My not so pleasant experience with the Turo car sharing platform

The host all the while was apologetic. What my wife and I were worried about was someone noticing a stranded car and stealing it.

BHPian amolbh recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I've been a lurker on T-BHP for the past few years but felt strongly enough about Turo that I logged in to respond.

I am writing from memory so there might be some gaps or omissions.

The incident is from April of 2023, in a town called Lowell in the suburbs of Boston, MA. This incident caused my wife and I to lose the only weekend away from work during our week long trip when we were working from a hotel. I was on vacation with my wife, and had rented a Fiat 500 for a week or so, from a host in Boston who listed cars on Turo as a business. The car was in decent shape physically, although the tires seemed a bit worn out.

On the second or third day with the car, while driving on a bumpy road (a major street which I have driven on dozens of times in a bunch of different cars FYI), I hit a pothole which caused a flat tire making the car immobile. This was on a Friday evening around 5pm.

Right after stopping on the side of the road, I called the host, who asked me to contact Turo customer support. The support rep took almost 40 minutes after starting the call to ask the first relevant question about the problem (where am I located at the moment). The questions he continued asking made me think he hasn't paid any attention to what I was saying. Also most of the reps kept putting my call on hold every now and then for no reason, making me believe that they were handling multiple calls at once.

A tow truck showed up almost two hours after the initial call to Turo, and towed the car to a town called Lawrence which was about 30 minutes away. The tow truck guy mentioned I need to accompany the tow truck, but he doesn't have place for me and my wife. We had to separately follow the truck in an Uber. The car was towed to a garage in a shady neighborhood, and the garage took a while to get to seeing the car, only to tell me they don't have the right sized tire, and that all 4 will need to be changed. I said it's not my decision, and called Turo. Turo said that they will send another truck to tow the car to a different garage. I asked Turo if I can leave, and they said that I am responsible for the car and it would be better if I stayed with it.

So the garage owner took my car out and left it on the side of the main road. My wife and I decided to sit inside waiting for the next tow truck.

Upon asking Turo for an ETA on the tow truck, I was quoted as 2 hours, which would've been 10PM or so. Each time, it was me getting on a call, clicking menu options, answering the same 5-10 questions to establish my identity, and having to narrate the entire back story to a new rep, only to have them talk to me in the most uninterested dull tone as possible. They were mostly not fluent in English which is unacceptable in a customer facing role.

My wife and I waited, with subsequent calls having Turo mentioning that it's hard to find a tow truck. We asked Turo if we can call a tow truck ourself and get reimbursed, they said it is against their insurance to do so. Meanwhile, we saw tow trucks passing us on the road ever so often.

At 11:30 we finally had it, and called Turo asking it we can actually expect a truck, and they said yes we mentioned two hours ETA means it should be there by 1AM. I said that they have been saying two hours for a while now. I notified Turo that I want a confirmation that a truck will come, since I will be traveling to the airport to get another rental car, and whether I should return to Lawrence, or head home. The rep had the guts to say that she will write that I am abandoning the car! And this is when I mentioned that it's been over six hours that the car is broken down, and that I am traveling all the way to BOS from Lawrence in an Uber on my own dime to come back and check in on a car that neither the host nor Turo has shown any concern for.

My wife and I still went back to Lawrence (after traveling to the airport and getting an Avis rental) and waited until 1:30AM in the night (without having dinner) only to not have a tow truck arrive per the ETA. We decided to call it a night, and go back to catch up on some sleep. En route, we ended up on a street blocked by gangs, and thank God I had the alertness to realize what's going on and reversed the heck out of the street like some kind of a stunt car driver.

On Saturday at noon, we drove back to that place only to find the car still standing on the side of the road. We tried our luck with the host, who was aghast learning that we are still being expected to stick around with the car. He was unable to come to the car as he was out of town and didn't have staff over the weekend.

On a conference call with the host and Turo, all we got was incoherent sentences from Turo support, but with the statement that I am still responsible for the car. (One that gave up on me, 18 hours later, in a different town, 15 hours after I was promised it would be towed!)

All I and the host asked Turo was to tow the car to the host, get my name off the reservation, refund my money, and send it to me in writing that Turo will take care of the car and that I am free from having to mind it. But no. It seemed like a herculean task for the Turo reps to understand and follow this.

This PITA continued all through the next day (Sunday) as well, with promises of a truck coming some time soon, with my wife and I driving from Lowell to Lawrence twice a day to check on the car. There were multiple instances where either the Turo host or I lost cool and yelled at a dumb Turo rep from not understanding the situation.

The host all the while was apologetic. What my wife and I were worried about was someone noticing a stranded car and stealing it, since Turo asked us to keep the keys on the dash! The other worry was the Monday morning was a street sweeping day and the car might get ticketed/towed by the city.

30+ hours after first contact, the car was ultimately towed and the host sent me a confirmation that he has the car with him.

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