Car sharing ZIPCAR or other vs trade-in? Family of four, 2nd car
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Anonymous
| Our 11-year-old, 100k mileage Subaru is finally at the point where it makes no sense to invest further. Has anyone recently done the analysis, or seen any good tips for using a car share service instead? Most of my trips are short runs to park at metro, or daily school pick-ups in and around Bethesda. I did a quick look and it seems I could give up my car insurance, maintenance, etc for either $5 an hour or $25 per month, plus some supplementing with Lyft or cab during inclement weather. FWIW, this is our second car. I work from home and live walking distance to metro. Two kids in the picture. Will investigate more closely but any insights from people who have been there, done that would be appreciated. Thanks! |
Anonymous
| I'd expect a Suburu to go well past 100k miles. I'd just keep it in your shoes. If you need a car more than occasionally, I don't know if zipcar is ideal. |
Anonymous
|
We're a family of 5 (three elementary aged kids) in NW DC.
We have one car (minivan). Spouse 1 works from home and uses van to tote kids back and forth to sports practices, neighborhood school (some days they walk) etc. Spouse 2 bikes to work downtown and uses Car-to-go on very rare occasions (snow, heavy rain, etc). We have 2 kids in travel sports so our weekends are spent going to various games both inside and outside of the city. Some times it works that things are back-to-back and we split the use of the van. Other weekends one parent will Uber to any games outside of the city (let's say in Fairfax) or use Car-to-go to a game within the city. Our older two kids are old enough that we're fine with them riding in the front of a Car-to-go for short trips in the city. Also, Car-to-go recently added Mercedes wagons to their fleet of cars and these have back-seats. Some seasons there is also a week-night practice conflict so about one night per week one of us has to use a Car-to-go to take/pick up a kid from practice. We also car-pool and ride share kids extensively so we're not driving everyday but when we do drive we always have 2 or even up to 4 other kids with us. So that all said we probably spend $100 a month on transportation (Uber and Car-to-go) during the 6 months of the year that the kids have sports 6 days per week and basically $0 a month the other 6 months. For us, this is MUCH cheaper but more importantly, much easier than the hassle of owning a second car. It works for now and has for the past 3 years. If things change we'll buy a second vehicle |
Anonymous
| OP here. 15:21 - Yes, we expected the Subaru to go longer too, but apparently the earlier Subarus have head gasket issues. If that was the only issue, we'd probably fix it, but there are other issues due to my lack of maintenance during a period when we had other heavy expenses. |
Anonymous
| You know that most Zipcars and enterprise car share are NOT one way cars, right? You have to give them back where you got them? Ok, you can do your own math from there. |
Anonymous
| 17:15 - Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. Car2Go looks great, but ZIPCAR appears to have the best metro / parking in Bethesda, so I'll look closer at them. Love those wagons though! |
Anonymous
|
I have a zipcar membership that I use very rarely-and while I think it could be a good solution for you, I think you may be underestimating the costs a bit. The smallest cars are usually $9 an hour and rates go up from there. Your rental period has to start and end on the hour or 1/2 hour-so if you need the car starting from 2:45-3:15-you're paying for a full hour. It starts to add up.
Also-if your kids are still in car seats, you have to factor in the extra time and hassle it will take you to install and remove car seats every time you use it with them. |
Anonymous
| PP, you are spot-on re costs. ZIPCAR advertises cars at $8 and up, but almost all of the cars parked near me are $9.75 and up, some $12.75. I saw none cheaper this weekend and only two this a.m. at $7.75. |
Anonymous
|
I used Enterprise Carshare. Cars are anywhere between $5-$11/hour. There's no sign up or membership fee.
For trips longer than 4 hours, I'd rent a car for the full day (carshare is not economical for that kind of trip). |
Anonymous
| It'll work until it doesn't. Just be willing to accept the hassles involved in going car-free for car #2 or the expenses involved in car #2. |
Anonymous
|
We've periodically been a one car family (and for awhile a no car family). We did it mainly for environmental purposes, but it saved us a lot of money too. One hassle with the carsharing is that (at least when I was doing it a few years back) you have to estimate your time in advance and it can be stressful when something takes longer or traffic is bad. So I would estimate on the long end which added costs (and $10-11/hr is a better estimate for the norm). I found it infinitely better to hammer out the details of public transportation to key places so it was effortless; to invest in a bike and trailer to take kids places, and then to stack up errands during times when I had the car. The savings are pretty sizeable because you more often decide not to shop and get by with what you have and you combine trips more thoughtfully.
Uber/Lyft are a good back-up but will end up costing you a lot more if you use them regularly out of laziness. |
Anonymous
| OP here. Thanks for your posts. Very interesting. |
Anonymous
Huh? No, that's wrong. Pick up zip car, drop it off, wherever. Car to go, you can drop off literally anywhere. |
Anonymous
You return zipcars to where you got it. |
Anonymous
| We're a one car family but also bike a lot, which adds a lot more flexibility. Once you get used to it, it's so much more fun for short trips than driving or ride share. |