Jeep rental business

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We were in the Gatlinburg area this past week and the place we were staying was right around the corner from a Jeep rental place. I counted 14 jeeps on his lot. Mostly JK's, a couple JKUs, and 2 really really nice looking TJs. We drove past his place several times a day and I really never saw more than a couple off his lot at a time. Maybe mid-July isn't prime season? Or maybe it's just hard to compete against the SxS rentals? Or maybe he had more inventory that was out whenever we drove by. IDK. 2 doors (either JK or TJ) were $199/day and the JKUs were $299/day. Seems like each jeep would only need to be rented 4 or 5 days out of the month to pay for itself, with enough capacity & margin to deal with the TJ's constantly breaking down, lol.

Regardless, it seems like a fun business, although I'm not sure how much money he actually makes. Get to live in the mountains, get to acquire lots of jeeps, get to work on them (although he may send them out for service, idk), and drive whichever one you want on any given day. I'm sure dealing with customers who get them stuck or abuse them is the dark side of the job. But such is life. I think I found my retirement gig.


I'm an idiot and didn't take any pictures.


There was also a company that had modded JKU's to fit more people in a raised rear bed thing for mountain tours. One lot had 18 of them when we rolled by after hours, and I saw them all over so they were definitely getting booked. That's a lot of capital expense, although when you consider the math it makes good sense. Even if you bought it brand new and financed it for 5 years you'd have something like a $1000/month payment. It's ~$500 to book the whole thing for a ~3 hr tour. You'd only need to book one jeep twice a month to cover your payment, and then buy as many as demand covers your expense. Obviously gas, insurance, staff, marketing, etc all come into play, but if you've covered your captial expense with 2 rentals/month it seems like these companies are pretty much printing money. Apparently this company or brand operates in lots of touristy areas...I can see why.
 
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I don't see anything majorly wrong with your thought process. I've thought about doing the same in Colorado, but you'd have to make your whole year between June and September. Thought about supplementing with mechanic work (probably 4x4 specific) but I hate fixing other people's junk.
 
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it seems like these companies are pretty much printing money. Apparently this company or brand operates in lots of touristy areas...I can see why.

Thats some simplified math. I own a small business, people never factor in all the extra expenses. Think about commercial insurance and liability renting off road toys. I know how much money I have in my Jeep repairs and I care about my Jeep. Also ad in advertising expense, storage fees, employees and what ever else. Not saying it's not a money maker but that $1000 a month I'd guess is a lot closer to 5k-10k per month
 
Thats some simplified math. I own a small business, people never factor in all the extra expenses. Think about commercial insurance and liability renting off road toys. I know how much money I have in my Jeep repairs and I care about my Jeep. Also ad in advertising expense, storage fees, employees and what ever else. Not saying it's not a money maker but that $1000 a month I'd guess is a lot closer to 5k-10k per month

just having to have employees is enough to kill it...ask me how i know...lol
 
Thats some simplified math. I own a small business, people never factor in all the extra expenses. Think about commercial insurance and liability renting off road toys. I know how much money I have in my Jeep repairs and I care about my Jeep. Also ad in advertising expense, storage fees, employees and what ever else. Not saying it's not a money maker but that $1000 a month I'd guess is a lot closer to 5k-10k per month

Not looking for a fight here but didn't I mention most of those things, specifically? The $1k number was just the carrying cost of the loan on the jeep if you didn't own it outright. The point was that if you cover your capital expense with just 2 rentals (which you can do in a single day) then the other 30 days of the month cover the operating expenses & profits. Obviously there is a seasonality to it as well.

The majority of my repairs are due to either a component being 25 years old which tends to be a replace it and forget it type of expense, or damage incurred on the trails which isn't really a factor in this model since 95% of the rentals are to families who want to see the mountains in something other than their Prius. If I'm the owner I have GPS on all of them so I know when they go offroad, although I didn't see much in the way of accessible trails (with the caveat that I'm not Cortez and I may have not explored the entirety of the forest, but the NP area is surely not allowing any trail riding).
 
