[audioholic]

Originally Posted by sushrutha

My first experience with Zoomcar has turned out to be sour.
Booked a Scorpio on Dec 9th 2015 from 24-12-15 :1600hrs to 26-12-15:1000hrs, without any coupon or discount.
Booking was confirmed instantly.
Based on it I did hotel booking at my destination place
Zoom, you just lost it. I'll never ever use your services.
Good bye

My friend had booked a GLA for the last saturday (19th) and on friday he got a call saying that the car is not available since the previous booking was extended . He then had a good round of talks with the customer care and we blasted the fleet managers for some time. In addition he got brownie points for telling he works for the same brand Somehow they arranged the car after an hour and told he could continue with the booking.

[KaandBaaz]

Car rented - Mahindra Scorpio S4
Period - 48hrs - 720 kms

Was a pleasant experience, picked up the car at 11.30 sharp from the ZoomCar yard. Car was recenly washed and dusted for interiors. The tank was 90% full. The representative was quite helpful and courteous. The handover took 15 min with filling of the chekclist. While returning the car it just took 5 min.

I will surely try the A class and GLA next time.

[Aston Singh]

Originally Posted by KaandBaaz

I will surely try the A class and GLA next time.

Keep your expectations low. The condition of Mercedes-Benz offerings is deteriorating by the day. People have literally abused the daylights outta these cars lately. I have completed 6 bookings and all have been Mercedes-Benz. My last trip was last Sunday in Mumbai where I had rented the CLA. This was the same CLA that was in Pune earlier, now it has been moved to Mumbai.

The car had just clocked 23k kms and the condition was horrible! A few observations that I can recollect:
1. External damage here and there, though not that bad (a few scratches, a few dents etc)
2. Interiors - Dirty but that's pretty much it. Left front speaker was not working.
3. Engine idling was really rough, lot of vibrations and noise, clearly abused.
4. Suspension was in a bad bad state. Certain potholes made me feel that the entire suspension assembly might just give away any moment now !
5. The gearbox, which is already sluggish had become slower and felt confused. Manual mode shifts were really slow and mostly ended up revvin the engine and not up-shifting quickly.

Overall it's no more the way it started, I remember driving one that had clocked just 600 kms!

Zoomcar's policy is too lenient, with minimum age being just 18 and a 5000 security deposit for cars that are costing over 35L! Coupled with so many discounts, the end result is horrible condition of their luxury fleet.

So, if you are lucky the car that's allotted to you might turn out to be in decent/good condition otherwise it'll just spoil your day(s).

[saadat1992]

Originally Posted by sushrutha

My first experience with Zoomcar has turned out to be sour.
Booked a Scorpio on Dec 9th 2015 from 24-12-15 :1600hrs to 26-12-15:1000hrs, without any coupon or discount.
Booking was confirmed instantly.
Based on it I did hotel booking at my destination place.

Today, almost at the last moment I get a call from ZOOMCAR saying that there are no cars available and your booking will be cancelled.
I asked them to arrange for an alternative car, they say none available.
CCE kept on saying some of the cars have broken down and we will not be able to help you.
We are 6 pepole, so booked scorpio.
Booking has been cancelled by them
Attachment 1452473

What kind of service is this ?

Checked other self drive car services (most of them are booked fully carsonrent, myles,justride etc)

Zoom, you just lost it. I'll never ever use your services.
Good bye

Sorry to hear that! My Zoomcar experience has been the exact opposite! They drove down a vehicle from Bangalore for my booking because the car assigned to me broke down a day before the scheduled date.

Maybe you should escalate this with zoom over twitter! I actually wrote to them on twitter regarding me not getting my first drive discount & then they gave me a 10% discount. The folks handling zoomcar's twitter handle are polite & responsive, I strongly suggest you try contacting them through twitter & get this sorted out!

[sushrutha]

Originally Posted by saadat1992

Sorry to hear that! My Zoomcar experience has been the exact opposite! They drove down a vehicle from Bangalore for my booking because the car assigned to me broke down a day before the scheduled date.

