SnappCar: what should you look out for?
In recent years, new initiatives to rent or lease a car have sprung up like mushrooms. Via, among others, SnappCar English MyWheels Is it possible, for example, to rent out your own car, or to rent a car from someone else?.
But what do you need to pay attention to when you car hire begins via SnappCar?
What is Snappcar?
SnappCar is an online platform where car owners and people without cars can find each other. People who don't own a car but want to use one for a day or a weekend, for example, can rent one here (from their neighbours, for instance!). The idea for this platform comes from the discovery that in the Netherlands, 8 million cars stand idle for an average of 23 hours a day!
The benefits of SnappCar for car owners
Using SnappCar offers many benefits for car owners who don't often drive their own car but find it frequently sitting idle outside their home. Below are the main advantages of SnappCar.
Saving on fixed monthly costs
As a car owner, you can save a lot on your save costs when you don't drive your own car much. This is because you have many monthly costs, regardless of whether you drive the car or not. For example, you pay every month the car insurance, road tax and a Parking permit for your car. By renting out your car on the days you're not using it yourself, you earn money to cover these monthly costs.
You decide the rental price yourself
At SnappCar You determine the price yourself. that you want to have for renting out your car. Tenants pay SnappCar €10 per day, this includes insurance and brokerage fees. As a landlord you pay 17.5% commission of the amount for which you rent out the car. Depending on how often you rent out the car, you can therefore earn some extra money.
You decide who rides in your car
As a car owner, you are not obliged to accept every rental request on SnappCar. Both renter and owner must agree. Therefore, SnappCar cannot force you as a car owner to rent out your car when it is available for rent.
At SnappCar, the car is insured all-risk.
Bij elke verhuurtransactie wordt de auto door een medewerker van het verhuurbedrijf samen met de huurder geïnspecteerd en wordt de staat van de auto genoteerd op een inventarislijst. automatically insured against theft, vandalism, damage, and liability for all of Europe. This means that when you rent a car out to someone who is going abroad for a longer period, you don't have to worry about the insurance. Accompanying passengers are also insured.
Please note that you must inform your own car insurance provider when you are going to rent out your car via SnappCar, this is mandatory.
Are there any downsides?
Because SnappCar acts as an intermediary for car rentals, there are also other factors that you as a renter and owner are dependent on before you can rent a car.
Limited supply outside the Randstad
As it turns out research of the Consumers' Association that it Car offers outside the Randstad can be disappointing at times. This means that a car is not always available to rent everywhere.
Last-minute rentals can sometimes be tricky.
When you as a renter make a request via SnappCar to rent a car, you remain dependent on whether the car owner responds. It regularly happens that your rental request is only responded to after a few days, which leads to a high degree of uncertainty when hiring a car just before you need it.
Potential risk to others
Even though additional insurance is included in the price, as the car owner, you run a risk if the renter causes damage to another party. There is a chance that the victim's insurer will (temporarily) claim the amount from you personally. This is because this insurer sends a letter of liability to your insurer based on RDW data (this is not mentioned in SnappCar's additional insurance).
Rental requests can be declined
For the car owner, this is clearly an advantage, as they do not have to accept every rental request, allowing them to decide who drives their car. For the potential car renter, this is definitely a disadvantage because they cannot be sure they will actually be able to rent the car. Therefore, when submitting a rental request via SnappCar, you are not yet certain that you will indeed be able to use the car.
Read our too Complete comparison of all car-sharing services.
SnappCar is growing!
SnappCar makes good use of the latest trends in the startup world. For example, they use crowdfunding to raise money to grow the company. New features on the website or international growth, they are busy with it. For example, it has SnappCar recently acquired a Danish competitor and there are concrete growth plans for other European countries.
Do you have any further questions or remarks about the differences between renting a car via SnappCar van traditionele autoverhuurbedrijven? Plaats hieronder jouw reactie.
5 responses
Snappcar is the future! I truly believe this is going to take off and really hope they survive. Sharing = caring! Ownership will become less and less important!!!
I would still like to own my own car. I don't trust others to mess with it. Therefore, it will never be entirely the future! There will always be people like me who value ownership.
Dear Hugo,
I share the same opinion as you. Sharing is the future, not only for modern cars but also for classic cars, for example. We recently launched a new car-sharing platform for old cars for celebratory occasions. For more information, visit loyaltyride.nl. Many enthusiastic landlords and tenants – after all, there's nothing better than this, is there?
Kind regards, Seth
The information in this article is all very outdated. The article by the Consumers' Association is from 2013. Also, the commission for Snappcar is not 17.5% but a fixed amount per rental price (I think something like 5 euros). I myself have good experiences with Snappcar, I regularly rent a car there because I only have a bicycle myself.
Dear Niels,
Thank you very much for your sharp eye and pen. We have done some further research and indeed see that the information is incorrect. We will look into it more deeply and will amend the message.