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I’ve rented Jeeps and Razors in Colorado and live in the southeast, so we go to Gatlinburg a lot. Gatlinburg is booming- you can do so much on foot, and has practically no real trails- but it does have some gorgeous drives and views. @Hog and I will be back there one the statute of limitations expires and the hotel owner drops all charges.

I know nothing about the ROI (return on investment) in vehicle rental but it is a viable industry- with pleasure vehicles it is location sensitive and no question in some areas Razors are competition.
 
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Not looking for a fight here but didn't I mention most of those things, specifically? The $1k number was just the carrying cost of the loan on the jeep if you didn't own it outright. The point was that if you cover your capital expense with just 2 rentals
No fight here. The "Companies are printing money" comment was what got my attention. Saying two rentals
Not looking for a fight here but didn't I mention most of those things, specifically? The $1k number was just the carrying cost of the loan on the jeep if you didn't own it outright. The point was that if you cover your capital expense with just 2 rentals (which you can do in a single day) then the other 30 days of the month cover the operating expenses & profits. Obviously there is a seasonality to it as well.

The majority of my repairs are due to either a component being 25 years old which tends to be a replace it and forget it type of expense, or damage incurred on the trails which isn't really a factor in this model since 95% of the rentals are to families who want to see the mountains in something other than their Prius. If I'm the owner I have GPS on all of them so I know when they go offroad, although I didn't see much in the way of accessible trails (with the caveat that I'm not Cortez and I may have not explored the entirety of the forest, but the NP area is surely not allowing any trail riding).

Comment you made was "it'd be like printing money". Like I said, I'm sure theres money but the 2 rentals a month for carrying cost is low end of combined expenses.
 
I’ve rented Jeeps and Razors in Colorado and live in the southeast, so we go to Gatlinburg a lot. Gatlinburg is booming- you can do so much on foot, and has practically no real trails- but it does have some gorgeous drives and views. @Hog and I will be back there one the statute of limitations expires and the hotel owner drops all charges.

I know nothing about the ROI (return on investment) in vehicle rental but it is a viable industry- with pleasure vehicles it is location sensitive and no question in some areas Razors are competition.

I seriously doubt that will be anytime soon either!!!!!! I still cannot believe y'all actually pulled that one off without getting caught!!!!!!
 
No fight here. The "Companies are printing money" comment was what got my attention. Saying two rentals


Comment you made was "it'd be like printing money". Like I said, I'm sure theres money but the 2 rentals a month for carrying cost is low end of combined expenses.

Not combined expenses, just the cost of the jeep payment. I've said it several times but you keep thinking I'm saying you can retire on 2 days of rentals. It's probably best to just move on from this topic.
 
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Not combined expenses, just the cost of the jeep payment. I've said it several times but you keep thinking I'm saying you can retire on 2 days of rentals. It's probably best to just move on from this topic.

I get you. Most times I see Jeep rentals they're under the same roof with another business...an RV park, cabin rentals, 4x4 repair. I think once you have enough revenue to keep the business open, adding jeep rentals adds a high margin product to your offering.
 
We drove past his place several times a day and I really never saw more than a couple off his lot at a time. Maybe mid-July isn't prime season? Or maybe it's just hard to compete against the SxS rentals?

I can tell you this much, vacation rentals seem to be down quite noticeably this year. I'm guessing it's economy/job related. We frequent a beach town (family member has a house) and the typical crowd just isn't there this year. The week of July 4th is usually packed, but this year was quite nice as it was more like a spring time crowd. Friends that live there are saying similar, and told me that many cancelations are happening. I'm guessing this affects the mountain tourist areas as well, which is probably why he had so many rentals sitting.
 
I can tell you this much, vacation rentals seem to be down quite noticeably this year. I'm guessing it's economy/job related. We frequent a beach town (family member has a house) and the typical crowd just isn't there this year. The week of July 4th is usually packed, but this year was quite nice as it was more like a spring time crowd. Friends that live there are saying similar, and told me that many cancelations are happening. I'm guessing this affects the mountain tourist areas as well, which is probably why he had so many rentals sitting.

We have an AirBnB and we’re looking at a 50% revenue drop this year. I think part of it is with rona etc everybody ended up with extra vacation budget this year. We’ve had multiple friends take big vacations, Europe etc. I figure that’s eating into our market.
 
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