renting out rv

soren wrote:

Seriously, that has what exactly to do with renting your rig out to random strangers on Craigslist? In our case, the kid next door, his wife and baby are using our Class A for a week this summer, and I doubt it will give me the urge to let total strangers ruin it. When you have been to a national park and repeatedly watch European tourists smash tree branches with the cabover on a Class C rental, and use the stinkly slinky rinse hose to fill the fresh water tank. When you are parking cars at a Nascar race, as a volunteer with your Boy Scout troop, and watch ten drunk idiots dancing on the top of their rental. When you see a Cruise America pass you on the interstate at darn close to triple digit speeds. When you find an owner who is trying to get rid of the cat pee stank, or paying the bill to reupholster what the renter's dog ate, well THEN you decide if it's the same as loaning the thing to the folks at church. I rented a Cruise America rig, that was at the end of it's service life, and about to head in for "refurbishing". I can assure you that it isn't a pretty sight. It was beyond beat up, and full of funky stains, and roach traps. Not how I live my life, and not how I would allow others to do so, in my equipment.

As for "how rental companies stay in business?" Well, it's a lot like my local equipment rental outfit. That place pays $1500 for a tiller, and rents it out for a few years at $80 bucks a pop. Once it's been used a couple of hundred times, they sell it for $5-600. A place like Cruise America is similar but huge in scale. They contract a manufacturer to build hundreds of custom designed and specified rigs at a time. Collect a couple of hundred grand in rental income during each unit's service life, then resell then. This business model has got as much to do with you renting your personal rig, as you piloting a single engine small plane a few hours a year does with being a 767 pilot for a major airline.