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Comment by xycodex | Hacker News Reader

Hmm, sounds like a great idea, except that they should do this with cheaper, used cars. if you have bad credit, you shouldn't be buying a brand new car.

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You can, though it's got a 6 year age limit [1]. They only finance up to $20,000 which rules out a large number of completely new cars anyway.

Vehicles requirements for Xchange Leasing program:

    2009 or newer
    75,000 or less miles
    no salvage, rebuilt or flood vehicle titles
    4 full-sized doors
    minimum of 5 seatbelts (driver and 4 passengers)
    maximum amount financed $20,000 (subject to change)

1 - https://get.uber.com/cl/xchange/

> if you have bad credit, you shouldn't be buying a brand new car.

Can you elaborate? I don't see how that follows.

A brand new car might cost your 400-600/mo whereas a used car might cost your 2000usd total (5 months at 400/mo of savings). Even if you buy a piece of garbage, you could replace anything wrong with it and still come out ahead. A new car is really a stupid buy for a person with little income.

But you cannot work as an Uber driver if you have "a piece of garbage", kind of defeating the whole point.

You can drive a 10 year old or older car for uber. In my area, prices are around 2000 dollars for 10 year old cars.

You can find a lot of cars that are perfectly acceptable (no immediate work needed, no visible rust, does not need extensive interior cleaning) at $2k-$5k.

Parking, insurance, maintenance, gas, and getting your windows smashed in and belongings stolen every 2-3 months because you accidentally leave a packet of gum in there will set you back.

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