Need a car for 8 months. What's the cheapest way to rent/lease

[Anonymous]

I am thanks in advance ! I am in DMV area , please help. I looked at renting via budget but is is almost a 1000 a month or more.

[Anonymous]

buy a used care and resell it. If you buy and old enough car, you'll break even

[Anonymous]

OP here . Thanks! I thought about this option, didn't want the hassle but a good idea financially. Otherwise it looks crazy expensive! 10, 000 for 8 months

[Anonymous]

Buy a used Honda and sell it at the end. The car will basically be free.

[Anonymous]

Call the rental agencies and ask them how much for a long term rental.

[Anonymous]

buy a late model honda or toyota... as a PP mentioned

even if you sell it for a loss, it will still be cheaper than renting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am thanks in advance ! I am in DMV area , please help. I looked at renting via budget but is is almost a 1000 a month or more.

Why do need a car for only 8 months?


- someone who is nosy not snarky.

[Anonymous]

CarMax will buy almost any car, FYI. You could sell it back to them in a same day transaction.

[Anonymous]

I sol my 2007 Mazda3 with less than 90k mile on it for $1000 to somebody. Great car in very good shape. Those cars are out there.

[Anonymous]

Use a website like Swapalease. It's a site you can use to find people who took on a 24 or 36 month car lease, completed a portion of it, and decided they want to get out of that lease early by transferring it to someone else.

Find a lease that has approx 8 months left on it, and take it over. You'll typically be able to pay the same monthly lease payment as if you started a new lease, and some people will even give you an incentive payment as a favor for taking over the lease they no longer want.

This is by far the best option, especially if you are not too picky about finding one exact make/model of car.

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine who does a lot of limited term assignments always tries to get a used Corolla or Camry and then sells it at the end.

[Anonymous]

OP, you likely could rent for $700/mo. Go to a chain that's locally owned, like Enterprise. Walk in. Walk in and talk to the manager. It will matter *what* they have and how badly they want the business. It needs to be the manager and it needs to be an immediate need. Quotes aren't going to be good for "later"

I've done rentals, bidding thru Priceline. When the rental perios was up, I bid again. Over and over. For several months. But it required me to go to the airport at the end of each rental period to formally return the car, even though they were renting back the same car to me. This was a small town where in/out of the airport was not an inconvenience.

[Anonymous]

Not OP but someone asked why and I'm also going to be in this situation soon. Husband is leaving for unaccompanied post for a year, will probably want a second car for around 8-10 months. I'm in DC, was considering buying a used hybrid and selling it since then there should be no tax I think?

[Anonymous]

Rates have definitely gone up with the pandemic, but a few years ago I had to do this and it was anywhere from $600-1,000/month depending on the class of car, airport/nonairport, and company. This did not include insurance, as I had paid for third-party rental insurance elsewhere.

I can only speak for Budget, Enterprise, Hertz, and National.

Budget was consistently the cheapest option, particularly after using the many promo codes they have circulating at any given time. With that being said, it's also easy to get slammed with various charges and fees for different reasons.

Hertz and Enterprise are both decent.

National is by FAR the best rental company in terms of selection and customer service, but it is also the most expensive.

As someone else mentioned, look into any long-term rental discounts (from my experience they haven't been substantial) and look around with a site like Kayak. Non-airport locations are usually much, much cheaper.

Buying an inexpensive used car for 8 months may make sense upon initial consideration, but the effort of going through the car buying experience (if you buy at some random used lot you're going to have to do all of the DMV paperwork yourself) and risk of a major repair expense during that time quickly negates the few hundred dollars one may save per month.

[Anonymous]

Used Jeep Wrangler. You might make money if you get a good price on the front end.