<p>We've now realized that our D will need a car for her senior year--2013-2014. She'll be doing field experiences and student teaching and public transportation won't be available in most cases. She's in college at the other side of the continent. I'm looking for cost-effective solutions. We could: have her buy a used car, then sell it when she's done. But, I prefer not to have her buy a clunker and run into car troubles. It's not reasonable to drive our used car 2600 miles across the country..... or is it? Then, there is the matter of car registration, CA vs. NY, and also, her license is in CA. Does she HAVE to get a NY drivers' license? Is it possible to do a long-term rental for 9 months, or is that ridiculously pricey? It would be nice to know that she's got a car that works, and obviously a rental would be a new(ish) car. </p>
<p>Also, she really doesn't know where she might end up after graduation, so it's not clear at all that any car driven senior year would be used later. So, we'll focus on the school year need only. Any good ideas from the resourceful parents on this board? Thanks!</p>
<p>Also, most of the national car rental companies offer long term rentals and they are not too bad on price. I had researched this type of rental a year ago ( in the end did not have to go with this option) but the prices were not outrageous. I called a few different companies and negotiated a bit. Look around on the web sites of a few different companies for their long term options. Here is a link for Hertz:
[Monthly</a> Car Rentals by Hertz](<a href=“http://www.hertz.com/rentacar/productservice/index.jsp?targetPage=longtermmonthlyleasecarrental.jsp]Monthly”>Monthly Car Rental | Hertz)</p>
<p>Also, if you have a Costco membership you may want to try for a car rental using the Costco membership. I have had very good luck (and fantastic prices) on car rentals using the Costco membership.</p>
<p>We had similar situation. No easy solution.</p>
<p>I don’t think daughter can rent a car. I believe you have to be 25 or 26?? I think a lease works the same way. Don’t know if you can get a short term lease… or take over someone elses. Plenty of people want to get out of their lease (no longer need the car, want a new one, etc… ) and you take it over for the remaining time frame. Hopefully someone else can give more info on this. I’m not sure if she registers a car in NY if she has to get a new drivers license.</p>
<p>We researched the driver’s license question a few years ago when son was in grad school out of state for 2 years. He drove his home state registered car there and kept his home state license. Something like a student exemption that negated need to get his driver’s license in the new state.</p>
<p>As a student in another state, she can still use her drivers license, and the car can still be registered in your home state. When you visit colleges, many kids bring their cars, their tags are from their home state. They’re not residents of their schools’ states.</p>
<p>DS had one of our cars while he was a grad student. The car was registered in our names. We held the insurance with DS as a driver on our policy. License for car and driver were in our home state. The insurance company knew the car was garaged in the other state with a college student.</p>
<p>We actually did have our kid drive our used car to grad school. It was a 14 hour drive. </p>
<p>Is it possible for someone else to drive out with your daughter and that person could fly home?</p>
<p>College students can maintain their home license and car registration. I would look into the taxing and registration fees in both states to see which one is more affordable, if at all. She will likely need a car after she graduates, won’t she? Why not either give her your used car to drive–and a cross country trip sounds fun–or buy one out there and drive it back at the end of the year.</p>
<p>We gave our kids one of our cars which they drove back and used but it wasn’t as far as you have. We rented a car one summer but a parent had to drive it. </p>
<p>My SIL leases cheap cars for her kids with minimal miles. She had a kid who had 2 years left of school and leased a car for 36 months with idea that he would take over the lease the last year. But I heard that he wasn’t able to keep the mileage down so they may have to change cars. I think she got a deal on a Volkswagen for $150/month and it included oil changes for 3 years. It was a great deal.</p>
<p>This was our situation, too. We are in SoCal; daughter in midwest. We looked into leasing, renting, etc. I also checked into shipping our used Civic to her. We got lots of helpful recommendations from folks on this board, and almost did it. We ended up buying a used car from a local dealer for her. Now we have to figure out how to sell it when she graduates in 6 weeks.</p>
<p>Does your daughter attend school in NYC or outside of NYC? If she is in NYC, it may not even be financially feasible for her to have a car. Free parking is very limited and the cost to park may outweigh any benefits of having a car. While she may not like it, it may be more financially feasible to use mass transit. </p>
<p>Has she looked to get a placement closest to where she attends school or is convenient her for. Some advisors/internship coordinators may say that she must intern at X school (this is mainly because they have to travel to observe her and they and don’t want to be inconvenienced). Let her find a placement wherever she wants, and the advisor/internship coordinator have to worry about driving.</p>
<p>The other advantage of buying locally is that if she does have issues, she has some place she can take it for repairs. You could look into an extended warranty when you buy too so she won’t have to pay for repairs.</p>
<p>Thanks for the ideas! We are leaning towards shipping our used Honda out to her, and we’ll buy another car for ourselves. We know that we can give her the car in tip-top shape, and decide later whether to keep it, sell it… It seems it will cost between $800 to $900 to ship it. However, I have heard some horror stories about shipping companies, so if anyone can recommend a reliable company, that would be great.
No, she’s not in NYC, rather, it’s upstate NY. She will need the car, she’ll need snow tires, and I’m hoping next winter won’t be a very snowy one.</p>
<p>My kid on the other side of the country needed her car so when she was heading back after being here for a week or two break, we did a road trip in her car and I flew back and then reversed that when she was done with the car. I would have been okay with delivering the car to her as well. I’m good with long distance driving though and I don’t mind it. It has some expense though when you calculate the gas and hotel and maybe restaurant costs along with the flight. However, I thought it was fun doing the trip.</p>
<p>If the extra car you have here is in reasonable shape, driving it cross-country like I did is a possibility.</p>
<p>But you need to consider the real costs and decide if she’s better off buying a used car and then selling it when done. Not all used cars are clunkers. In fact, most of them aren’t. The real cost of this will only be the difference between the purchase price and sale price so she can get as decent of a car as she wants as long as the money can be fronted. She might even be able to go to a place like Carmax and see what she can buy and try to get an idea of what they’d likely buy it back from her for 9 months later. This might give her an idea of this cost.</p>
<p>Before you ship your car, I’d say look into national car rental companies again. Very often they will have very low rates for long term rental. Maximum rental is usually 30 days, but you can have back to back multiple 30 day rentals. They may or may not be from the same car rental company. Assuming the monthly car rental cost mere $150 as one of the posters mentioned, I think it would not only make more financial sense to rent, but will provide you, as a parent, more peace of mind as well.</p>
<p>This is how I would evaluate the 2 options:</p>
<p>Rental: $150/month for 9 months = $1350 (maybe she can go without a car for a week between monthly rentals. that will be even less. but lets add more as maybe its $150 one month and $250 another month. add taxes and stuff and make it a round $2,000). Benefits: she does not have to worry about maintenance, repairs, getting it fixed in case of any unfortunate accident, etc. anything wrong with the car, just take it back to the car rental and get another one.</p>
<p>Shipping your used car: $900 for shipping, plus routine maintenance, plus unforeseen repairs, plus other uncertainties.</p>
<p>The overall difference in $$$ might not be any, in fact if you add the cost of getting new snow tires as you mentioned, shipping your car might cost you even more v/s the rental.</p>