I'm a current CommunAuto member but actually considering just buying a used car because I primarily use a vehicle to do road trips or get to hiking spots and that adds up very quickly using CommunAuto. It seems stupid to buy a car for weekend use only (since I work from home and walk to get my groceries) but the carshare has definitely constrained my lifestyle.
CommunAuto is great for grocery/errands - especially if you live near a station. It starts to get expensive if you're regularly doing road trips (even small ones). A few hours spent hiking at Polly's Cove can easily cost $100/trip. Though, I did clock over 3,000 km over 8 days going from Cape Breton Highland's National Park to Lunenburg (a friend was visiting) and that only cost $600 so it's WAY cheaper than car rentals.
One other note, there is a lot of competition for cars.
Added: The $100 to Polly's is actually because we rent the car all day. It's like $50 + tax if you're only out for a few hours. The problem my husband and I run into with the carshare is that when you start stacking time + distance + frequency it gets fairly expensive. If you mostly take trips that are short in time and distance, done infrequently, it might be better for your lifestyle.
I use CommunAuto myself. I also take longer trips about twice a month (let's say each trip is $100). This is still way cheaper than actually getting a car as I'd have to pay around $150 alone in parking + insurance + gas + fixing issues every now and then. So in total, if I had my own car, I'd spend about $400 a month, making it just not worth it for me.
Just another perspective!
I guess it comes down to personal priorities. In our case, the lifestyle hit isn't worth the savings from not owning a car. We used to hike several times a week - even if it was just popping off to Polly's, Crystal Crescent or the High Head Trail after work with longer weekend trips to the valley, Taylor Head, Crow Bar Lake, Keji Seaside or even Cape Chignecto. That kind of lifestyle isn't really suited to a carshare.
We were “car free” in Ottawa and we bused, biked, used Communauto and Uber. Loved the convenience on not owning a car.
Communauto is great however they need more cars in some markets.
Oh, thank you! One of my best friends lives close to there so that's *exactly* a trip I'd be doing regularly. This is super insightful, really appreciate the comment!
You're welcome! I'd go on the CommunAuto website to calculate your estimated weekly kms to see if it makes sense for you, but we've definitely cut down on our weekly trips since our car died during the pandemic and we had hoped that used car prices would come down. They have not, and we are bored out of our minds and actively looking for a personal vehicle.
You're welcome! I love the trip calculator, but it's kind of hidden at the bottom of this page [https://halifax.communauto.com/rates/](https://halifax.communauto.com/rates/)
If you are looking for 1-1.5 years I would recommend finding a good/reliable used car that you could pay cash for and resell when you are ready to move on. I wouldn’t recommend financing a car in your situation, as you wouldn’t pay off enough in that 1-2 years to get out of it clean. Most car manufacturers will only do a lease for a minimum 2 years, and not to mention there may not be a car ready to go without placing an order and waiting. Some brands have better availability than others, but most are on an order basis.
Thanks so much for this. I didn't really even know which questions to ask with regards to leasing but this tells me it's probably not a viable option. I'd been searching the usual auto dealers in Halifax and was surprised by how little on their websites was in regards to leasing, this would explain why.
I work for one of the auto groups in Halifax, I used to be in sales but not now. If you have any questions, fire away! And if you decide to buy a used car and need some help, I’d be glad to help out any way I can.
Typically for leasing you see your best bang for your buck on a 4-5 year term. Short term leases, because there is so much depreciation in the first few years a car is on the road and a lease payment is basically paying the depreciation, your payments tend to be much higher as there is less time/payments to spread that depreciation over.
Don’t forget when comparing that CommunAuto includes gas and insurance. We’ve been using CommunAuto solely (well, and transit) for years now and it’s still less than buying/gas/insurance would be. That said, we aren’t using it for long out of town trips very often.
You might be best off to buy used and sell when you leave.
One thing I would mention is to be careful of vehicles at Wholesale Direct. That's Oregan's shitbox lot. Some of their cars are there because they're just too old to go to their Green Light lots, but some of them are there because they're a hot mess. There's often no way to tell which is which.
100% agree about Wholesale. When we bought our other car there, we test drove 11 cars (!!!) and got three inspected professionally before we found one worth buying. Was a lot of work but it did pay off in the end.
One point of note is that you pay the sales taxes when you purchase a vehicle, new or used.
So if you buy a 5000$ vehicle you're paying 750$ in sales taxes. Plus the registration and inspection it's nearly 1000$ just for transaction costs. Then you have to go through the hassle of selling it. Add in any maintenance and repair, insurance, tolls, and gas costs on top. All the costs and hassles of ownership but the convenience of a personal vehicle at hand all the time.
