• JasSmith@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    That’s not a good solution. Renting is a terrible experience too. This is what I would have to do:

    • Book a rental in advance or pay horrendous rates.

    • Take an overpriced taxi to the rental place on the day. Uber is banned in my country.

    • Wait in line, then stand through the strong arm sales tactics to get me to buy the overpriced insurance. I politely decline.

    • Take a hundred pictures of the exterior to prove I’m delivering it in the same conditions I picked it up because I’ve been scammed too many times.

    • Drive back to my house, then do all the usual packing.

    • Gingerly drive this strange car for 12 hours there and back and pray I don’t scratch it because that’s thousands of dollars in extortionate fees.

    • On return, unpack the car, then give it a clean (or more fees).

    • Drive it back to the rental agency and argue about the level of gas in the tank and the scratches I didn’t make and the level of general cleanliness inside and out.

    • Take another overprice taxi back home.

    I’ve rented a lot of cars in my life and they’re all bloodsucking leeches. This is not only a much worse experience than simply owning a car which suits our needs, but it’s more expensive.

    • TheDubh@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Your rental experience sounds worse than any I’ve ever had. I have to rent a few times a year.

      Also generally I like the idea of renting and having the rental insurance on a long road trip so if something happens then my personal car isn’t totaled or put into a body shop somewhere far away. I’ve hit a deer hours away from home before on a road trip that was WAY worse. If it had been a rental I could have just walked away saying I have insurance so your problem, I need a new car. Where as it became an ordeal of the car being in the body shop 4 hrs away, still needing a rental to get home, since it was far away couldn’t check in on it and the repairs were bad, had to get a ride to get the car, ended up having to drop it off again somewhere local to fix the bad repair job, and get another rental.

      I also had range anxiety for EVs on long trips and then I remembered that experience.

        • TheDubh@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Honestly I shop around to an extent and look at reviews for the area. I have to fly to an airport near family and then drive another couple hundred to get to some family. I’ll admit there’s a gambit in quality of the cars, but I don’t have a preferred. And seems like because a brand in x is good doesn’t mean their station in y won’t suck. Hence just hope in reviews being a good indicator.