Rent a car or drive your truck?

So this is something me and my pops have argued about since I first learned how to drive. To this day he still shakes his head at me

I do a lot of road trips and love to travel! I’ve done many trips where I’ve traveled across a few states and of course, the miles eventually start to add up. The convenience of a rental is great, you don’t put as much wear and tear on your vehicle and if anything happens it isn’t yours anyways. But there’s just something about traveling in your own truck, making memories and taking those pictures by the “welcome to” signs. I figure cars are meant to be driven, and hopefully live past 200k.

Where do you guys all fall under? Rental car? Or drive your own rig?

 

I wonder when people will realize there are other sub forums to this site that this could be categorized in.


I'm in the group of just driving my own vehicle on longer drives. To me the cost of paying for a rental doesn't offset the amount of miles it will add.

 

I'm in the 'just drive my own vehicle' crowd as well. All the longer trips we plan are based around using the truck anyway - we always try to find some national forest land or similar to camp on, rather than hotels or anything like that.

 

sorry, mods please move if need be

 

I once was given a loaner car the night before we went on a 3.5k mile road trip. It was awesome. My wife's Audi had an issue under warranty. We were given a new A4 with like 1300 miles. They knew how many miles we were going and said it was fine. I loved it. Completely stress free.

You won't be ahead financially, but if it ease's your mind. Go for it.

 

I bought the truck to drive it. I love putting miles on my vehicles, that means I am using what I bought. Would you rent an apartment to save wear and tear on your house?

 

I like taking my truck on the long drives, but only when it is for a "adventure"-y trip. If I have to drive to southern utah or wherever for a wedding or something that is just an out and back, I'll rent a shitty kia . Way better gas mileage, and becomes "the fastest prerunner car in the world" on graded gravel roads.

 

Be careful taking a rental car on a road trip. Some companies won't let the car outside state lines without authorization and if you're in an incident in an area they don't want you to be in, you could be on the hook. I learned about that after I took a rental car on a road trip. I didn't have an incident, but I was curious after the fact and did some reading about that.

If you do get a rental, make sure it's comfortable. When my Tacoma was wrecked and I was waiting for the new one, I got a Nissan Juke as a rental. Since it got good gas mileage the wife and I took it on a 6 hour road trip to keep miles off her new car. It was the worst mistake we made in quite some time. It was the sheer definition of uncomfortable and it did not have a center arm rest. We got out of the car at the hotel and had planned on going into the city to check things out and we weren't speaking with each other by the time we got to the hotel.

Worst. idea. ever.

 

I would take my truck, enjoy the ride and save the money for my next truck!

 

I'm sitting over her trying to plan as many trips as possible to see how many miles I can put on my vehicle. I never understand why buy a vehicle if you are worried about miles. Either you bought the wrong vehicle or you worried about resale which is mute point if you keep a vehicle 10+ years.

 

Glad to see I’m not alone! I put 1k miles in about 2 weeks doing a few small trips. When I went to my dads house so he can checkout the truck he freaked out

 

My 05 will fetch 18-20k the first day I put it up in my area. So I'd say resale is halfway decent after 10+ years. 81k miles.

 

I wouldn't doubt it! Thats why I bought new bc used was ridiculous. Resale is more base on make and model for example tacomas and jeep wranglers. I guess my point would be what would the value difference let say if you sold your truck at 100k. $1-2k? How much would a rent cost if you put 20k miles on a vehicle?

 

I see what you're saying. Probably not much difference.

My wife has always driven car's where it makes more sense to take hers. It doesn't get too many miles and I have the luxury of living 3 miles from work.

 

Dang man... you really put it into perspective lol.

Sounds like my pops though. I mean I love the man but we don’t see eye to eye on some things. He has an 08 F150 with a little under 40k miles. I’ve had 2 cars within those 10 years and both surpassed that a loooong Time ago lol. To each their own of course, I just don’t understand it and was curious if anyone else was like that, or not.

 

Most definitely! Although being my dad I hear it all the time. I get the good ol’ dad lecture when I stop by the house lol

 

I kept my 2004 Tundra like some sort of museum piece. I use any excuse to drive my Tacoma. Life is too short, enjoy your truck!

 

IMO the majority of people who rent cars out to go on long trips are the people/families who have smaller cars or have newly bought expensive luxury cars they don't want to get dirty. Tacoma's are sorta "lifestyle" vehicles so I think people love taking them out to go explore especially the members in this forum. Just my .02 though.

 

My wife thinks the same way which is all good but I'm that guy that triple check my truck every time I walk away. I even go outside just to look at my truck in the drive way bc I love staring.

 

A ol' car guy once told me that if you don't look back at your car/truck every time you walk away from it, you chose the wrong vehicle!

I've been busted several times by other people taking pictures of my own truck in parking lots. Shameless.