[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

I don't know why this just keeps coming up... well I do.  It keeps coming up because I'm not handling it well.

What's the issue?  Players want to have their runners rent a car for shadow work rather than buying one permanently.

What's my issue?  Well for starters I have no guidance whatsoever on what to charge them.  Or even if I should charge them.  If someone has a high lifestyle, surely they have the budget for a frikkin chauffeur service, which means they can afford a stupid budget rent-a-car without expending tracked nuyen.  But what about Low lifestyle?  Or Middle?  Plus if you want to use gear for your shadowrun in any and every other instance, you're expected to buy it.  If you want to use a car for non-civilian work, then you shouldn't get one for free (or for near as well may be free).

But without going meta and just telling players "If you want a car, just buy one." what'd be an elegant way to get the same result in-character/in-universe?  Without just punting the issue to "fine, we'll just steal a car then."

Insist there are no car rentals anymore, and you can only do ride sharing/Future Uber... with all the attending difficulties in having a civilian driver (or drone memory logs) along to witness your crimes?

Maybe a better idea is to figure an arbitrary value to charge, but stress that there's no such thing as insurance in the sixth world rental industry... so if you bring it back with bulletholes and bloodstains you're still paying for the repairs AND likely having to answer awkward questions to Law Enforcement?  (Or just burning your own fake SIN you rented the car with)

Anyone have other ideas or suggestions?

[Marcus]

Let'em rent a car for one mission then have the cops find them using the car rental?
Give them a cool taxi or limo driver contact who does the driving?
Make renting a car unprofitable?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Well it'd be much easier to deal with in a home game... in SRM and its attending 4 hour bloc lots of options go off the table, like cops tracking down runners post-run.

I'm liking the idea though of "no one offers insurance in the sixth world on rentals".  Make it so that there's no financial advantage in renting a car and ditching it. 

Doesn't do anything to disincentive "free" wheels by way of stealing a car... but SRM's qualities can help there.  We've only got 4 hours for the game, and there's no budgeted time for an off-script encounter with cops trying to arrest you for stealing a car.  If you REALLY want to steal a car go ahead... with the knowledge that doing so may make successfully completing the mission impossible due to time constraints...

[Jack_Spade]

As it happens, the new Schattenhandbuch 3 has extra content dealing with car rentals.

The gist of it is, you have three options:

1) You need a SIN (hopefully a fake one). Different cab services have different levels of SIN checks (and corresponding better cars). If nothing happens to the car, you keep your SIN, otherwise you'll have to burn it

2) Hack the host of a car rental and use a customer account (Host rating is 2+SIN minimum level). To avoid tedious hacking back and forth you can do it as a simple test of Hacking + Logic [Sleaze] vs. (SIN Rating+2)
Potential problem: You never know when your hack will be noticed

3) You create a fake user account with a hack vs a host of (SIN Rating x2). That avoids the SIN check completely and you only get caught if you damage the car. Shortcut test: Hacking + Logic [Sleaze] vs. (SIN Rating x2)

Prices:

Rent times: hour/day/week/month
Low: 25/75/250/500
Medium: 50/150/500/800
High: 100/300/1000/1500
Luxury: 200/600/2000/2500
Transport (per m³ loading capacity): 30/90/300/500

SIN Ratings necessary:
Medium to High: 3 (Worldwide availability)
Medium: 2 (Continent wide availability
Low to Medium: 1 (single sprawl exclusive)
Luxury: 4 (Optional: Chauffeur and bodyguards as add ons)
Low to High: 2 (Car sharing - you get to use the cars of other people - with all the surprises that come with it)
High to Luxury: 3 (More leniency for damaged cars and fast transports, danger of retribution)
Transport: 2 (Over a certain weight limit only available as autopilot version)

[Dr. Meatgrinder]

I wonder how many rental cars--at least on the cheap end--still have manual controls.  I imagine a lot of rental companies removing the manual controls and/or installing Gridlink on their vehicles.

[Reaver]

I wouldn't be surprised if all the vehicles have their usage tracked.

Even today, many commercial vehicles are GPS tracked and log everything from location, length of trip, speed reached, and even braking force applied!

By using a rental car, they could be leaving a 'smoking gun' in their wake!
(You KNOW the rental company is blaring away in the Matrix 'I'M A RENTAL! RENT ME FROM BOB'S RENTALS TODAY!!" Every second of usage. Not going to take the Cops long to come knocking, even if its just to get a statement.