[hserus]

Quite a long distance, but it seems to pay to have that old indian expedient of a 2 liter bisleri bottle filled with petrol available for emergencies.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...awda-kaas.html

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...ilgrimage.html

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...es-ankola.html

Still - I personally dont trust my skills (and the skills of various road hogs you run into on the highway) to dare doing what these other tbhpians above have done. Up to you of course.

[fusionbang]

Originally Posted by im_srini

The Nanos are now showing up on the Zoom web-site & are available for booking.
A question to Nano owners who take their cars on to the highways, I have a 2-day booking with Zoom next week.
I expect to travel ~500 Kms during those 2 days, my current booking is for an Amaze, but I would like to try out the Nano instead for this trip.
The route is a 50:50 mix between 4-lane median-ed highways & 2-lane state highways.
Considering the drum brakes & 12" rims on the Nano, I don't expect to be driving at more than 80 Kmph.
There would be no luggage at all & it would just be me & a passenger.
Considering the 15-liter fuel tank of the Nano, how often would I have to 'tank-up' ?

IMO, it all depends on which part of the town you are planning to travel. I would suggest you to check on the frequency of petrol bunks available enroute. Assuming Nano returns 25kmpl and you drive at 80kmph or lesser, Nano should return 25kmpl and you can cover 375kms so I think you might end up filling it 4 times max in your journey.

If possible, carry petrol in a 2 liter bottle for emergency and it should suffice.

[noopster]

My second experience with Zoom in about a month and it was much better this time!

My Vento is in the shop for some long-due bodywork so needed a car to do a quick visit to Mumbai over the weekend to attend my old school reunion. 3 of us from my family are alumni so the others were banking on me to get the car. The Swift was at home for emergencies and in any case I don't fancy flying on the e-way without airbags/ABS so it was Zoom time!

I made the booking for 32 hours estimating around 320 km of usage. Wound up returning it 3 hours earlier, for which they have promised me 50% credit on future bookings. Total km covered were 347- which meant an additional charge of 27 km x 15 Rs/km = Rs 405. That plus the 4800 I paid means the trip cost me around 5 grand. Which sounds high except that cost of fuel is included (approx 1600/-). PLUS I had a discount promo code of 1000/- so in effect the car cost me some 2600/- for 2 days use that included Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai and plenty of toodling about the Western suburbs as well.

Total paisa wasool. I got a fairly new EcoSport diesel with 2 airbags. First time driving this vehicle (though I have been a passenger in Vid6639's a couple of times).



The car was spotless this time- a big change from the messy A class I was given a few weeks ago in Bangalore. I picked it up at Regent Plaza off Baner Road which is not very far from my place, a big plus. Zoom's outlets are increasing steadily which is nice.

On the flip side, the Zoom app hung on the agency-supplied smartphone. I couldn't complete my delivery checklist because of this. The support staff were complaining that the new app hangs all the time and it's causing problems with Zoom users. And I think they were out of data because the maps app didn't work either. Thankfully I knew my way about

My daughter shot this Instagrammy-looking pic when she came to pick me up with her mom. I confess am now fairly enamoured by this category of mini-SUV that I earlier looked down upon!

[gouravsinha]

I rented a Mercedes GTA for 1 day from Pune hinjewadi...and the experience was very nice.

Their hinjewadi office is in the basement of hotel Formula One.

Person there was very nice give me all the details about the car showed all the documents which were a lot. They had all the documents as it was a Karnataka car they had all the tax documents as well.

The cars top speed limit was fixed at 124 km/h.

My only suggestion is that they should multiple options of dropping the car, in my case I had to return it to the hinjewadi office only.

[noopster]

Originally Posted by gouravsinha

The cars top speed limit was fixed at 124 km/h.

Any idea how this is monitored? It says account ban for exceeding 125, which means they probably have a way of tracking this.

My only suggestion is that they should multiple options of dropping the car, in my case I had to return it to the hinjewadi office only.