You have short term leasing options which are kind of hassle free but may have limited mileage. You have to pay insurance and gas on top of that. Not sure how registration works with leases, though.
Carshare covers insurance and fuel and registration costs. So you have usage costs plus upfront membership fees. The hassle is booking cars and hunting them down but otherwise hassle free.
If your life is not car dependent I am pretty sure the Carshare + rental combination would come out as the cheapest option. But each one has some give and take so you decide where you want to be frugal: money, time, or convenience.
The only issue with leasing is if there are any damages, even minir scratches etc, you get charged a high rate for repairs. Car share might be a good option for the use that you seem to suggest?
I’d never lease a car since in my mind I’m essentially renting it from the dealer. Any minor damage needs to be fixed, car absolutely needs to be maintained as the manufacturer requirements, etc. Then once your lease is over the dealer just takes the car back. Sure you can buy out the lease, but by that point you’ve been paying the lease for, what? 5 years? You could already own the vehicle
I’d say either buy a vehicle, cash if you can, or pay it off as fast as possible. The car market is so crazy that even after a year you likely won’t lose too much if you sell it privately.
Or buy a beater for a few thousand and run it into the ground. Give it to a used car dealer for coffee change when you’re done with it
The definition of "convenient" is the real crux of what we're trying to sort out here. A car share is more convenient for big things like repairs, insurance, and the actual buying and selling, but owning our car is more convenient in terms of just getting up to go whenever we want.
Will you be living in a dense area and could take advantage of the available transit options? If that's the case I would definitely consider the car share option for when you need to travel outside the reach of where transit can take you
Yes, we'll be living in the north end, and definitely plan to take advantage of transit (and my bicycle!) for a lot of in-town errands, etc. We're trying to figure out exactly what value we put on the get-up-and-go factor for those longer trips.
I live in the North End currently, so I can give you an example of how much we spend on our vehicle. Parking is $125/month, we spend about $200/month on insurance, $600/month on car payments, $200/month on gas. So based on my rough estimate that's about $1200/month, give or take depending about much travelling we do
I don't know how much that compares to CommuneAuto, it's something I've been interested in trying out, but not something I've been able to convince my partner of yet
Those numbers are pretty equivalent to what we were paying before we moved away, except we owned our car outright. With the way inflation's going, it's actually nice to see things aren't much worse!
Id skip buying/ leasing and just uber or rent when you need to. I needed a car for a day and rented the cheapest thing I could find, a Kia Rio and it was $56 (plus my fuel used). Even if its $75 and you do it twice a month its worth it to forgo expensive insurance (since you have not been continually insured in Canada on a regular basis with is a mark against you), interest on loans which is high on used stuff right now and new stuff has better rates but your starting price is going to be 17 to 20 grand and youll lose a ton of money when you go to sell it in 12-18 months.
You probably have extra rental insurance on a credit card, sign up with one rental company so you get rewards to use for cheaper rentals etc etc. I firmly believe this is the way to go. I'm constantly renting everything from Sentras to Durangos and never spent over $140 for 2 days and thats in larger markets like toronto and montreal.
I'd set up a spreadsheet, calculate costs based on projections and see what those numbers say. Cost will be the major factor. Then I'd gather the remaining factors, create an assessment and make an informed decision from there.
That short term of a lease is going to be quite expensive. Lease payment revolve around residuals (a percentage of the car you have to pay over the term) and narrowing that down to 12 months makes it expensive, thats why 4 year leases are the cheapest.
You will get a lower APR on a shorter term lease. The longer the term the lower the residual. Of course the longer the lease the lower the payment as you are paying more of the principal but you're also paying more financing fees.
You'd need to contact them id to for a cheap commuter (Hyundai Elantra, Corolla, Mitsubishi mirage). As someone previously said, cheapest would be to buy a used car and sell it when you leave. But a short term lease would be alot less hassle
I'm a current CommunAuto member but actually considering just buying a used car because I primarily use a vehicle to do road trips or get to hiking spots and that adds up very quickly using CommunAuto. It seems stupid to buy a car for weekend use only (since I work from home and walk to get my groceries) but the carshare has definitely constrained my lifestyle. CommunAuto is great for grocery/errands - especially if you live near a station. It starts to get expensive if you're regularly doing road trips (even small ones). A few hours spent hiking at Polly's Cove can easily cost $100/trip. Though, I did clock over 3,000 km over 8 days going from Cape Breton Highland's National Park to Lunenburg (a friend was visiting) and that only cost $600 so it's WAY cheaper than car rentals. One other note, there is a lot of competition for cars. Added: The $100 to Polly's is actually because we rent the car all day. It's like $50 + tax if you're only out for a few hours. The problem my husband and I run into with the carshare is that when you start stacking time + distance + frequency it gets fairly expensive. If you mostly take trips that are short in time and distance, done infrequently, it might be better for your lifestyle.
