Renting a Car for Vacation, to Keep Miles, Ear Off Your Car at Home (rentals, fuel)
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I understand this if your car is unreliable/broken. But that's it.
For me, I paid good money for a car to drive, if I have to take a trip, I'm darn well going to drive it. Besides, highway miles really don't do too much to a car anyway.
I've heard of different schools of thought on this.
The pro school of thought says that on a 1200 mile trip (roughly what I would imagine your DC-Charleston trip is including driving around at your destination), it costs around $690 dollars, using the IRS mileage rate for 2015, which in theory includes your fuel, insurance, depreciation and wear and tear. If you use AAA's cost estimate, it would cost $710 in an average sedan. Conversely it would cost $24-$27/day for a week long trip according to hotwire, bringing your total to roughly $265 in a full size Impala or similar car. That doesn't include gas, but for your 1200 mile trip you would spend about $112. Using that logic, you're into the whole thing for $377 for the week. If you have a shorter trip, then the savings are increased, because you pay by the day for the rental.
Insurance should not be included as a cost of driving your own car, unless you have pay by the mile insurance. Your monthly or semiannual payment is a sunk cost.
We routinely rent a car for a vacation trip and leave ours at home. It's one of the reasons our car has low mileage for its age. Plus, as our car ages, we think that putting it through a long trip may shorten its life span.
I almost always rent cars for driving trips. Been doing it for many years.
It's fun to drive different cars...makes the vacation exiting because you never know which car you'll get, but it will always be new (usually 18 months or less).
Last year we got a nice full sized red sports car that drove like a dream. I think we mentioned "this is a great road car" at least 20 times while driving. It's not a car I would buy, but it sure was an awesome car for the trip. And we only paid for a compact car, but the sports car was a free quadruple upgrade.
I am very particular where I park my personal vehicle - very anal about door dings and such. It would make the vacation awful if I drove my own vehicle because I will not park somewhere if the parking lot is bad(small spaces, etc). I will actually leave instead of park there.
But with the rental car, we just park and don't worry about the car. So it makes for a most pleasant vacation.
Where's the OP? Answer some questions first. What kind of car do you have now? Year? Own or lease? Current on registration, insurance and inspection? How many miles on car? Any problems with brakes, tires or anything else? How many miles a year do you drive? Other than the 1000 mile roundtrip, how many miles will you drive? What would you rent and how much will it cost in total including fees and insurances?
OP here I was just curious whether people did it, and how they thought about it.
I have an "06 Acura RSX (delivered in OCt of '05) -- 173,000 miles. Excellent shape. It's my baby. So always up on the maintenance.
I was just thinking about renting a car for my MD to Fayetteville NC trip. I have a family reunion in Charleston, SC. and will be stopping my my sis's house. We MAY drive together from there or drive to SC separately. I don't know yet. And could go either way on that. So I could be driving to SC, too.
I've driven my car on all my other driving vacations. This time I just thought about renting a car, because I don't want the hassle should something happen an accident or whatever. Is it worth a cracked windshield just because a frigging stone flies up from a wheel because a truck has no wheel flaps? Or I get a flat tire.
I'm waaaay overdue for a vacation after a rough year. And even though chances are nothing would happen. I'm on the road with my car a lot as it is, in my daily life.....I really just don't want to deal with anything happening to it. So why not rent a car...and leave my baby parked in my garage at home.....that's all.
I do it all the time because our cars are jalopies. Good for local, not to comforting for long distance stuff.
Renting even adds to the pleasant vaca experience . . . Driving a nice car we dont have payments on, ha ha
I'm a greenie, but I have an overwhelming urge to drive a Mustang or Challenger on my next road trip up north. Rolling through the totally empty highways of West Virginia above 60mph would be AWESOME!
Once when I rented a car while on vacation, someone broke a side window and stole a beach bag. That town also had an Enterprise rental agency. We swapped the car for a different one within 2 hrs of the incident.
The credit card I used for the rental covered the cost of the window replacement. The rental agency game me an itemized bill for the broken window and I called the 800# on back if my Visa and they filled out a claim.
No- I didn't buy extra rental coverage but some credit cards will pay for such things as part of free benefits that come with the credit card. I have specific credit cards that offer this and others that don't. Each time I rent a car I make sure to use the credit card with this coverage.
You are required to use your own auto insurance for a claim(as part of this credit card coverage ) but they pay the amt that is below the deductible.
In my case the broken window was below my deductible so I didn't have to submit the claim to my auto insurance carrier. I think I had to prove the deductible amt to the Visa claim, though. But it was all very easy.
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