Vancouver man shares ‘dangerous’ Turo carshare experience, claims safety issues

A Vancouver man says he’s been left disappointed and concerned after renting a mini-van through Turo for a recent trip to Whistler.

Trevin claims the vehicle had multiple safety issues, and says the company — labelled by some as the AirBnB of carsharing because people rent out their personal cars on the platform — is refusing to compensate him appropriately.

Given there were eight people heading up to the mountain resort on this trip, he booked a Honda Odyssey mini-van.

But the drive up to the resort was anything but comfortable, with the local man claiming safety lights were all over the dash, and the mini-van would shake with any sort of significant acceleration or braking.

“As we started driving, my friend noticed all the warning lights on the dashboard,” Trevin told CityNews in an interview. “It included a faulty traction control system, there was an engine warning light, and a forward collision system broken warning, low tire pressure, just a whole bunch of bad stuff, basically. Stuff that was never represented in the photos we were given of the car.”

He says he then reached out directly to the owner.

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“We called the owner, and he insisted that it was okay and that the flashing lights were a false alarm from a collision that the car was involved in earlier, which we were not informed about at all,” Trevin said.

“As we were driving, on our way to Whistler, we [realized the problems] were real. The car was chugging or having really bad performance when we were accelerating and braking. We could tell there was problems with the suspension, and problems with the sparkplugs, based on the way it was chugging.

“We contacted Turo and the only response we got from them was to return the car for a refund, otherwise they can’t help us. But at that point, we were basically well on our way to driving to Whistler, and we didn’t really have a choice, because we were depending on having a functioning car to get to Whistler, to get to all our bookings and the AirBnB. We also talked to the owner, and he was not helpful at all. He gave us the option to return it for a refund, or go and fix the spark plugs ourselves and then he would reimburse us.”

CityNews brought Trevin’s situation to Turo, and the company provided this statement:

“Turo makes great effort to ensure the safety of all vehicles listed on the site. Each vehicle must meet our rigorous eligibility standards for safety, condition, and operations before it can be made available to book. Our claims team is currently in contact with the guest and is actively investigating.”

But a company investigation is news to the Vancouverite, who says efforts to get compensation had failed — with Turo asking him to speak with the owner — and the owner suggesting he speak with the company. That’s why he contacted CityNews. He says all he was offered was a $50 credit, which doesn’t cover the costs of what he paid.

“I asked for compensation from the owner for providing us with a faulty, dangerous car that he misrepresented,” he said. “He agreed to give me some kind of compensation. Instead, he filed a damage claim which only investigates if the renter, so if I have done any damage. So far it’s done nothing. They found me innocent. They closed the claim, and Turo have not followed up with any compensation. The owner has not followed up at all with any compensation, any communication. I called Turo customer support multiple times. They keep insisting that they can’t do anything. That’s basically the situation I’m in right now.”

Trevin says he won’t be using Turo again.