How to make money from your car

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, Charles Dickens.

This quote pretty much sums up my 3-year relationship with Car Next Door (CND) which is a platform that allows you to rent your car to pretty much anyone that is a member of their platform. There are a few other similar platforms around and there is also now a platform to generate income from other items (cameras, electric saw, lawn mower) that you might want to rent to others. I chose Car Next Door as my platform of choice as they have quite a few borrowers on the platform and they appeared to do an ok job at screening new members.

Signing Up

When I first signed up I was ecstatic. Someone was paying me for the use of my car while it was previously just sitting in the street doing nothing. The signup process was relatively easy and CND took care of most of the logistics (including the first photograph and installing a GPS to keep the car safe). I had turned my depreciating asset into a revenue-generating “machine”. However, I soon realized it would not all be smooth sailing. This was particularly so with my car, a Volkswagen Golf GTI, that seemed to attract a specific type of borrower. The car was on the platform for almost 3 years and during that time the cheques kept rolling in. As did the damage reports and the speeding fines. The fines I could deal with, CND would pay you $30 as an administration fee for each fine, which was really an inconvenience fee. I would log a ticket, receive the borrower's details and then jump on to the Fines Victoria site and nominate the driver to move the fine from my licence to the borrowers. I only ever had one issue with fines when a borrower drove my car to Queensland and parked in a disabled parking spot. They were fined around $700 and because of the location, it took some effort to have the fine moved from me to the borrower. It was significantly more difficult than the normal speeding fines I was receiving on a regular basis. Did I mention this was also the first time my car was “stolen” and had to be “recovered” by the CND security team? This happened 3 more times during the period my car was on the CND platform and the final time ended in me having my car completely written off. Which also ended my relationship with CND. My partner had been telling me to take the car off the platform for a number of months. It seemed to attract a special kind of person and the last few borrowers had cost me a lot of time with follow-up, emails, and phone calls to get my car back and then fully restored (i.e. roof tracks were stolen or alloy wheels marked — or in one case, complete wheel replacement as a gutter had been run over at speed). Slowly over the year, little dents appeared and stone chips grew — particularly on the front of the car. But I remained hooked on the monthly cheque that arrived with regularity. Around $400–600 a month can make a big difference and helps offset the cost of running a vehicle. The summer months generated bigger cheques sometimes in the thousands.

Is it worth it?

So would I suggest you put your car on CND? Possibly, but only under certain circumstances. Here are the circumstances where i would recommend CND/Car rental:

• If your car is older (i.e. around 10–15 years old is probably perfect) and you are not emotionally attached to it, then consider CND
• If the car is “standard” and not any sort of sports model. Sports cars, convertibles, etc all attract a certain type of borrower that you probably don’t want anywhere near your car
• If you rarely use your car but just have it parked outside your house most of the time and only own it for the 2–3 times you do a grocery shop or drive to the country, then why not make money from it

Final thoughts on car rental

So if you have taken all the above into account and now want to rent your car, you will need to be sure of a few additional things before you add it to the platform:

• I need to stress this point again. Make sure you are not emotionally attached to your vehicle — people will not treat your car the same way you treat it. That's just the way things are, unfortunately.
• There will be admin involved — so be prepared to do a few hours of work for your monthly pay cheque.
• Sometimes there will be frustrations. CND is still working out how to make money from their business and sometimes they don’t put on enough staff to handle everything that's occurring. Busy times are particularly difficult for them (like Easter or Christmas) as there is a high demand for cars and a lot of people don’t read instructions carefully (or sometimes at all) and so put a higher demand on you, the owner, and the CND support team.
• The tech/car doesn’t always work and that may mean borrowers will contact you directly. You need to be ok with speaking directly to borrowers who may have a question about your car or the CND system.

The big question, would I put my car on the platform again? Well, after this latest episode, I’m not sure I will buy another car. I was able to get by without my car for months at a time when I had long-term borrowers so I’m considering just becoming a user of the CND platform rather than a borrower on the platform. If I do go back on to the platform, it will be because I have purchased an older, standard Toyota Corolla (or similar) and know that it won’t be a magnet for car thieves and recalcitrants.

I will miss my monthly cheque though.