I love the idea of renting a nice car instead of the generic Ford / Nissan models that you find in most rental car agencies. As a result, I’m a Turo power-user, renting at least 4x per year.
But I’ve noticed that whereas Airbnb has successfully maintained its customer experience as it’s scaled, Turo has really struggled and customer experience is dropping, and car owners are finding ways to game the system at the expense of customers.
It turns out I’m not alone: there are numerous threads on reddit with other customers having similar experiences:
Here was my experience:
Experience #1: Host Double-Charges for Pet Hair
I specifically booked a car that was pet-friendly, and I made a point of vacuuming the car before returning it. Yet I was still charged by the host for a cleaning fee. Shouldn’t you be cleaning the car between every rental? If I’ve already vacuumed a pet friendly car once, and taken photos showing no pet hair, how can I be charged for a second cleaning? The only conclusion I can draw is that Turo hosts are deliberately trying to milk the platform for fees, at the expense of customers.
Experience #2: Host Charges $700+ for a scratch that I missed during pickup.
Second experience: I rented a car. I was in a rush - it was midnight when I was picking the car up. And in the dark I must have missed a scratch on the rear bumper. I of course know that I didn’t scratch it. And the car wasn’t parked anywhere where it could have possibly been scratched while parked - it was in a driveway the entire time - no street parking.
But yet again, the hosts charged us $700 for the scratch. Once again, the only conclusion I can draw is that the hosts are trying to get a scratch repaired for free by passing it on to unsuspecting drivers.
