I'm thinking about doing this for my second job. I've never used Uber, only heard third-hand that the drivers are making decent money. A google search provides mixed reviews on the amounts they earn, ranging from "easy money" to "barely minimum wage", depending on location and your views on car depreciation.

I guess the only way I'm going to find out how much I can make is to drive for a couple of weeks and see how it goes....but I have other questions that I can't find addressed anywhere:

--When is the best time of day to be on the road? Rush hour? Last call?

--Do I have to spend my day commuting to the nearest big city? Or can I do well in, say, a nearby city of 20k-50k people?

--I've got an average compact sedan, in average shape (a few minor scratches). Does this matter to riders?

--What has your experience been like? Are the folks who use this app mostly normal, and you just get your share of crazies like every other business in the world? There's something unsettling about letting strangers in my car....which leads to my final question:

--Security? Anything I should know?

Paging EddyB!

No way you make any money in a city of 50 or even 100k, 250k is probably still not that great.

Your car age matters (it has to be less than 7 years old). Also you will get rated, so if you car is a POS and you get bad reviews, there is a chance that you get less rides. I believe drivers can also rate riders. I haven't heard about incidents with uber drivers getting assaulted but I wouldn't carry cash in your car anyways.

I'd go on the ap and see how many drivers there are in the area, it'll give you an indication of if you can be successful in your city but it'd imagine in smaller cities that less people use cabs and more people have their own cars. I think the best time to drive is 8-2 am on Friday-Saturday in a populated city center, problem is car competition is also going to highest in such areas and at such times.

I've been in a variety of cars in uber (probably been in 7 different cars), and it ranges from marginal to black cars which are very nice.

LC but Car & Driver magazine managed to get a Rolls Royce Phantom ($500,000 sedan, most expensive four door and most luxurious car ever built) just to use for Uber, it's kind of a fun read

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...-royce-feature

You guys can stop with the PMs offering referal codes. I'm delighted to report that each has offered to split the prize with me, tho.

Yeah, that app will tell me a lot, once I get activated (currently awaiting background check to process).

Competition is a good thing. If you don't have competition, that means you probably don't have much of a market to chase after.

I did this in Seattle for about six months. It was pretty busy, as far as constant business goes. 50 hours a week would get me a take home of $800-$900. I put 30,000 miles on my new car in that time. Would spend roughly $30 per day in gas. If you go to the website uberpeople.com, which is a forum for drivers, nearly every last one of them hates Uber. So take that fwiw. As far as security, I had well over 1,000 unique people in my car, never once did I feel threatened. Probably could count the number of real jackasses on two hands.

I prefer Lyft by a ton. Use it all the time. Love it.

My lone attempt at Uber was when I requested one, was told it was anywhere between 2 and 6 minutes away, for over an hour. It was on one of those "free first ride" promos and I figured why not get from Union Station to Monterey Park quick. Never happened, so I went with Lyft, as usual. Got picked up in a few minutes and was home quick.

Your Uber experience was an aberration. The fact it was a free ride promo wouldn't have been known by anyone.

Don't the drivers see reputations of the riders? So he has no reputation, maybe no one wants to get him?

That's an awesome find, and should answer every one of my questions, as well as a few I forgot to ask here. Thanks!

You start 5 star and can only go down from there.

Thats possible, but all my friends use Lyft rather then Uber for varying reasons. My situation pretty much ruined Uber for me. Had it said "between 45min and 1hour" I'd have been cool with it. But to keep bouncing around from 2-6minutes for an hour in an area like Downtown LA, they can suck it!!!!!

I have used Uber 5-10X a month for as long as it has been in Boston.

You are going to barely break even considering the wear and tear you are putting on your vehicle. I think there is actually an interesting argument to be made that by driving for Uber you are basically just taking out the equity from your car, and will eventually have to repay it via maintenance and fixes.

Taxi drivers get something like $3.20/mile+time and Uber gets $1.30+ less for the time.

If you were able to only drive during Surge pricing, you would be able to do alright. I have paid anywhere from 1.7 to 3.0 for during Surge pricing (when there are less Ubers than there are requests for it, so they increase the rate by a multiplier).

Every driver that has spoken to me about it hates Uber, and are usually doing it because their other option is tough manual labor or being unemployed.

The lack of a decent wage and the sustained damage to vehicles you use for Uber are resulting in more and more immigrants with that speak zero English becoming drivers. Many of them are likely doing it under someone else's name, who is only paying them a %.

You should have access to a better means of making money.

I wonder what those reasons are. Here in DC, I know of no one who prefers or even uses Lyft. I signed up for a free trial and they managed to misrepresent their trial program and charge my credit card incorrectly, so that was it for them as far as I was concerned.

Uber on the other hand has screwed up billing less than a handful of times in probably a hundred rides and they always correct it promptly when it's brought to their attention.

Cool story from that site:

PASSENGER: I love Uber! I use it a lot, since that night I fought with the policemen arresting me for DUI--

DRIVER: Here we are!

PASSENGER: (confused) What's this place?

DRIVER: The end of your ride. GTFO my car!

How are you handling car insurance since most policies prohibit uber type deals?

I didn't tell MetLife what I was doing with my car. Fortunately it never became an issue.

Their ads are flat out lies, you destroy your car, and you deal with ****ty people.

The company sucks a big one too. Don't do it unless you're really bored.

I like some of uber driver stories.

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/news...ab-confessions

Total BS that they don't have this in Spain. I guess it's because the government knows that their cabs wouldn't be able to compete with Uber.

Isnt there some kind of tax deduction for maintenance cost?

Anyway

To summarize my six months of experience, its not a terrible thing. The ability to do it on your own time is fairly valuable. I personally think its a great service for the consumer, but I really dislike them from the driver's perspective. They absolutely do not have your back in anything.

Those that say you break even don't really know. Unless for some reason 5,000 miles driven comes out to $1500+ in maintenance each time. Its certainly not a viable long term option.

Since it just passed in NV, I'm going to do it in addition to my two part time jobs, as I'm trying to become debt free and am willing to devote all my time for a few months to that. I will attempt to join Uber if I'm not permabanned from them (story of that is one of the first few posts in the Uber containment thread in Las Vegas Lifestyle), or else I will join Lyft.

Ytf,

I take uber multiple times per week. In my experience talking with drivers, those who do it for a living are generally neutral to negative about working for uber. Those who work occasionally for a little extra money seem to be more positive, because they can work only during high surge times and make significantly more per hour with higher rates and no dead time.

I read something recently where they are starting to take a higher commission rate for your first x number of rides per week, so that'll especially suck for part-time drivers.