Well as I have worked with Uber driving for the past month realising that renting a vehicle +extra mileage costs vs financing a car or using a online money lender for car loan works out best?
I know there’s companies that have unlimited mileage but you need to fork out more. As most car financing companies like Toyota has minimum 6% payment weeks/monthly basis, I’m not sure if there is a deposit? Would doing financing or using a lender be a better option?
I have been on Uber X bout few months getting roughly over $2k a week, think that should be substantially qualified, I just don’t think renting out cars for few hundred a week works out with results, it can’t be better than financing as which least you own a vehicle and have less to worry aboutz
I have been on Uber X bout few months getting roughly over $2k a week, think that should be substantially qualified
Lenders don't take much of Uber income into account.
Judging by the previous post, you started only 2 months ago or less? And unemployed before that?
Yeah no decent lender is going to lend you money.
You might be able to go a payday lender for a small amount at a high interest rate, though lenders look at those very unfavourably, so it will affect loan applications in the near future.
If you're getting $2k a week, even deducting expenses, you should be able to save up for a $10-15k car over a few months if you watch your spending.
Second what Spackbace is saying. Not saying you 100% can't get financing, but any financing you get with your financial situation will cost you FAR more than anything that'd make driving for UberX financially viable.
Props to you for making the effort to improve your situation, but what car are you driving right now? If you have an UberX eligible car already, I wouldn't sink further money (and certainly not financing) into it - if it's viable enough long-term, you should have enough saved up for a new (or decent used) car before too long. And if you can't, then it wasn't viable to begin with.
And especially with Uber - think of it this way: No one sees your car before they book a ride via the App, and no-one is flagging your car down on the side of the road. No one is going to turn down a ride when you arrive, and as long as your car is in decent condition, I haven't ever heard of anyone giving a bad rating because a car is just older.
Previous chapter - Considering Uber Driving Temporary
OP is hiring car as their current car is not suitable.
@Baysew: Ah. So OP is currently hiring a car to drive Uber?
OP: If you're hiring a car, does the hire agreement explicitly say you're allowed to use it for commercial purposes, and do you currently have insurance?
@HighAndDry: I don’t believe so, as the pricing for either Uber usage or not are the same anyway, there is no way for them to track how you are driving. If you are concerned about Uber tracking your location just simply disable the app.
@Baysew: Well yes my other vehicle just hit 10year Margin, that’s out of the question for using it, all rode sharing alternatives also have same concept.
@DEvok: Ah gotcha. Yeah - the best option would've been to keep using what car you already have.
And my concern isn't about the hire company tracking you, but rather insurance (or lack thereof) if you're (knock-on-wood) in an accident because their usual insurance policies very likely do not cover commercial use of the vehicle (which driving for Uber is) and their own hire agreement probably - but obviously you'll have to check the fineprint - stipulates you can only use the vehicle for private use or otherwise disallows commercial use (because it'd void their insurance over the vehicle).
Just things to consider if you're going down that route.
UberX allows up to 10 years old (2009 model) so why not get something approx 3-5 years old to start with and have the expectation you'll upgrade every 2 years and that your maintenance costs will be a fraction higher?
Alternatively, Skoda (and probably some others) is doing 1.9% finance at the moment.
You can get an Octavia 1.4tsi manual for <$25k drive away. I have the 1.8tsi manual and you can drive that around the city all day. It's a light clutch and sweet gearbox.
Or a slightly smaller Rapid for a similar price.
Or Fabia Auto (if you must as I don't trust the dry 7 speed) for $20k.
Again, no one is lending OP $20k+ based on 2 months driving Uber, and being unemployed before that
I’m currently using rental Yaris Ascent, and looking at some of the used dem models 7-10k km for around $15 for 2018 model, I could always consider more older model, No other car can match Yaris fuel consumption.
There is also Honda Jazz 2-3years around same km for $9k and up, as of now, my rental is $200/pw, 1500km there after 0.20c/km and I have exceeded 1550km for the past months. I know financing would cost few extra thousand but least I wouldn’t have Worrying and factoring paying excess in my mileage, as now I need to wip out another $330. If I did finance a vehicle weekly surely it will be around $200 but there’s no km to worry, but insurance,ctp, rego and wear and tear. So far I’ve done around 11000 from 12000-21000.
No other car can match Yaris fuel consumption.
That's a big call.
What's your real life figures? The test figures often have no resemblance to what is achieved in the real world.
If you are going to do Uber please get a slightly bigger car.
The test figures often have no resemblance to what is achieved in the real world.
Because the manufacturers have been happily illegally gaming the tests for over 50 years while Government stood by and gave them a cost of doing business - a fine that is less than the profits the business made while it was illegally cheating the system - thereby ensuring the cheating continues because it's more profitable to be a criminal organisation.
