Let’s talk a little bit more in depth about what it takes to run your own business as a Rideshare Driver, yes, that topic every Driver doesn’t like to talk about: car expenses, car depreciation, miles, tires, etc.
When I started driving for a Rideshare company in 2015, the company that catches my eye was Uber, I didn’t know much about the company the only thing I knew was that you didn’t need to have a taxi cab license to start driving for them, so I went ahead and submitted my driver application, after a couple of weeks waiting for my background check to clear I got the green light to go and take my car to a mechanic shop for a multipoint inspection, at that time my car was a 2010 Nissan Versa, I choose the closest one to me, that was the parking lot of the Eureka building, the Uber employees where working under a 10’ by 10’ tent with no AC in the summer of SoCal really humble beginnings.
I started working the same day I got my account activated, I still remember my first ride like it was yesterday. I was overly excited. So the weeks went by, I started working more and more hours with different days and times to see what fits me better, I worked the morning commute, the after schools hours, evenings, weekdays and weekends and when the first mayor Holliday got here (Halloween), I notice I was putting at least 1,000 miles a week, It was crazy, I was pumping 10 gallons of gas every other day, I started noticing that my ride wasn’t as comfortable as it was before very bumpy, every crack in the freeway was feeling deeply in the cabin also I notice that my engine oil life was going down a lot faster than usual.
This is when I had to start facing mayor maintenance in my car starting with
- New set of tires ($450)
- Shock replacement ($360+ labor)
- Lower control arms replacement ($300+labor)
- Brake pad and discs replacement ($150 per axel + labor)
- Car wash ($10 twice a week)
- Oil change ($70 every 6 weeks)
- Wheel bearings ($50 x 4+ labor)
And the list goes on, some of the items had to be done twice a year, on top of all the gas expenses and meals away from home , the only savings I was getting is that I have the skills and tools to do most of it myself but not everyone is a lucky as I am, so I started to think if this job was suitable for me, I was spending a lot of money back in to the car in just maintenance plus my car wasn’t getting any younger.
A year and a half went by, my car had more than 130,000 miles (I started with less than 70,000) in less than 2 years I put almost twice the amount of miles than the previous 5 years by that time my car didn’t hold up any resale value.