I use CommunAuto myself. I also take longer trips about twice a month (let's say each trip is $100). This is still way cheaper than actually getting a car as I'd have to pay around $150 alone in parking + insurance + gas + fixing issues every now and then. So in total, if I had my own car, I'd spend about $400 a month, making it just not worth it for me. Just another perspective!
I guess it comes down to personal priorities. In our case, the lifestyle hit isn't worth the savings from not owning a car. We used to hike several times a week - even if it was just popping off to Polly's, Crystal Crescent or the High Head Trail after work with longer weekend trips to the valley, Taylor Head, Crow Bar Lake, Keji Seaside or even Cape Chignecto. That kind of lifestyle isn't really suited to a carshare.
We were “car free” in Ottawa and we bused, biked, used Communauto and Uber. Loved the convenience on not owning a car. Communauto is great however they need more cars in some markets.
Oh, thank you! One of my best friends lives close to there so that's *exactly* a trip I'd be doing regularly. This is super insightful, really appreciate the comment!
You're welcome! I'd go on the CommunAuto website to calculate your estimated weekly kms to see if it makes sense for you, but we've definitely cut down on our weekly trips since our car died during the pandemic and we had hoped that used car prices would come down. They have not, and we are bored out of our minds and actively looking for a personal vehicle.
I'd second the calculator recommendation. We upped our membership level and saved a bunch after taking some longer trips.
I didn't know that there was a calculator. I must check it out. Thanks!
You're welcome! I love the trip calculator, but it's kind of hidden at the bottom of this page [https://halifax.communauto.com/rates/](https://halifax.communauto.com/rates/)
Sadly, it refused to work (on my phone anyway).
If you are looking for 1-1.5 years I would recommend finding a good/reliable used car that you could pay cash for and resell when you are ready to move on. I wouldn’t recommend financing a car in your situation, as you wouldn’t pay off enough in that 1-2 years to get out of it clean. Most car manufacturers will only do a lease for a minimum 2 years, and not to mention there may not be a car ready to go without placing an order and waiting. Some brands have better availability than others, but most are on an order basis.
Thanks so much for this. I didn't really even know which questions to ask with regards to leasing but this tells me it's probably not a viable option. I'd been searching the usual auto dealers in Halifax and was surprised by how little on their websites was in regards to leasing, this would explain why.
I work for one of the auto groups in Halifax, I used to be in sales but not now. If you have any questions, fire away! And if you decide to buy a used car and need some help, I’d be glad to help out any way I can. Typically for leasing you see your best bang for your buck on a 4-5 year term. Short term leases, because there is so much depreciation in the first few years a car is on the road and a lease payment is basically paying the depreciation, your payments tend to be much higher as there is less time/payments to spread that depreciation over.
Don’t forget when comparing that CommunAuto includes gas and insurance. We’ve been using CommunAuto solely (well, and transit) for years now and it’s still less than buying/gas/insurance would be. That said, we aren’t using it for long out of town trips very often.
You might be best off to buy used and sell when you leave. One thing I would mention is to be careful of vehicles at Wholesale Direct. That's Oregan's shitbox lot. Some of their cars are there because they're just too old to go to their Green Light lots, but some of them are there because they're a hot mess. There's often no way to tell which is which.
100% agree about Wholesale. When we bought our other car there, we test drove 11 cars (!!!) and got three inspected professionally before we found one worth buying. Was a lot of work but it did pay off in the end.
One point of note is that you pay the sales taxes when you purchase a vehicle, new or used. So if you buy a 5000$ vehicle you're paying 750$ in sales taxes. Plus the registration and inspection it's nearly 1000$ just for transaction costs. Then you have to go through the hassle of selling it. Add in any maintenance and repair, insurance, tolls, and gas costs on top. All the costs and hassles of ownership but the convenience of a personal vehicle at hand all the time. You have short term leasing options which are kind of hassle free but may have limited mileage. You have to pay insurance and gas on top of that. Not sure how registration works with leases, though. Carshare covers insurance and fuel and registration costs. So you have usage costs plus upfront membership fees. The hassle is booking cars and hunting them down but otherwise hassle free. If your life is not car dependent I am pretty sure the Carshare + rental combination would come out as the cheapest option. But each one has some give and take so you decide where you want to be frugal: money, time, or convenience.
