re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India I booked 2 Zoomcar's last week for a day trip to Palamaner AP and back. Used the same day booking which got me a cool 30% via the app. I initially thought, the app will not let me book 2 cars. Plan was to have a colleague who is registered with Zoomcar already, drive the other car. Luckily the app allowed me to make 2 bookings for same time.
Unfortunately the experience was a bit of a mixed bag. There were some issues.
I had booked for more number of hours as we were expecting to cover 300 kms in 8 hours. I made the booking for 25 hours. I was supposed to leave at 4PM but booked the car from early morning. I went to pick up the cars only at noon.
An XUV and Scorpio were booked. The XUV unlocked via the app but the Scorpio did not. I called up customer care and he wasn't able to unlock. Finally the car was unlocked by Zoom representative using his spare key. Since the Scorpio could not be unlocked remotely, the option for checklist was not there. The representative there checked everything and he said just nothing much to note.
For the XUV I had the option to fill the checklist. Unfortunately the checklist got stuck at the point where photos of the cars were would be shown and you had to confirm if the photo matched the car. The photos were not uploaded for the XUV. Again representtaive said don't bother with checklist. I checked documents of both cars and we left.
The XUV had only 10K kms on it but was worse for wear. Interiors were dirty around the centre console, seats were not that clean. Car had wheel balancing messed up leading to crazy vibrations on steering wheel.
Upon return I could not fill the return checklist as the start of trip checklist was not completed due to the errors. I called up customer care at 1am and they were prompt in locking the car and closing the trip. Since I took the car to AP, I had paid entry tax of Rs.2670 for both cars which I mentioned to the customer care guy.
Because return checklist was not done, I left the 3G tablet provided by zoom in the rear seat. I got a call at 8am from the Zoom representative saying tablet was missing from the XUV. I told him to check the back seat as I have left it there. He calls back in 10mins saying there's no tablet in back seat also. That was a shock. He said he needs to inform superiors and I need to pay a fine. My colleague luckily stays near the Zoom pickup point went there to see. He calls me saying he is standing next to the XUV and can see the tablet in the front seat back pocket from outside. Called the representative and he says he checked in the back but it wasnt there. I sent a photo that my colleague took to the Zoom rep and he calls back to apologize.
Yesterday I got the final invoice from Zoom and sure enough they had forgotten about the Rs.2670 entry tax. Have sent an email following up and asking to include that.
While the customer care is very helpful and there are representatives at the centres most of the time, the software is still quite buggy and is not reliable.
About the Electronics City Phase 2 pick up point. It's located near TCS, Tech Mahindra office in Phase 2 but is in a very very dirty area. Approach road is only mud and my leather shoes were completely soiled due to the rain that made the mud road into slush road with puddles. Even the car was filled with mud as soon as I drove out. Zoom needs to find a better place in Phase 2. |