by Virginia Fay
posted on March 21, 2018
Sharing idle luxury cars
From growing up working on his father’s prized 1964 MG Roadster to his newest purchase of a BMW M4, Jon N. has been a car guy his whole life. And on Turo, he prides himself on being the Audi guy.
Living in Bethesda, Maryland, Norris started renting his Audi S5 on Turo in November 2017 after learning about the opportunity on Facebook and realizing that with two Audis gathering dust most of the time while he worked from home, it might make sense to get more use out of them.
He spent about 10 minutes putting together his profile, and then let it slip his mind. “About a week went by, and the app notified me of a rental, and I looked at it and was like ‘oh yeah, totally forgot I did this!’” Norris says. But it was a happy surprise: with his first weekly rental, he had a few hundred extra bucks in his pocket, and hit it off with his first guest.
After a busy first month of rentals with the S5, he made a decision that surprised his family: he decided to take his Audi Q7 out from under the cover where it lived in the garage and shared it, too. The 2015 sports edition had been his baby (his two kids aren’t allowed to eat or drink in it), but after a series of smooth rentals with the S5, he decided to share both luxury vehicles on Turo.
“If you talk to any of my family members or my kids, they would say I’m kind of crazy about [the Q7],” Jon says with a laugh. But with the car paid off, he thought, “it was just sitting there, and I was like ‘man, I could actually be making money?’”
A car enthusiast himself, Norris makes it a point to deliver impeccably clean vehicles to his guests. After realizing that taking the cars to get washed was time consuming and not up to his standards, he purchased a power washer and gradually started building an arsenal of cleaning products and watching YouTube tutorials on professional detailing. He now has a full detailing outfit at home and a process in place — which wins points when his wife wants her Infiniti SUV washed. “It’s awesome because my wife loves it, and I love doing it! And it looks like it just came from a car show,” Norris says.
His guests appreciate it, too — he’s had several repeat customers over the roughly five months he’s been listing his Audis, including a semi professional basketball player from Europe who travels for tournaments, and a Louisiana resident who visits his fiancée in DC every few weeks. Locals book both the Q7 and S5 when they’re interested in purchasing the same model and want to make sure it’s a good fit. Once, a family booked the Q7 before relocating to the area and Norris introduced them to a good friend who’s a realtor and helped them find a house in Northern Virginia.
With both Audis consistently booked, Norris has now invested in a BMW M4 to drive — though that one’s not going on Turo just yet. But he does plan to use Turo to continue fueling his love of luxury cars: he’s looking forward to joyriding soon in a Tesla shared on Turo.
If you’re in the Baltimore area, be sure to join us for tonight’s community party at Max’s Taphouse, or tomorrow night at our DC community party at the National Union Building. See you there!
Virginia Fay
Virginia is equally enamored with words and globetrotting. Whenever possible, she likes to combine the two through travel writing to help other wanderers discover and fall in love with the world.