Maybe you should escalate this with zoom over twitter! I actually wrote to them on twitter regarding me not getting my first drive discount & then they gave me a 10% discount. The folks handling zoomcar's twitter handle are polite & responsive, I strongly suggest you try contacting them through twitter & get this sorted out!

No more zoomcar for me.
Refund was another fiasco, got my money(Rs. 15,500) back after so many calls.
Done with Zoomcar forever.

Booked an Innova - chauffeur driven from some other rentals, most of the taxi innovas are booked due to peak season.

Zoomcar cancelled my booking at the last moment saying No car available or cars are flooded at chennai, which were supposed to come to Bangalore.
how come a scorpio is available today, that too on deals ??

[hserus]

Look at the time period available - only between noon to 8 pm. Maybe some guy who was supposed to return his car at 5 pm or 6 pm went and returned it at 11 AM itself. eg: Caught an earlier flight home, and that scorpio is at an airport location. So they have a car that they will offer cheap on a flash deal for those 8 hours in case you want a scorpio to just take your family out to a movie.

[srivibhu]

Here is my first experience with Zoom car

Rental period: 4 days from Sunday morning to Wednesday night
Car : XUV500 booked to transport 4 adults and 2 kids to Madikeri
Location: Zoomcar Bangalore Brigade Metropolis

I had been planning to rent a zoomcar for some time now to check how they are and the vacation a couple of weeks back offered the perfect chance. With 2 young kids and lots of luggage an SUV was the the default choice and I had to choose between the Scorpio and XUV 500.
I had not driven the XUV500 and wanted to try it out on a long run as my net car while the Scorpio was no choice as the body roll (even in the new one) made my wife and kids car sick (my daughter is nauseous even in the best of cars and the Scorpio is a recipe for disaster right from the start).

Comments on car, service etc
1. I had asked for a home delivery and pickup for the car as I had a lot of luggage and had to leave early. Wanted the convenience of having the car at my doorstep.
Zoomcar kept me in suspense until Saturday afternoon and finally confirmed home drop Saturday evening (this call was from the local office) after a couple of follow ups to their call center. Surprisingly no one thought it important to call the customer to update status. In my first call to them they said that I will be updated 24 hours before booking commences and i had to remind them that it was well past the limit. I guess the agent did not check the booking before answering.


2. I had a home from at 6am in the morning. The local office could only deliver at 6.30 am (since opening time is 6am and only then executives arrive?) so the asked if they could move my booking to 6.30 am and drop the car at 6.30am. I agreed and also confirmed no extra cost to me. Then got a mail with the change in booking with a 200 Rs booking change charge. 2 irritated calls later and explaining that the booking was changed by Zoomcar for their convenience and not mine, got the charge reversed.

3. Car delivery was perfectly on time, the executive did a full overview of the car and filled out the checklist with me. Took photo of all the car from all sides. Except for a few minor dents and a broken tail lamp the car was in decent condition. Interiors were clean. The car was supposed to be about 8 months old and had 43K on the ODO. That's a lot of driving. Tyres were old but OK. Not a lot of thread though.

4. Stopped at the A2B on the way in Mysore road for breakfast and saw at least 5 Zoomcars parked there. Looks like the service is popular enough. We wanted to do Shivanasamudra and took the turn after Maddur but it was essentially a single lane due to road works. My daughter then decided that it was a good time to empty her stomach on the floor mat. So after parking and cleaning the car mat for half an hour, we scrapped the plan to Shivanasamudra and returned back to Mysore road to Madikeri