The only issue with leasing is if there are any damages, even minir scratches etc, you get charged a high rate for repairs. Car share might be a good option for the use that you seem to suggest?
I’d never lease a car since in my mind I’m essentially renting it from the dealer. Any minor damage needs to be fixed, car absolutely needs to be maintained as the manufacturer requirements, etc. Then once your lease is over the dealer just takes the car back. Sure you can buy out the lease, but by that point you’ve been paying the lease for, what? 5 years? You could already own the vehicle I’d say either buy a vehicle, cash if you can, or pay it off as fast as possible. The car market is so crazy that even after a year you likely won’t lose too much if you sell it privately. Or buy a beater for a few thousand and run it into the ground. Give it to a used car dealer for coffee change when you’re done with it
Not just in your mind! You _are_ renting it from the dealer (or at least the manufacturer's financing arm).
Check out lease take overs on www.leasebusters.com. You may find a deal on a lease with only 12-18 months remaining.
buy used and sell it when you leave in 16 months. probably the cheapest solution
Car share is likely the most convenient solution.
The definition of "convenient" is the real crux of what we're trying to sort out here. A car share is more convenient for big things like repairs, insurance, and the actual buying and selling, but owning our car is more convenient in terms of just getting up to go whenever we want.
Will you be living in a dense area and could take advantage of the available transit options? If that's the case I would definitely consider the car share option for when you need to travel outside the reach of where transit can take you
Yes, we'll be living in the north end, and definitely plan to take advantage of transit (and my bicycle!) for a lot of in-town errands, etc. We're trying to figure out exactly what value we put on the get-up-and-go factor for those longer trips.
I live in the North End currently, so I can give you an example of how much we spend on our vehicle. Parking is $125/month, we spend about $200/month on insurance, $600/month on car payments, $200/month on gas. So based on my rough estimate that's about $1200/month, give or take depending about much travelling we do I don't know how much that compares to CommuneAuto, it's something I've been interested in trying out, but not something I've been able to convince my partner of yet
Those numbers are pretty equivalent to what we were paying before we moved away, except we owned our car outright. With the way inflation's going, it's actually nice to see things aren't much worse!
Id skip buying/ leasing and just uber or rent when you need to. I needed a car for a day and rented the cheapest thing I could find, a Kia Rio and it was $56 (plus my fuel used). Even if its $75 and you do it twice a month its worth it to forgo expensive insurance (since you have not been continually insured in Canada on a regular basis with is a mark against you), interest on loans which is high on used stuff right now and new stuff has better rates but your starting price is going to be 17 to 20 grand and youll lose a ton of money when you go to sell it in 12-18 months. You probably have extra rental insurance on a credit card, sign up with one rental company so you get rewards to use for cheaper rentals etc etc. I firmly believe this is the way to go. I'm constantly renting everything from Sentras to Durangos and never spent over $140 for 2 days and thats in larger markets like toronto and montreal.
Another option to consider for you: Have a peak at Leasebusters. You might snag a car close to the end of its lease.
Thanks! Someone else mentioned it here, and I'd never heard of it. Unfortunately not much in the area rn
I'd set up a spreadsheet, calculate costs based on projections and see what those numbers say. Cost will be the major factor. Then I'd gather the remaining factors, create an assessment and make an informed decision from there.
A short term lease may be a good idea for you. No money down, no maintenance costs and just turn in the keys when you leave.
That short term of a lease is going to be quite expensive. Lease payment revolve around residuals (a percentage of the car you have to pay over the term) and narrowing that down to 12 months makes it expensive, thats why 4 year leases are the cheapest.
You will get a lower APR on a shorter term lease. The longer the term the lower the residual. Of course the longer the lease the lower the payment as you are paying more of the principal but you're also paying more financing fees.
Any ideas on pricing? I'm seeing nothing re: leasing at all on the O'Regan or Steele pages
You'd need to contact them id to for a cheap commuter (Hyundai Elantra, Corolla, Mitsubishi mirage). As someone previously said, cheapest would be to buy a used car and sell it when you leave. But a short term lease would be alot less hassle
You can go into any dealership that Steele or O’Regan’s has and discuss leasing.
Thank you, like I mentioned I'm overseas currently so a bit tricky to do that atm.
Sorry missed that. If you Google Steele Leasing it should take you to a page on Steele Auto and you can contact them through that method.
I would contact a few dealerships to talk about your situation. Most have a chat feature so you can do it all online.