The Ultimate Guide to Buying a Used Rideshare Free Car

Guess what, you want to buy a new car, or perhaps a new, used car. It's easy as pie, you just go online and look at some online pages that advertise cars or perhaps you stop over at some of your local dealers. This is the way it has always been done, until 2012. That was the year rideshare came to town and started to create a new problem. Unlike rental companies, taxi's and corporate cars, rideshare cars have no recorded history. This means that a rideshare car is just like any other, however, unlike any other car, rideshare cars are more closely related to taxi's, which means they have been driven a lot, there is a lot of wear and tear. Unlike used commercial cars, rideshare car history will not state that the car was used on a daily basis for hours at a time. Sure, the mileage might be high, but that doesn't state it was used for commercial reasons. As far as a new buyer is concerned, the car could have been owned by a doctor or a pensioner, what the history won't state is that the doctor's son drove it around for hours a day or that the pensioner worked for Uber.

Having stated the above, there are still ways to check out whether your new, used car is really an old rideshare car.

The Carfax File

Carfax does not have rideshare history in its database. So if your car was registered to you personally and not registered to an LLC or another type of corporation, then it will be shown as privately owned. This means that potential buyers will have no idea or knowledge about the rideshare past the car has, unless the seller is totally honest.

According to Chris Basso, Carfax Spokesperson "Personally registered ride-share vehicles, for companies like Uber and Lyft, currently only show as personal use on Carfax."

What to Look For

Unlike standard privately-owned cars, rideshare cars go through a lot of wear and tear, as well as miles. Checking out the status of the car from looking at it and reading the odometer should be enough to raise some warning bells.

Here are some of the tell-tale signs the car was in use for ridesharing driving:

High Mileage : If the car drove more than 40,000 miles a year, this is a sign that it was used for more than just driving to work or weekend trips.

Maintenance History : If the car received more than the usually expected visits to the mechanic's shop, even if it was only for an oil change, then this is also a sign of commercial rather than personal use.

Rear Seats : Check the conditions of the rear seats carefully. If the car was used for ridesharing, then these will show signs of wear and tear much more than the front. Remember that passengers do not care for the car, it's not theirs, so leaving marks, scratches or vomiting is not a problem to them.

Airport Permit: Check to see if the car has a registered airport permit, this is a dead giveaway for rideshare use.

Window Stickers : Check to see if there are any marks left from the removal of windshield stickers, not the usual parking ones, but larger ones. This could be a sign and if they are there, double check for the other signs again.

Car Warranty : Write down the car's VIN number, and don't call the dealer, call up the manufacturer and ask how many more years and miles the car has for its warranty. Some automakers will void certain warranty coverage if the car is used for ride-sharing.

Independent Check : Make sure you take the car to your own mechanic and get an unbiased checkup. Remember, when someone tells you that there is a slight scratch or bump, it means that the car was in a major accident and it's seriously damaged.

There is a good side to rideshare driving cars, most drivers (over 80%) don't drive more than a few rides a month, and usually, stop driving after a few months. This means that their car is not really a rideshare car, it was a quick jaunt into ridesharing and then out again. In this case, it would not be right and fair to state the car was used for ridesharing.

The following roadmap care of aamcocolorado

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Disclosure Requirements

In most states, the vehicles ownership/usage history must be recorded in full, especially when a car is used as a taxi, a limousine, or when it was flooded or stolen. However, the current rules and regulations do not include ridesharing as a mandatory recorded fact of a vehicle's past. This is due to the fact that most ridesharing cars are privately owned, even when someone sets up an LLC, they originally sign up as an individual and their car is registered to them. The only exception to this rule is fleet owners that register their cars to a company and not to themselves.

It might take some time, but eventually, rideshare cars will be required to be registered and recorded in the car history. Until then, you just have to watch out and hope that the person selling you the car is honest enough to say so. Remember, a car's history is a major factor in defining the cars price.

The only state in the US that does a cover for this instance in New York City were rideshare car owners must register their cars as a taxi or a limousine. This is why when you buy a car in NYC, you will be able to see in the cars history that it was used as a taxi.

This is sooo important, and soooo true. Imagine going to buy a used car from a private owner, sure he drove 60,000 miles last year, his work is far from home…and yet! Yup, this is definitely one for the regulators.

The last time I bought my eldest son a car, I went to a “trusty” used car sales site, and yes, I use the word “trusty” carefully. What I liked about the site was that they disclosed everything about the cars history. In one model they told me it was an ex Uber car, and that surprised me because, as this article states, you wouldn’t know that if you just looked at the papers. So I was pleasantly surprised when the salesperson told me this fact. After I bought another car, I asked him why he disclosed the Uber fact. He actually didn’t have an answer, he just said its part of the cars history and they don’t hide facts. Hence “trusty”.

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