Renting out Your Vans!
- Thread starter jonnypage
- Start date
grampswrx
Observer
How much flexibility and free time do you have? I rent 3 smbs out on outdoorsy. It works great but we spend a bunch of time doing it. People bring them back filthy and with broken stuff and you have to fix it and gave it prepped for the next guy. That said, we made $20k on one van in a year. So we bought more. That’s renting them nearly full time though at $100-125 a night. The vans I see that are more than that spend a lot of time sitting.
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grampswrx
Observer
Also, almost all of it will depend on your location. I’m in SoCal with lots to see and do within a 6 hour drive. And I’m 1 hour from 4 major airports Lax/John Wayne/san Diego/Long Beach. If you’re far away from an airport or outside of a major city, you’ll be pretty hard pressed to get renters.
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Scotty D
Active member
When stuff comes back broken, do you charge the customer for that?
Is there a deposit or are you just eating those costs?
vintageracer
To Infinity and Beyond!
grampswrx
Observer
Depends on what it is. If it’s a maintenance item, then we pay for it. We have only had a couple instances where it was clearly the renters fault. Instead, everything just wears out faster because people aren’t as gentle or thoughtful as I would be.
For example, we had a bolt fail on my spare carrier. It dented the rear door, bent the spare carrier and only the trasharoo saved the spare from being lost on the road. It didn’t seem like a bolt failure should be charged to the customer. But I had to find a new door, have it put on, get a new spare carrier (upgraded to aluminess) and I had 2 weeks to do that. Overall, it cost me about $900 not including anything for my time. The rental made me $1300 total. So I still made $400 but I spent 6 hours at a junkyard on a Saturday trying to find a door and got lucky that I found a used spare carrier that week. Otherwise I would have been spare-less until aluminess could build a new one. The alternator also failed on that trip. I had it replaced by a shop on the road with a used one and that one then failed after another 2 weeks. This is on a 93 smb. We have newer ones that are better, but you’re just using them much more often. We are putting 15-20k Miles a year on them. Not the 5-10k they often see.
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grampswrx
Observer
To rent on turo, vehicles have to newer than 10 years old, or qualify as “vintage” like vw vans. My smbs are neither.
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Bikersmurf
Expedition Leader
I could see doing it as a business... but I’ve got too much time and effort invested in my ambo to rent it out... too many big ticket items that could break the bank if renters were rough on it. I’d feel different if it was a cheaper Van... a carovan or astrovan or something that parts were a dime a dozen.
Pic’n Pulls Around here usually want way too much. I considered switching to Hydro-Boost brakes. The wrecker wanted $250 for the parts off a rusty, beat cube van. Online I could get a new booster and master for the same money... I’d still have to source all the lines, but really? The same wrecker sold me the diesel air cleaner housing for $25, and a NLA inner door pull for $5 (off the same truck). Go figure.
Pic’n Pulls Around here usually want way too much. I considered switching to Hydro-Boost brakes. The wrecker wanted $250 for the parts off a rusty, beat cube van. Online I could get a new booster and master for the same money... I’d still have to source all the lines, but really? The same wrecker sold me the diesel air cleaner housing for $25, and a NLA inner door pull for $5 (off the same truck). Go figure.
Scotty D
Active member
Thanks for the detailed info Grampswrx.
So 20k a year in revenue for about 20k in miles?
Roughly a buck a mile of wear and tear on the rig. This really puts things into perspective for me. That math will work well at some pricepoints and horribly on others.
grampswrx
Observer
I bought my vans with the specific intent to rent them. I paid $10-12k for each and spent about 5-7 more fixing and upgrading them. So $20k for $20k a year isn’t too bad. I couldn’t justify it for anything more expensive or that I really valued personally. People are hard on them and they break stuff that I can’t imagine breaking.
It’s not for someone with a rig they have blood sweat and tears in. You have to be emotionally disconnected.
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It’s not for someone with a rig they have blood sweat and tears in. You have to be emotionally disconnected.
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grampswrx
Observer
Also, I price mine to be rented as much as possible. I could price them higher, but I’d rather they be rented 200 night a year at $100 ($20k) than 75 nights a year at $200 ($15k). People, at least in SoCal, who are spending more money, want something much more luxurious. That means more to break and more expensive to fix.
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Really? You wouldn't take less than half of the wear and tear for 3/4 of the earnings? That seems like a no brainer to me - the vehicles are still taking the mileage hit when it comes time for resale, as well as the extra maintenance costs. Less work for the same margin is always the way to go.
grampswrx
Observer
I am just assuming that I would rent it for 75 nights a year. Most of the rentals in the $200+ price range are much newer and nicer. They are also not rented much (based on their calendars). I am happy with the price we are getting for them. All my vehicles have such high miles that there is essentially no mileage hit for them. I don't think the resale market is all that concerned with 240k miles vs. 270k miles. At least I wouldn't be. As for maintenance, they will fall apart faster from sitting than they will from use, in my opinion. I have found lots of problems that crop up when they have sat for months at a time. When they are being used regularly, the problems slowly show themselves, so I can get them taken care of.
OverlandNA
Well-known member
How much is the deposit (damage, cleaning etc) and how do you deal with insurance? Breakdowns during their trip?
grampswrx
Observer
We take a $500 deposit. Insurance is provided by outdoorsy as part of their fee. Breakdowns are covered by us if it's a mechanical failure or otherwise our responsibility. They can opt in for towing. The rental agreement places all of the risk on the renter, as it should. However, I have read accounts of people having difficulty filing claims against renters and the insurance siding with the renter rather than the owner. If they hit something, it would be covered by insurance I suppose. We have only had 3 break downs that stopped people. One was a bad battery that they fixed and I paid for and one was an exploding heater core, which I paid for, the last was the alternator, which I paid for. Luckily, they are fords and could be fixed easily in San Diego, Joshua Tree, and Ensenada respectively. Thank goodness they weren't sprinters.