5. The car had no issues on the drive up until 20 Kms before Madikeri. Did a constant 100 to 110 kmph. Suddenly 20 Km before Madikeri the OBD Check lamp came on for no reason. I started getting concerned. If you have driven Zoom car they have a nice sticker right on the driver windscreen corner saying "call customer service assistance if the OBD check lamp comes on". So I park my car and call Zoom car. The call center had no clue. They said they need to pass this on to tech team and will be called immediately. No call from them. After 3 calls and some shouting got a call back from the local office where I rented the car. Was asked to explain the problem which I did and the "Tech team" which I assumed called me had again no clue what OBD check lamp was and promised to call back with more expertise immediately. In the meantime it was 6pm, getting dark and with 2 kids below 3 and 2 adults above 60 I decided to keep going to the resort and park my car there. After 1 hour after reaching the resort and no calls from Zoomcar I was fed up.
Finally i figured I will call the local office directly and called them. Again no one had any clue what the OBD check lamp was and I was close to driving back overnight and hitting them on the head with the manual in the car and the sticker they have so nicely pasted in the windscreen. Was asked to Whatsapp the photo of the indicator. Did that and stopped for the day.

6. Called Zoom car again the next day morning twice . Same boiler plate answer that "someone from our technical team will call you in 2 min" and then no calls. Was even asked one of the times to take the car to a local mechanic to get it checked out and I had to then explain fundamentals of car maintenance to them.
Then called the local office. The guy who picked up the phone said he was the new shift person, has no clue of the problem, got my current location from the car GPS and promised that someone from M&M will come check my car in 2 hours. No one turned up. Finally I was fed up and decided to let fate take car of my car on the drive back which was anyway 2 days away.

7. The next day discovered another problem. The central lock was not locking all doors. The driver door had to be locked manually which was conveniently not mentioned to me (the person who came to pick the car up told me it was a known problem in the car ). Thanked gods that nothing got robbed when we parked in all the places where we stepped out. Never really struck me to check central lock!! good learning this and was really pissed off that they forgot to mention this.

8. Next day, started the car for some local trips and sight seeing and magically the check lamp did not come on. Felt relieved. The car stayed that way until the next day on our way back until we crossed Mysore. Then suddenly ABS and the check lamp came on and the car was feeling different. Finally It it me that its probably got to do something with the ABS malfunctioning and also remembered the ABS had come on a couple of times the last time I had the problem. Switched off the car, let it rest for a couple of minutes and then re started. The ABS went off but the OBD lamp stayed on for a few more kms before switching off. Did an uneventful trip back to Bangalore and even did Shivanasamudra on the way back. Pick up and check of car was quick and on time.

9. Other observations
One of the head lamps in dim was not working properly. Lamp alignment was somewhere up in the air and to the left.But thank fully i did not do too much night driving.

The clutch, especially in 1st and reverse was really bad. Slotting and moving had some audible noises. That's not going to last very long. The person who picked up explained that not a lot of people talk about problems and generally cars go through a lot of abuse. That's a real pity.

10. I had a fuel reimbursement (had filled fuel) and gave the bill to the person who picked up the car. Both the refund of deposit and fuel bill settlement happened within 3 days. I had a hard time getting a bill though. Apparently the full Invoice (and I had to explain what an invoice should contain to the call center) is generated online under your account only after the entire settlement is complete.


All in all the experience with Zoomcar was ok. Will probably do it again
Liked
1. The concept, hassle free booking
2. The car cleanliness and condition except for the niggles I had
3. Cost of renting (13k for about 4 days which was a good deal)
4. Pickup and drop which was on time and hassle free
5. Chargers, adapters that come with the car. Rooftop fitted carrier, spare bulbs.
5. Self Drive!!

Disliked
1. The joke of the "technical team". If you have no clue of issues for which you have a sticker pasted in the windscreen, then you have no "technical" team.
2. No coordination between Zoomcar call center and local office. I literally was begging them to give me some direction on the issues faced. About 15 calls from my side and none from them
3. Customer service in case of problems needs to go a long way. God forbid if your car stops. Actually I think that might be better - in one of the calls one of the reps told me "don't worry sir, I have your coordinates, call me if your car stops, I will send a replacement within the next 1 to 2 hours". I wanted to scream at someone on preventive maintenance and how to take car of a car. If you are a car lover you will hate this attitude.
4. Other process niggles (booking change charges, not knowing when an invoice will be available, lack of coordination between different teams, not explaining the issues in the car that are not immediately obvious (like central lock in my case) etc)

[hserus]

Originally Posted by srivibhu

Suddenly 20 Km before Madikeri the OBD Check lamp came on for no reason. I started getting concerned. If you have driven Zoom car they have a nice sticker right on the driver windscreen corner saying "call customer service assistance if the OBD check lamp comes on".

