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Today we compare the peer to peer car sharing platform, Turo, with traditional car rental companies. Here in Calgary there is usually a shortage of rental cars during the peak seasons. If you don’t book your car months ahead of time, rental companies are often completely booked out. This is one of the advantages of peer to peer car sharing platforms like Turo. They always have cars available to rent. But are there any other advantages? Let’s find out.

How Turo works

In order to book a car on Turo in Canada you need:

a valid drivers license and
an auto insurance score that is not too low

In the U.S. you also need

a social security number and

proof that you have been driving for at least 2 years if you are under 25.

See the details for booking a car on Turo here:

https://support.turo.com/hc/en-us/articles/203991060-Booking-a-car

Turo has the right to decline your booking requests or remove you from the platform because of your auto insurance score, criminal- or driving record.

You can download the Turo app from the Appstore or Google Playstore and create an account within the app or go on the Turo website at https://turo.com and sign up. You can also just go to the website or browse the app for cars you would like to rent, but in order to book a car you need to sign up first.

The search and booking of a car is very similar to any car rental - you can enter the pickup location, enter the pickup- and return date and search for available vehicles.

Where Turo differs is at the confirmation of your booking. Once you have found the car that you like you can put in your booking request which sends a message to the owner of the vehicle - the Turo host. Here you can add some lines to introduce yourself, the reason for requesting the car, your destination or anything else relevant to your booking. Then the Turo host has to approve your request. Once this is done, usually within a couple of minutes, your booking is complete. The Turo host will send you a confirmation message and maybe some information about the car or additional features (extras) available with the car.

The next thing for you to do is to show up in time at the agreed location, meet the owner of the car who walks around the car with you, take some pictures of the car, to document the car’s condition at pickup, hand you over the keys and you are good to go.

What to look for when searching for a rental car on Turo

When you search for a car on Turo you have several options to find the perfect match for your trip. You can search by price, make, model and vehicle type but also by features like all wheel drive, heated seats, pet friendly, backup camera, Apple Car Play, Android Auto, blindspot warning etc.

Some vehicle come with unlimited miles. If you plan on driving a lot, it is worth to check if there are any cars offering this feature. Cars with unlimited miles have a badge identifying them as “Unlimited miles” vehicles. You can filter your search results by distance included to see which cars offer what millage allowance. If the car has a limited amount of miles, it will show in the cars detail view what the daily miles allowance is and what every additional mile will cost. The daily included distance is usually around 300-500 km and for most day trips sufficient. If you can plan your trip ahead of time, this option should work out just fine.

Another popular feature is free delivery. You can filter your search results for the delivery costs (from free to $120) to check if there are any cars who offer free delivery. If your dream car charges a fee for the delivery, check out how much an Uber would cost to get you to the location of the car. Sometimes you can get a better deal with an Uber or Lyft. Keep in mind that the delivery fee includes also the pickup, so if the Uber costs more than 50 one way, a delivery fee of $100 is the better deal. But if you arrive at the airport with a lot of luggage it might be worth to pay the delivery fee since the car usually gets delivered to the terminal and you can jump right in (unless it is a car that you can unlock with the app or the owner provides you with a key safe and a code and you have to find the car in a near by parking lot. See contactless car rental section below).

Also look for cars from all star hosts if possible. These are Turo hosts with the highest ratings and the most experience. The all star host status is given to Turo hosts who have hosted at least 10 trips, have a response rate of > 95%, an acceptance rate of > 90%, a commitment rate of > 95% and five star ratings of > 90%. So with an all star host, there is a greater probability of everything running smoothly and according to plan.

If you prefer a contactless car rental experience you can look for cars with the App unlock badge. These cars you can get “self service style” all within the app. The app shows you the location of the car, unlocks the car when you are in front of it. After taking some pictures, the check-in is complete and you are good to go. This feature requires additional background checks and is currently only available in the U.S. and only on certain car models.

It is also worth to check out if the car owner offers any extras with the car. Many Turo hosts offer extras that you can rent for the duration of the trip like child seats, camping equipment, park pass, ski- or bike racks…and many more.

And last but not least make sure the listing of the car shows high quality pictures from every angle and also from the interior, so you see exactly what you are getting.

Advantages over a traditional car rental company

You can pick the exact make and model including all the features you like
You get a preview of the car (pictures of the inside and outside of the car)
The car gets delivered to you (fee may apply)
No waiting in line at a car rental desk
Personal contact with the owner of the car (who usually knows more about their car than a car rental employee) or a totally touchless unpersonal delivery experience with the Turo go feature (on selected models only, and currently only in the U.S.).
Support local family owned business

Is renting a car on Turo cheaper?

To answer this question it is best to compare the prices of your local car company with similar cars on Turo. Let’s look at some examples in Calgary and compare the prices of similar car models. For the examples below we were looking at a 7 day rental period in April and August 2022:

April 2022:

Toyota RAV4 (Midsize SUV)

Turo: 400-1400 CAD
Hertz: 2300 CAD
Enterprise: 1036 CAD
Budget: 2512 CAD

Toyota Corolla (Midsize/Standard )

Turo: 400-600 CAD
Hertz: 737 CAD
Enterprise: 776 CAD
Budget: 614 CAD

Toyota Highlander (Full size SUV, 7 seats)

Turo: 500-1000 CAD
Hertz: 1500 CAD
Enterprise: 1500 CAD
Budget: nA

August 2022:

Toyota RAV4 (Midsize SUV)

Turo: 700-1500 CAD

Hertz: 1974 CAD
Enterprise: nA
Budget: 2931 CAD

Toyota Corolla (Midsize/Standard )

Turo: 500-800 CAD

Hertz: 1464 CAD
Enterprise: nA
Budget: 2931 CAD

Toyota Highlander (Full size SUV, 7 seats)

Turo: 1700 CAD

Hertz: nA
Enterprise: nA
Budget: nA

As you can see from the examples above, the prices on Turo are on average lower than the ones from the three rental companies. Keep in mind, however, that the cars from the rental companies usually come with unlimited miles. But even if you would exceed the daily limit on a Turo car you would have to drive an additional 500 km every day at a rate of 1 $ per km to match the car rental price. The additional price per mile is on average around 0.5/km. So unless you need the car for a lot of miles, it is safe to say that you save some money if you rent your car from Turo.

If you are looking for a Turo car for your next trip from Calgary to Banff, Jasper, Canmore, or Lake Louise look no further.

We list our cars also on Turo and offer a 5% early bird discount for bookings 7 or more days in advance, a 5% discount for any bookings longer than 3 days, and a 10% discount for bookings longer than 7 days.

When booking one of our cars we will plant a tree in North America and issue you a Tree Gift Certificate (see here for more information)

2017 BMW X1 xDrive28i AWD (Midsize SUV, 5 seats)