Despite recently killing hundreds of thousands of people by cheating the diesel emissions standards, VW only recieved costs of doing business fines. Only Germany had a justice system that was prepared to jail the mass murderers for profit that led this business. Fools continue to purchase VW vehicles despite being recently poisoned by them.
@brendanm: Diji1 is back! I'll help him out, even though he was exaggerating a fair bit, here's some info for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#H…
"A peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Research Letters estimated that approximately 59 premature deaths will be caused by the excess pollution produced between 2008 and 2015 by vehicles equipped with the defeat device in the United States, the majority due to particulate pollution (87 percent) with the remainder due to ozone (13 percent). The study also found that making these vehicles emissions compliant by the end of 2016 would avert an additional 130 early deaths."
I'm sure there was some more info about the controversial methods of testing the toxicity of emissions. If I find it, I'll post it.
Edit: there's too much info out there :-( One article from 2017:
"The new study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, focuses on the perils for Europe. The researchers from Norway, Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands calculated that about 10,000 deaths in Europe per year can be attributed to small particle pollution from light duty diesel vehicles (LDDVs). Almost half of these would have been avoided if emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from diesel cars on the road had matched levels measured in the lab."
@kahn: So how many people are cargo ships and trains killing?
You do realise the percentage of emissions caused by privately owned vehicles compared to overall emissions? Then a much smaller percentage again of VW vehicles that didn't meet emissions standards for a few years.
You cannot estimate "early deaths", it's completely absurd.
@brendanm: I'm not sure why you're trying to downplay the importance of this. Are you a shareholder in Volskwagen or something? It's a bit confusing to see someone defending criminality just because people can die from other methods. I hope you're not trying to become a lawyer :-P
@kahn: Not a shareholder, and no lawyer. Just would like to see actual science applied. Also confused as to why everyone concentrates on an absolutely tiny portion of overall emissions (private vehicles), and the costs and complexity for them and the emissions systems keeps increasing.
Yet we will happily burn more coal. We will burn diesel and coal to mine more coal, then ship the coal to China/India/etc where they don't give a rat's about emissions, on a ship that basically burns crude oil.
One load of coal mined, shipped then burnt probably produced more harmful emissions that every "dieselgate" vehicle combined.
Also, surely you realise that there are more far more old diesel vehicles, polluting far more per vehicle than each "dieselgate" VW, still driving around "killing everyone"?
@brendanm: Ok, I know where you're coming from, but it sounds like you're very dismissive of the deceit and cover-ups that car manufacturers have been guilty of. There's no need to compare it to anything else, just apply the law. But yes, if there was any justice in this world, then other polluters would be made to pay somehow but the world is ruled by oligarchs that profit from this pollution :-(
@kahn: I honestly don't care about the lies and deceit. You don't think there are lies and deceit in every part of every industry? Lies and deceit from media outlets, politicians, "influencers", even your own Facebook friends.
They make great power and get great fuel economy. The amount it has altered world emissions is absolutely miniscule. Ridiculously miniscule.
We should be focussing on the massive pollution happening constantly, but instead, as usual, people get all hung up on something they can be outraged by. "Dieselgate" is a much more attention grabbing headline than "coal power stations pollute a lot, but we've been using them forever and we can't use nuclear for some reason, so we will just keep burning coal, but it's ok because we have just reduced the world's enissions by 0.00001% by putting a different tune in a few diesels VW's".
@brendanm: So, according to you, we can't hold companies accountable for unlawful actions if their crimed aren't large enough to account for more than a certain percentage of worldwide damage? If you were charged for stealing $1,000, would you expect the judge to dismiss the charge because your theft accounted for only 0.000000001% of global theft?
Seriously, how do you form such opinions?
@kahn: No, I'm not saying they shouldn't be charged with anything, I'm saying I don't care that they did it. It's some arbitrary law made up by some goose somewhere. Why are they making extremely restrictive emissions laws for everyday people and cars, while everything else can just go crazy?
In your example, it's like saying it's fine for several massive crime syndicates to steal billions upon billions of dollars, but I go to jail for finding a $10 note on the footpath.
They are focussing on the wrong thing, a crap load of things get away with pumping out emissions at a rate of knots because it's "legal", but a tiny percentage of the polluters (light vehicles) are hit with extremely tight laws, then a tiny percetn of that tiny percent puts out a little bit more emissions than rated for, but still orders of magnitude less than anything else, but they should be beaten and punished forever.
Getting VW to reflash a few cars is akin to me putting a small rock in the Murray River and expecting it to create a dam.
I suppose my point at the end of it is, why create insane laws for private vehicles, and let everyone else go nuts. Barry just spent $5000 on a new DPF for his diesel to keep emissions down, meanwhile bhp just produced more emissions running one dump truck for a day than Barry's ute produces the whole year.
people get all hung up on something they can be outraged by
So true.