Agreed. But as long as they have pre-bookings by location I guess it is the only real option.

[hillsnrains]

Originally Posted by noopster

Any idea how this is monitored? It says account ban for exceeding 125, which means they probably have a way of tracking this.

As per the zoom person, they even get a instant message (from the car) when we cross the speed limit. According to my understanding all zoom cars are fitted with a external device/hardware, which does GPS mapping of your route, speed monitoring, vehicle unlock via SMS etc.

At the time of returning the car(I have used their services couple of months back) they checked in computer and said there are no over speed instances in my trip.

[Tushar]

Zoomcar, the self-driven car rental service provider has just partnered with Tata Motors. As part of the collaboration, the company has acquired and added 50 Nanos to its fleet. The cars will be divided and offered in the cities of Pune and Bangalore, with plans to include more cities in the near future underway.

Link to Team-BHP news article

[pankaj_sachdeva]

Originally Posted by hillsnrains

According to my understanding all zoom cars are fitted with a external device/hardware, which does GPS mapping of your route, speed monitoring, vehicle unlock via SMS etc.

& I tend to agree with the GPS mapping of the route. I rented out XUV from Gurgaon for 8 days and immediately after taking the car from Zoomcar's office, took it to Punjab.

The car stayed in Punjab for 7 days and I got a message on 8th day while the Car was in Chandigarh which read "You are about to leave punjab. Do remember to stop at RTO check point and Pay the entry tax as applicable"

[gouravsinha]

Originally Posted by noopster

Any idea how this is monitored? It says account ban for exceeding 125, which means they probably have a way of tracking this.

The person there said that if I exceed 125 kmph, I would get an email and 500 Fine would be imposed, so I am guessing that they are monitoring the GPS, but the funny part was the GPS on the GTA was not working

[motomaverick]

First time booked Zoomcar here Bangalore for a family day outing of 7 people. Have booked the Scorpio, but not a very good booking experience. First their website was constantly crashing and still is (tested in different browsers) anyways somehow was able to pay the amount and get a confirmation. Second bad experience which is somewhat funny is that after the booking was completed I got a sms asking to upload my license soft copy before 4.30 am 4th March otherwise the booking will be cancelled, this message came in at 1.30 am on 4th March. Since I was awake I uploaded the docs but I am wondering what will happen to someone who would miss the message and see it only after waking up in the morning. Not a very good time keeping on their part. At least should take into account AMs and PMs.

I also got an email providing me steps to take the car, apparently I can send an SMS to unlock the car and take the key from the glove box, hope the pickup place has network

[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by gouravsinha

The person there said that if I exceed 125 kmph, I would get an email and 500 Fine would be imposed, so I am guessing that they are monitoring the GPS, but the funny part was the GPS on the GTA was not working

Its a separate GPS tracker device about the size of a thick credit card or small wallet which is hard-wired into the car's electronics and hidden somewhere under the dashboard.

The more advanced ones even measure deceleration forces, so technically speaking, it can immediately SMS/email that you've been in an accident.

[im_srini]

Originally Posted by im_srini

... I have a 2-day booking with Zoom next week.

Update : Had a poor experience with Zoom this Wednesday (4th March) for the above Amaze booking.
The booking was for a couple of days & the "pick-up" point was Electronics-City Phase-1, however when I arrived, there was no Amaze !
I'd picked up an Eco-Sport last month from the same location, hence I knew it was in the basement of Magnolia-SunDance apartments ( opposite Velankani Tech-Park ).
The security guy at the gate too pointed to the basement when I mentioned Zoom.
I tried the Zoom-Car help-line several times but kept getting timed-out - even using the "emergency" option in the IVRS did not help !
After 2 hours & almost 30 attempts at trying Zoom-Car support, finally managed to get hold of a customer-care "associate" on the call.
Apparently, they had vacated their "Electronics-City-Phase-1" premises that day - the Amaze I'd booked had been parked at their Hosur-Road facility ( opposite Eka-Hotel ) instead !
I'm not sure how Zoom expected users to divine this change in location, & no, I did not receive any communication beforehand from Zoom in this regard ( even their 30-minute SMS mentioned that the Amaze was ready for pick-up from Electronics-City Phase-1 ).
To make matters worse, the Amaze did not have a tablet in it & I had to use support's help in filling out the pick-up & drop-off check-lists.
In any case, was able to commence the journey only after a delay of 3 hours !
Zoom's service standards sure appear to be falling...

