The high cost of car ownership? Has anybody tried car clubs or p2p car rental apps?

zzzt

I am someone who didn't own a car for most of my life, so I was blissfully unaware of just how expensive it is to have a car.

This year has been the first year of car ownership, and because of my history of walking everywhere or using public transport, I've barely needed the car. I've only used it for driving to visit parents a few times per year, 1 trip to B&Q, and driving somewhere to do a hike slightly less than once per month. I loved the independence, particularly for driving into the countryside, and at first I couldn't believe how cheap it was. I filled the tank for about £35 and could drive 200 miles or more. Compared to public transport that seemed insanely cheap. But that was before all the other costs are factored in.

I got the cheapest car to run - a small 1L petrol car. In terms of what I have paid in road tax, insurance, breakdown cover, MOT, service and repairs (it failed the MOT despite it barely being driven!) this has cost me about £1000, making the roughly 15 trips I've made cost about £65 per trip. I could have probably got an Uber for less.

To me, £1000 just to have a car sat on my driveway seems like a lot, but apparently the average spent on running a car is about £3100. I suppose most people use their car a lot more so maybe that amount is justified, but I'm still surprised at the level of car ownership, especially amongst people who have low incomes. People must be willing to spend 20-30% of their income on having a car. Why?

Anyway, after having got the MOT and full service done, and having paid the insurance and breakdown cover for another year, I'm wondering if I made a mistake. I was reading the MSE 53 tips to cut driving costs and tip 17 for people who only drive occasionally is join a car club. I didn't know this was a thing. You pay a monthly fee (or in some cases no monthly fee), and you use an app to tell you where a car is, and you use the app to unlock it and then pay something like £4-6 per hour or a day rate of something like £30-50. No insurance, no repairs, you only pay for what you use. So that would seem to be ideal for me right?

I'm now seriously considering paying about £30 to cancel the 12 months of insurance I've just bought (in the 14 day cooling off period) and then selling my car. The p2p apps like Hiyacar look even more convenient. I could just pay a small hourly rate to drive someone else's car, with the downside of having to walk to their house first.

There is a list of companies offering these kinds of things here: https://como.org.uk/shared-mobility/shared-cars/who/

TL;DR: Has anybody tried these car clubs or rental apps? Is it a good idea? Am I mad to pay a cancellation fee to cancel my insurance and then sell my car?

Barny1979

Do you live somewhere where there would be a plethora of cars to pick up if in a car club? As you might find the nearest one miles away from you if you needed it.

AdrianC

Don't cancel the insurance THEN sell the car - how will you sell it if it can't be test-driven or taken to a garage?

Yes, a car in a city is a bit pointless - an absolute liability, much of the time.
And, yes, if you don't use it very much, the cost-per-use works out high because of the annual fixed costs.
And, yes, older cars can need work even if (often especially if) they aren't used very much. Newer cars depreciate rapidly, instead of needing money spent on maintenance. Middle-aged cars do both.

Grumpy_chap

The OP is absolutely correct that owning your own car is expensive, particularly if the mileage / usage you do is very low.  However, nothing beats it for convenience.

The OP is correct to point out the option of UBER etc. as an alternative.  We suggested it to my mother recently as her 2016 car is only on 6k miles, so not worth it to keep and I am always going round to charge the battery for her because of under-use.  Naturally, mother refused to entertain such an idea.

Conventional car hire is another viable alternative in some cases plus car hire through the businesses that operate car clubs, such as ZIPCAR.  I have used the former, but not the latter.  One of my friends uses the latter as the means to have a second car available when required.  Proximity to the pick-up locations is a critical factor to consider before choosing these routes.

I have also heard of the schemes where you hire a car belonging to an individual.  My wife's cousin actually put his vehicle on one of the schemes for a while but took it off once it was returned with an £800 body repair-bill.  I have also looked at this as a way to hire a car to use, but decided in the end to go for the conventional hire car from a national company as that fitted me better:

• £price about the same
• New cars
• Rental office will not be fussed about if you are late to collect / return, whereas an individual is waiting in
• Know that the car from the company is properly serviced etc
• Likely that Bob who lets you use "Bob's VW Golf" will be far more particular about the car on return

The OP is absolutely correct to look at options but, given that the OP has a car available, the sensible thing is to keep that car available, try out the alternatives and then, if there is an alternative that works well, descope the owned car from their life at that point.  Far better than descoping the car right away and then finding the alternatives don't stack up and needing to go back out and buy another car.

The timing is not fantastic, having just renewed insurance, but the car will need to be kept insured anyway until sold and may not sell in whatever time is remaining from the 14-day window that the insurance can be cancelled.  Maybe the OP keeps the car this year, and trials alternatives, to make a decision at a suitable time once the new plan is fixed rather than just an idea.

Sadly, we have a society where having a status symbol on the drive has become such a big deal that anyone who does not conform is deemed to be unusual.  The OP can guarantee that they will receive negative comments about going from car owner to non-car-owner, so best to be prepared for that.

As an aside, the OP has still overlooked the biggest single cost of running a car - depreciation.  The figure quoted of £3,100 may include some vehicle finance payments which I assume the OP's £1k does not.

tim9966

I know my friend who lives in London uses Zip car, he finds there are often a few parked near him, but did mention having to wait an hour for one to be returned before he could use it.

For city driving it seems a good idea. I myself live in a rural, so life would be a real struggle without a car. There must be less than 10 days this year I haven't driven somewhere. 

Grumpy_chap

I just looked up comparative "hire" charges for cars near to me:

• Hertz, Skoda Octavia, 2 days, delivered and collected, £73
• Hiyacar, "Bob's 10yo VW Golf", same 2 days, walk 20 minutes to collect, £83
• ZipCar, Ford Focus, walk 30 minutes to collect (I think, hard to find out exactly on the website without actually signing up), £128 (that is so high, I wonder whether I made a mistake?)

As far as I can tell, the ZipCar people need to make their product easier to understand

AdrianC

Zipcar is designed for short-period rental, an hour here, an hour there.

The OP is talking about a 1.0 citycar - presumably something like an i10/Aygo. What would the hire cost of that be?

[Deleted User]

You could hire a car once a month for a week at a time and it would still be cheaper than buying and running your own car. With none of the responsibility for maintenance etc. 

Flight3287462

If I was the OP I would carry on for this year (expense of MOT on what I suspect is an elderly car) who wants to travel on public transport during these plague years.  In the meantime OP price up the alternatives but you must include the time and buggeration factors.

Grumpy_chap

AdrianC said:

The OP is talking about a 1.0 citycar - presumably something like an i10/Aygo. What would the hire cost of that be?

I did not do that check because the Hiyacar had the VW Golf near me and I did not see anything smaller tbh.  I then selected the Octavia and the Focus for comparison purposes to try to be equivalent to the Hiyacar availability.

I certainly don't understand why I would pay more to use a privately owned 10 yo Golf (with unknown history and service record / reliability) when I can hire an equivalent brand new Octavia for less.  Something seems amiss with the Hiyacar business model.

Zipcar for very short hires does make more sense.

AdrianC

Grumpy_chap said:

I certainly don't understand why I would pay more to use a privately owned 10 yo Golf (with unknown history and service record / reliability) when I can hire an equivalent brand new Octavia for less.  Something seems amiss with the Hiyacar business model.

Agreed. That's just silly pricing - presumably, set by the car's owner.

If the OP thinks that model has merit, though, perhaps it would be worth listing their own car on the platform?