One year of car sharing with John
Originally from Blackpool, musician and entertainer John and his wife are now semi-retired and living in Coventry. John has been sharing his Land Rover Range Rover Evoque with Karshare since July 2021. John's ethos is “If it’s sitting there doing nothing, it might as well be out really!” - we couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
Together, John and his wife have two cars that they need for their part-time work. However, the Range Rover Evoque isn’t used every day of the week, which is why they decided to join Karshare. The car is only available to rent when it suits him, as he makes it work around his schedule as a part-time charity fundraiser. “I’ve been working around 3 days a week, Monday to Wednesday, but the car is always set as available on the weekend. My wife has a little runaround car, so we can use that if the other car is out on a rental.”
Car owners can set their car’s availability for rentals via the Karshare app and block out days on the calendar when they want to use it. “I was a bit confused at the start when setting the car as unavailable, but now I’ve learnt more about it and know how to use it, no problem. I spoke to someone from the team who took me through the process and got me set up!”
“The Karshare team’s very good, they’ve been really helpful throughout!”
When John and his wife jet off on holidays, they make the car available to rent and can secure longer bookings while they’re away. “My children live abroad, my son lives in Vietnam and my daughter in Ibiza, so we’ve just had a couple of weeks away and we’re going away for the whole of September.
“I set the car as available when I’m off on holiday as well.”
Averaging £86 per rental and £324 each month for the past year, he says “the rental demand is fine for us. We’re both retired, so it’s always handy to have a bit more income coming in!”.
After 12 months with Karshare, John is a great person to share advice on the realities of sharing your car with your community. “All in all, the renters are good! If car sharing is what you want to do, you’ve got to be prepared for a little bit of wear and tear, but you’re told about that before you join. We had a bump while I was away on holiday and someone from Karshare in Birmingham took it and got it all repaired, so everything gets done that needs doing and anything major is always sorted, no problem.”
“I’ve been really happy with it, otherwise I wouldn’t have kept sharing my car for the past year!”
The driver telematics provided by KarshareGo is also a real benefit for John -
“One thing I like about Karshare is the easiness of the app. You get an email and information on the app whenever you have a rental, and the box fitted in the car tells you everything! It tells you the amount of petrol in the car, the number of miles that have been driven and without looking at the sat nav, it’ll tell you where they’ve been - all the information is there, it’s tremendous really!”
Car sharing is flexible to suit John’s personal schedule and enables him and his wife to boost their income by renting out a car that would otherwise be sat idle for four days of the week.
If you want to start sharing your car like John, you can check your vehicle’s eligibility here or book a chat with one of the team today.
For residents in Coventry Council postcodes with ULEZ-compliant cars, there are 14 free KarshareGo boxes (worth £195) up for grabs from Transport for West Midlands, so don't miss out!
Interested in renting John’s Land Rover Range Rover Evoque? Click here to rent the car.