You took a risk driving the vehicle further after that. Doing so voids your contract with zoomcar and violates the vehicle warranty terms and conditions. So if you drove it and the engine had seized up or anything else you would be stuck for the entire repair bill not just 5k worth of deposit.

[srivibhu]

Originally Posted by hserus

You took a risk driving the vehicle further after that. Doing so voids your contract with zoomcar and violates the vehicle warranty terms and conditions. So if you drove it and the engine had seized up or anything else you would be stuck for the entire repair bill not just 5k worth of deposit.

I called them and waited and made sure the call was logged. And Zoomcar gave me no specific instructions not to drive,i was actually encouraged to just ignore the warning and drive in one call. It was a risk I was willing to take. They can neither complain that I dd not report it nor can they claim I did not follow instructions. It was either that or waiting on a ghat road with kids and elders after sunset. No way I was going to do that.

[ShaileshHinge]

My first Experience with Zoom Car ...with some conditions apply.

we were looking to book a selfdrive vehicle for our 11 day drive to Rajasthan from Mumbai. we had booked a Xuv 500 from Justride where we had got an unlimited kms + our fuel deal for 34K INR.

Suddenly i see an email in my mailbox from zoom offering 50% discounts. My and my cousin kept an eye for deals and managed to get a scorpio for INR 30K for 3200 Kms for 13 days. we instantly did the booking and cancelled our justride booking. Justride took about 1800 for the cancellation charges. But we still went ahead with it.

The Scorpio was to be picked up from Domestic Airport. We stay in Navi Mumbai but then the deal was so good that we went ahead with it.

Now the anxiety of getting a good car set in as we were supposed to travel pretty far with kids on board. We also wanted an rooftop carrier. So we searched for Zoomcar office and found one in Navi Mumbai. The address was actually mentioned in the email we got confirming our booking.

We personally went to zoom office and met the fleet Manager Mr. Promod Motegaonkar, who was more than willing to help us. The conversation itself was very positive. We explained him our situation/ needs of a long drive with kids thus need of a decently new car in better condition.

He began stating that all zoom cars are in good condition but he also logged in into his system and checkout the Scorpio's he had. He checked the odo on all the vehicles and promised us that we will get a car which has done the least and the vehicle will be serviced before we get it. . He asked us to get in touch with him 3 days in advance as blocking a car one month in advance was not going to help us. Reason - cars meet with accidents very frequently and this changes the whole game. The vehicles in Mumbai didnt have rooftop storages yet but he promised us that we will get one. All was well with this discussion.

We went to the zoom office 3 days in advance(19th Dec - our pickup was 22nd Dec). Couldnt meet Mr Promod but his colleagues confirmed that there was a vehicle allotted to us and the odo reading was 24K. Car was serviced. We spoke to Mr Promod on phone and he said go to Airport on 22nd, he has about 6 Scorpio's parked there. Test drive all of them and choose one we like. This was customer service at its best ! SUPER LIKE !.

22nd Dec - Went to domestic airport. the allotted car was parked there, along with 3 more scorpio's. All had similar ODO readings of 25K to 30K and looked the same. One Scorpio had come in from Bangalore 3 days ago. Had KA 03 registration. Apparently Mumbai office had got 8 vehicles driven in from Bangalore for the festive season.

This KA Scorpio had odo of 14K + the confidence that the vehicle had just came in from Bangalore.

This particular car had Bridgestone tyres( looking very fresh) as compared to the appollo's on the MH registered cars.

Overall cleanliness on all the cars was poor. This particular KA registered vehicle was stinking of garage. Seems like the vehicle was sitting in a garage for long. Noticed the rear door was repainted and might have been an accident claim not settled for long as the registration was done in March and the vehicle only had 14 K on the odo of which 1k would have been the trip to Mumbai itself. rest all seemed fine.

