Has anyone used Turo for their car rental lately? We are a group of 11 and I’ve been researching 2mini vans vs. 12-15 passenger van, but the horror stories if people waiting in line at the airport for 3+ hours or the rental car company not having a car for them worries me. We will have 4 young kids with us and I’m not interested in that miserable experience. Turo sounds interesting. Could get the large van cheaper than Budget rentals and they will come deliver the vehicle to us at the airport. Anyone use them before, any issues?
Like any peer to peer service (Air BnB, Kickstarter, etc) the risk is always of a bad actor- on the whole these businesses reduce their own risk at the expense of the renters and rentees. Do you trust Turo to have the capacity to make it right if you do trip over a bad actor? Are there many available cars in your size/price range for the dates you want? If so you’re probably going to come out ok even if inconvenienced. But if you are risk averse and want some guarantee of availability/replacement you’re better off sticking to a traditional car rental or car share that owns their own cars.
1 Like
We have used Turo once locally and had a good experience, but were dropped off at the person’s house and were renting the car for a fun weekend (we wanted to drive a Tesla for a weekend), not really counting on it for our transportation for our vacation. So while this one guy was good, I am not sure it is very helpful in evaluating Turo as a whole.
I agree with @thrasher543. it is basically a risk v. cost trade off. Personally, if it was just me and my wife, I might be willing to try it, but if we had 11 people that could be stranded in the airport I wouldn’t, but I am fairly risk averse.
What would you do if they didn’t show up? If you have a good contingency plan and plenty of excess funds to cover a same day rental it might be worth the risk, but for a group of 11 there is no way I’d take that risk. Use a trusted company and send 1 or 2 people to the rental counter (or straight to the car if you are an advantage member) and let everyone else wander the airport shops and restaurants and meet you at the curb later.
1 Like
Yeah, I agree. I might take a risk if it was just me, or me and my husband, but with 11 people, 4 being young kids, that’s a hard pass.
Getting a same day rental might not even be an option regardless of if you had the cash bc rentals have been in incredibly short supply.
1 Like
I used Turo in Alaska, and it was awesome. So so great. My brother used it in the same city, at the same time, and his experience was very lacking.
My guy brought the car to us at the airport, but didn’t realize we needed the 3rd row of seats, so then he brought the seats to us at the hotel an hour later. And for the dismount he met us at the airport again. It was super smooth, the car was clean, and the whole thing was super easy.
My brother’s guy wouldn’t meet him at the airport on either end, so I ended up shuttling him in my Turo back and forth to the guy’s apartment. His car was pretty run down, had a tail light broken, and the owner wasn’t very communicative.
For my last trip to Orlando I considered Turo, but the prices were about the same as the companies at the airport, and I felt like the rental companies had less variables, so I stuck with that. If both the Alaska experiences had been great, I would’ve done Turo in Orlando, but it wasn’t a risk I was willing to take for that trip. I knew the risks of renting from the regular companies, and that was a risk I was willing to take.
1 Like
We’ve used Turo in Phoenix. It worked well for us. Sign up in the app. Search for vehicles. Find a vehicle, then see if there are reviews for that Turo owner.
Turo started as individiuals renting out their vehicle, but now it’s grown to where some of the “owners” have a fleet of used cars that they rent out. Some vehicles are gently used and in decent condition, others are beat-to-crap ones.
For us, we rented a car that was just a few years old. The person met us at the airport with the car and keys. She told us where to park it at the airport when we returned it. It worked well - but that was at the airport in Mesa (a smaller airport).
1 Like
Been used Turo in Orlando, picked up car at MCO for small fee.
excellent experience. Host was very responsible. Even gave me discount for my next ride.
No more big Rental company. Here his link to FB page Redirecting... Enjoy
2 Likes
Welcome to the forum!
Thanks for the report. I know the question comes up from time to time, so I’m glad you could share your experience.
oh, i have not even looked at date. Probably too late 
1 Like
My sister rented a car through Turo for our April trip – it was great for pick-up, and the car was spotless. (It was a Toyota Corolla, fairly recent model.) The return was harder – I wasn’t there, but my sister drove around MCO for an hour trying to connect with the owner and a parking space, and she was very stressed out about going through security and getting to her flight on time. Lesson learned: Leave plenty of time for returning the rental and getting through security! Until she ran into that problem, I was quite charmed by the whole thing.
This why you need to rent from host with hight ratings.