Palm oil. Yulin Festival. Whaling. Plastic straws. Foie gras. Etc.
@kahn: Because the "importance of this" is ridiculously overblown. The amount of emissions from old vehicles already on the road and not subject to modern emissions standards and from commercial vehicles BOTH (each, not added together) dwarf the additional emissions from the VW and other auto group's defeat devices.
It's like being worried about your additional skin cancer risk from early morning sunlight reflected off of the car in front of you in your daily commute, when you also go nude sunbathing at 2pm, 5 days a week.
@HighAndDry: Yeah, I get it. We can't have laws restricting emissions from new vehicles because old ones are still on the road. You sure like to play devil's advocate, don't you?
@kahn: No, the laws are good. Penalties against VW and others are good and justified. The outrage isn't.
Edit: I think this is a problem with modern day discourse, the lack of nuance. I can disagree with something without being outraged at it. And just I'm not outrage at something doesn't mean I agree with it.
Edit2: It leads to an "us vs them" and black and white mentality which is corrosive to society, and I'll note you're slinging allegations of "you're not outraged at VW - are you working for them/a shill/etc?" which is pretty ridiculous.
@HighAndDry: The outrage is probably more due to the antics by VW head honchos - software tricks, blame rogue engineers, deceive investors, etc.
The outrage is probably more due to
Com'on, you're better than this. Your first comment in this thread mentions ONLY the additional (expected) deaths from the additional emissions and nothing else. From that, your second comment jumps IMMEDIATELY to:
I'm not sure why you're trying to downplay the importance of this. Are you a shareholder in Volskwagen or something?
Anything else is just you trying to rationalize your outrage.
Edit: As a personal rule for myself, I try to be mindful of things which "feels" good, because that in itself can cause bias. Especially in terms of outrage - it might feel cathartic, but that can bias your opinions away from being rational. Someone else said (I'm paraphrasing but I can't take credit): a lot of social media outrage for 'social justice' type of reasons is just because it gives people a guilt-free reason to hate. Hating on a big company is still hate.
Yaris 1.3L auto - 6.4L/100km
1.5L auto - 6.4L/100km
Yeah, there's more fuel efficient cars out there that can fit more people with better comfort.
This. I wouldn't catch an uber in a Yaris. Camry Hybrid would surely be a much better choice.
@Spackbace
Thanks for steering this back to the question although the emissions discussion was quite interesting.
I assume they are the WLTP figures. Does "real life" get anywhere near that?
eg: My 1.8TSi Octavia has a 7.7L/100 combined cycle consumption and I average an actual 8.5L/100km in the worst conditions you can think of (traffic, lots of lights, short trips). When I lived in less congested suburban conditions my long term average was 6.5L/100km and I'd often achieve close around 5L/100km on a long trip (got 4.7L/100km average on the downhill from Canberra to Sydney once).
The Camry Hybrids at work are rated 4.8L/100km and I can usually get close to that without trying too hard.
@brad1-8tsi: To expand on this, I rented a Toyota Aqua in Japan (basically a Prius C), did ~400km of driving (100km ish of Tokyo city driving, 300kmish of highway), and wasn't driving in gently, and got around 4.2L/100km. That was super impressive imo, with 3 guys in the car and plenty of thrashing haha.
How about going a bit older, say 2012, spend under $10k on something a bit larger like a Camry.
Customers will be happier with a bigger car, much more affordable for you now, and you can sell it in a couple of years with less depreciation.
The risk is maintenance, but it's still a toyota so shouldn't give you much trouble.
Would doing financing or using a lender be a better option?
Not driving for Uber (on a car you don't own outright) would be the better option.
Your comment is unnecessarily harsh to someone that's having a crack and trying to better their life.
You may have misread my comment. I'm not criticising OP, I'm criticising Uber as a model. Driving for Uber is a VERY bad option (for OP) in terms of financial stability and viability.
Fair point - I misread your comment.
Instead of driving for Uber why don't you get a truck or bus license and then a truck driving or bus driving job? Surely it would be less stressful day to day to get a normal, regular, predictable income. Unless you're living with your parents rent free and have no dependents or assets.
If there's not many other options outside of uber, why not go uber eats, use your older car and build the income stream to purchase a better vehicle.
Your story sounds extremely like one of my customers who was asking me for advice on uber and renting a car etc. (If your current location was Geelong then I'd be certain, but it looks like you're in Sydney)
everyone who drives for uber gets "over $2k" a week…….. wishful
These guys seem to be geared up specifically for what you need. I make no representations about the quality or predatoryness of their model. I'm not sure that predatoryness is a word but I'm broadly comfortable that you know what I meant.
Generally a deposit is required
Also you'll need an income other than Uber in order to get finance with any of the major lenders (Toyota included)
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/458314
Do you think you'd get finance on that?