Please Note : The Electronics-City-Phase-1 address is still being shown as a pick-up point in the Zoom-Car web-site !

P.S. - It appears that the Zoom-Car App now allows users to enter the pick-up & drop-off check-lists from the App itself - I had an older version which did not have this feature...
-

[Vid6639]

Rented an XUV500 from Zoom last week. Had a flawless experience. Picked up from Madivala total mall on Friday and returned on Monday.

Got a vehicle with 4000kms on the odo and one month old. Was in reasonably good condition although one could make out it had been abused by previous drivers. Left front suspension was making a sound and gears were really notchy. The gears got much better over the 750kms drive.

Reached the pickup point 10mins before the pickup time. The SMS had the registration number of the vehicle. Walked up to the car sent unlock SMS and car was unlocked in 3-4 mins. Alarm started off so you need to grab the key and disable the alarm with the key.

They have a micromax tablet which was completely drained out. Had to wait for a few mins to charge up and start the check list. Quite comprehensive checklist with photos of the car from all angles to specify any damage. Check for documents and all features working. If you find any damage it's better to take a pic with your phone.

As soon as I set off from the basement, a zoom executive called me to confirm if everything was in order. He said I could call him on his mobile for any issues in the trip.

I dropped off the vehicle on Monday evening 3 hours ahead of schedule. I wasnt sure of the FE so ended up topping up the tank in Coorg. When dropping the vehicle off you need to feel the post trip checklist. Any fuel bills need to be put in the glove box. After completing the checklist you get 5mins to leave the vehicle till it auto locks again.

2 days later I get the 3 hours driving credit and fuel reimbursed confirmation. Refund depends on bank.

The experience with the app and human less pickup/drop is really a boon. Ofcourse being India they still need a guy at the centre but he is not always there. After my booking, a guy comes to the pickup point, checks the car, takes out the fuel bill and then has to get it washed for next customer. This guy can unlock/lock the car from his app. He doesn't always have to be present. I am guessing they have one guy across 3-4 locations.

Zoom has now really expanded the number of locations. I checked around my house and found close to 7 locations within 4-5 kms away. Around office there are another 4 more. All you have to do is take an Uber to/from Zoom location. Uber fare was less than 100 bucks!

Total trip cost for the XUV was 11,800 for 80 hours which included 800kms of running. I did close to 750kms.

Taking my Ecosport of Altis would have been cheaper but the comfort with which 5 people sat in the XUV500 was unmatched by my cars.

[Vid6639]

Just wondering that if Zoom introduces the Zest diesel AMT, it would really be something useful. They should seriously consider getting that in their fleet.

They already have a tie up with Tata for the Nano and Scorpio so getting the Zest should not be difficult. Diesel Automatic maybe priced same as Honda City will be a good choice for those wanting a city commuter or those that want the ease of automatic and don't want to rent the Merc or BMW from Zoom.

The only other AT is the e2O but that's barely a 2 seater.

The Zest in blue even suits their branding.

[ravib]

Today i noticed that Zoom cars had started a pickup/drop location in HP COCO petrol bunk near Bagmane Tech Park main entrance in C.V.Raman Nagar, Bangalore. Guess it was started earlier this month, but not sure.

Their site shows as C V Raman Nagar ( APJ Abdhul Kalam Rd) though it has a spelling mistake

-Ravi