We called Mr Promod again and he checked if the 10K service was done on the car. He got back to us in less than 10 mins.
One of the front tyre was flat and we thought for a minute if this was a bad omen indication. But we went ahead and asked for this vehicle itself.

As soon as it was confirmed that we were taking this vehicle the guys stormed to clean the car( just dusted and cleaned the floor mats). The puncture was repaired and brand new Rooftop career was installed in a near by garage. We traveled in the car all the while this was being done and got much more feel of the car and the car seemed mechanically good.

The handover was smooth and off we went. We did the inspection of the vehicle together. The zoom rep at the site explained where the bonnet opens from( have an old habit of checking the oil and coolant in the car before longer drives), where the tools are, spare wheel is and all the documents. once this was taken care off, we were zooming.

We had time at hand as we were starting the next day afternoon. Booking was done ahead of time to get us more free kms.

Day 1 we took it straight to the washing center, got all the interiors washed. Right from the doors, dashboard, Seats, floor mats everything. The car felt much more better post that. Perfumed it in the night ( over did it) and the garage smell was completely off.

We had a hassle free 11 days of travel. Travelled mumbai -Udaipur-Jodhpur-Jaisalmer-Tanot-Longewala-Ahmedabad-Mumbai( planning on a detailed travelogue soon). Car performed pretty well. We cruised all the way at 80-100 kmph. Were wary of the over speed penalty. Headlights were good and sufficient during the night rides too. We did 1 leg completely at night. Fuel efficiency was good too as we filled in diesel worth 11890 + it was 80% full tank when we took the car.

We had 3200 free kms but we actually did 3400. So we were going to be charged 15 rs per km for the same.

My cousin went for the return today and it was hassle free. We returned the car one day in advance.
The zoom rep had charged the Fuel reimbursement as Damage charges. Again Mr Promod called us to inform this and not to worry about the invoice as he was correcting it from backend. And he did so. We received the correct invoice in about an hour and the refund was initiated. We are waiting to check if the refund is credited to the credit card or to the ewallet.

Pros
Hassle free online registration
Helpful Staff. Both Mr Promod and the Zoom reps at Airport
got a choice of cars to choose from and got a fairly new vehicle
Rooftop career provided at no extra cost
got amazing discount

Cons
Cleanliness of the cars was a problem. Zoom could do much better on this front. My cousin mentioned that the cars in Bangalore are much better as he had rented a zoom for his wayanad trip. I was able to get the car cleaned up in 1.5 hrs at a cleaning station.
The checkin checkout at bangalore is all electronic. here its all manual paper work. This can be changed too.

I will give 5 stars to zoom if they improve on the car interior cleaning aspect.

Pics below in the order are( i couldnt figure out how to add pics in the writeup above. Someone can guide me to do it correct please)
1 - Cars parked for choosing
2) ODO reading of the KA car
3) Zoom car representatioves
4) Car ready to be taken away( 2 snaps)

[Bakash4u]

Dear BHPians.
I am trying to book a zoom car and it is always taking me to "CITRUS".
Have you guys experienced any good/bad moments with CITRUS wallet?

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by Bakash4u

Dear BHPians.
I am trying to book a zoom car and it is always taking me to "CITRUS".
Have you guys experienced any good/bad moments with CITRUS wallet?

No issues, i had to cancel a trip and could transfer back the amount without any issues.

Use the withdrawal option inside zoom car site itself (it has 5k limit per transaction), worked well and amount was credited back into my bank account without any issues.

[Bakash4u]

Thanks Jaggu.
I will go ahead, simply because we don't have many other options

[srivibhu]

Originally Posted by Bakash4u

Dear BHPians.
I am trying to book a zoom car and it is always taking me to "CITRUS".
Have you guys experienced any good/bad moments with CITRUS wallet?

I did not use CITRUS wallet, I think there is an option to skip using it. I got refunds back to my credit card and bank account.
thanks

[Rajeevraj]

Zoomcar introduces doorstep drop and pickup (Got a mailer-Not sure if applicable to all cities) . Charge of 300.