed with them for eight years. It’s great knowing exactly what kind of car you’ll be driving and having it in your neighborhood. After the initial setup there is no paperwork. If you need to put gad in it, you use a charge card that is in the car. For daily use there are probably better options, but if you use a car a few times per week for errands and such, it’s a winner.
Thank you for all your helpful comments! I will look into all your suggestions and see what comes out of it.
RicaTika You already have a long term rental that expires in October. I saw a commercial yesterday. I don’t recall what brand of car. It was a 24 month lease for $159 per Month with scheduled maintenance included. This appears to be a great deal with the exception of $2500 due at signing. This works out to around $250 per Month plus insurance. This is not such a great deal. I have noticed this trend in leases. A very attractive Monthly payment with a very large “down payment”. I’m not familiar with long term renting but if it is really Month to Month at a similar payment it sounds attractive.
You might be able to assume a lease for the balance of the term. Check on line for auto lease assumptions and see what turns up. You ought to find some that end when you want to move.
Looking out of curiosity there are options for longer term rentals. Avis and others do offer longer term rentals such as http://www.avis.com/car-rental/content/display.ac?contentId=avis-mini-lease-US_en-001365 or https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/productservice/index.jsp?targetPage=longtermmonthlyleasecarrental.jsp
Yep, Burce Williams, the fiancial talk show host, used to talk about it being almost cheaper to rent long term than to own-all things considered. Of course he was into the higher end cars and brand new so a different class, but certainly something to consider for a short period of time to not get locked into anything.
I rented a car for a month one time from a major car rental company. As I recall it was a bit pricey. Reasonable for a month, but for 6 months I wouldn’t have rented, not at that monthly rate anyway. I’d have done it differently, leasing, buying/selling, renting a friend’s 2nd car, etc.
We rented cars for work during the last quarter of last hear and the first two months of this year. The monthly rate was a lot less than the daily rate.
Smaller companies who rent slightly older cars from non-airport locations can offer offer attractive monthly rentals…You can also buy “any car” liability insurance to avoid the high rates charged by the rental companies…
@Bing,Bruce williams still around?Fan of his,havent been able to listen lately on cars or otherwise?-Kevin
I’ve always thought careful buying and reselling of a higher-miles car could be far cheaper that a long-term rental. I had a prior job that required me to live in random parts of the US for a month or more at a time; I felt that this could have made sense for me.
The thing that gets you here is titling/tax fees. I would be interested to know if, in this exact situation, you could “fractionally own” a car. As in: I will purchase 10% of a (nominal) $10,000 car from you for $1,000. I’d get to use up to 10% of the miles (say 15,000) or less during my tenure of (say) 6 months. Then i return it. That way, I pay sales tax on only the $1,000 worth of the car i bought, rather than on $10k of the FMV.
I don’t know if this’d fly, legally: I DO know, though, that folks already do fractionally own property, aircraft, and high-end luxury cars.
@kmccune Nope, he’s been off the air for several years. Might still have a web site though. Had some issue with the radio network, then pulled it together on his own for a while then just gave it up and retired. I think his son is still at Jellyrolls though at Disney.
Thanks Bing,used to like “Talknet” and Bruces reasonable attitude-Kevin