US man buys a $5,000 car to rent out on Turo and shares how much he makes from it

A man who bought a $5,000 Volkswagen Passat to use as a side hustle on the car rental site Turo has revealed how much he’s actually made in just one month.

In recent years, plenty of folks have turned to side hustles to bring in a little extra cash. 

Ideally, the side hustle shouldn’t take up too much time or effort, like DoorDashing while using Tesla’s Full Self-Driving. 

Or, in the case of YouTuber Alex Profits, buying a cheap car and renting it out on Turo – but is it actually an easy way to make some extra money?

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He bought a 2015 Volkswagen Passat for $5,000 with one goal in mind

For those unaware, Turo is a ‘car sharing marketplace’, where you can rent anything from pickup trucks to classic sports cars from local hosts. 

Think of it as less like a traditional car rental company and more like Airbnb, but for cars. 

To list on the site, the car must be under 12 years old and have no more than 130,000 miles on the clock. 

Rather than rent out his own daily driver, YouTuber Alex spent $5,000 on a 2015 Volkswagen Passat with 80,000 miles on the clock, for the sole purpose of putting it on Turo. 

After a month, Alex revealed how much it had cost him, and – more importantly – how much he’d earned. 

Firstly, he explained that renters earn between 60 and 90 percent of the day rate advertised on site, depending on the protection plan – the higher the protection, the lower the cut. 

He settled on the 75 percent plan, which came with a $250 deductible. 

There are also some other costs to conisder.

In Alex’s case, these included his insurance at $89 a month, a one-off $50 purchase of a lockbox to hold the car keys, general maintenance costs estimated at about $70, and a car wash subscription costing $19 a month, as all cars rented on Turo must be neat, clean, and tidy. 

In total, Alex said the ongoing monthly costs total $170.

So, how much did he earn on Turo after 30 days?

Alex and his Passat got off to a flying start. 

Within a few hours of posting his car on Turo, Alex got his first booking, earning around $82.93 for two-days rental. 

The booker then failed to turn up to collect the car, but as it was so last-minute, Alex was still paid $60, and the listing went back live. 

The same person then rebooked, and this time they did turn up. 

And that was just the start of an impressive month, with bookings on 23 out of the 30 days.

By the end of the month, Alex had made $650 on Turo. 

So, taking away the $170 spent, he was left with a profit of $480 – or almost 10 percent of what the Passat car to buy. 

Not bad for just 30 days, is it?

And Alex also revealed that the following month had already pulled in plenty of bookings.

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