Rent My Ride Review: Make Money With Your Car

Rent My Ride is a peer to peer car rental platform. Instead of renting cars from rental companies, potential renters can rent from car owners at lower prices than conventional car rental companies. If you have a car that you are not using, it is a way that you can use to make money. You can put it up on Rent My Ride for and earn an income from renters in your vicinity through their website platform.

What is Rent My Ride?

The platform was created by three South African entrepreneurs, based on a model that has seen success in other markets outside of South Africa. Rent My Ride brings together car owners and people who are looking to rent cars. It is a part of the sharing economy model, similar to Airbnb. It benefits car owners by helping them to find people to rent to in one consolidated pool. Renters benefit by renting a car from somebody nearby at a c cheaper price.

Rent My Ride To A Renter

As a renter, Rent My Ride provides nothing but benefits. The car rental rates are cheaper than normal car rental companies and you can rent a car for a relatively short time. You can check out the testimonial of a renter and how they came to be with Rent My Ride in the video below.

The service is currently available in South Africa’s major cities, like Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban, and is growing to other cities. The benefits that it provides to clients is savings of rentals compared to conventional rental companies, with RentMyRide saying that you can save up to 40%. You can rent a car for as little as three days.

As A Car Owner

As a car owner, the benefits of renting out your vehicle comes with some risks that are part and parcel of renting your asset out to another person. By giving somebody temporary possession of your asset, it is automatically at risk if the person does not treat your asset with the same regard as if it were their own. There is also the wear and tear that your vehicle will go through under frequent use.

If you have a car, you can rent it out to make some money. Car owners gain the benefit of being able to rent their car out for an income without having to actively look for clients. If you are looking at this platform as a potential business, one of the most useful cars to have is a bakkie because they aren’t as numerous as other cars and there is always somebody nearby who is moving something. There  are, however different vehicle classes to meet all the differnent needs, particularly in the “bigger cities” of Gauteng and in Cape Town. A testimonial from one of the earliest car owners on Rent My Ride recounts his experience below.

Things To Consider

If you are going to use this as a consistent from of making extra money then your car should not be too old. I would say that between 2 and 3 years old is the sweet spot between giving your lovely vehicle away to have others take the newness out of it and having a car there that users will want to rent. Remember that the user will always be looking for the best value that they can get at a price point so be sure to look at the other cars around and make sure that you have something that is in line with what other offer are.

Safety Of The Car.

Rent My Ride has a 3rd part insurance in place that covers damages to the vehicles of other parties in an accident, but not damages to your own vehicle.

When you rent your car out there is a checklist that you must use to make note of the condition of the care, including everything from marks to the mileage and sundry. This check is performed by both the renter and the owner of the vehicle and each must sign the note of the other’s to agree on what condition the car is in. As a car owner you get to decide who you want to rent out your car to. Potential renters submit a request to rent you car and after looking through their profile, you can decide whether to accept or reject the request.

While rented out, the renter has a usage allowance of 200km per day, with the option of additional kilometers at a standard rate if the owner agrees to it. 200km is a lot of and the mileage can rack up very quickly. In the worst case, you could rack up close to 6000km in one month. As the mileage increases and wear and tear increases, the car becomes less attractive to the renters so it is something to give careful consideration. So as a business you must look at the inherent ‘depreciation’ renting the car out will put the car through versus how much money you will be making.

Rent My Ride’s Customer Service.

Rent My Ride’s customer service is very good. When you are engaging in a transaction to rent your car out, consultants from Rent My Ride will contact frequently at key stages from booking your car, to giving you reminders of when you need to prepare your car, and after the transaction is concluded to check that things went well. My first experience with renting my car out was very pleasant and the customer service played a big part in it.

The Reputation System

Rent My Ride works similar to many other shared economy platforms and users review each other after every transaction. You must therefore act courteous and if anything bad happens beforehand that will prevent you from fulfilling your end, communicate it in advance so that the other party can understand. Strive to build a good reputation. Users will always look at your previous transactions for reference on whether it is safe to deal with you and the more positive review you have, the more renters you will be able to get.

Refrain from transacting with users outside of the platform because you will not have insurance for that and if anything goes wrong you will have to foot the whole bill yourself.

Closing Thoughts

Rent My Ride is a good way to make extra money if you have a vehicle that you can rent out. It’s a straightforward process backed up by good customer service to guide you through the process. You just need to be aware of the cost of the wear and tear it will subject your vehicle through. It would not be a good idea on a new car as users will often not show the same love to a rented car as they would to their own car.

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Have you used Rent My Ride with experiences to share or have any questions about the platorm? Leave them in the comments below.