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Old 1st January 2019, 10:11   #1531
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

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Originally Posted by jeevmenon View Post
It's mostly for the thrill of people who love driving and who want privacy. Drivers are paid peanuts in India and your calculation proves that. The owner is sucking it out.
Yeah. It makes sense. But I am wondering why zoomcar's cost is so high that the cost ends up being over 50% more than a traditional taxi. Is it because zoomcars renters abuse cars so much that their cars life is much reduced? It it because zoomcar wants to make more money and has a way higher profit margin? Or is it plain mismanagement by zoomcar because of which they are unable to manage costs? That's my question. As BHPians I am sure most of us would like to rent cars and almost none of us would abuse them. So we are unnecessary penalised because of a few bad apples who might be car-abusers.

Can't they have a rating system where they encourage good drivers and discourage bad drivers? They could even have an OBD reader that reads how well a driver drives. Insurance systems in the west already do that - so it's not something out of the world. One a rating system is present then they could use it to incentitivise good drivers with lower costs.
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Old 1st January 2019, 11:33   #1532
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

I have see Innova taxis in fairly good condition with 2,50,000 kms on the Odo. And Zoomcars with 10% the kms covered falling into pieces.

I would imagine that this is one of the reasons. Also, insurance premiums must be higher for these cars I am guessing.
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Old 3rd January 2019, 11:34   #1533
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

Can someone confirm if Zoomcar still has governors on their Hexa fleet? I am renting one for a Bombay airport run end of this month and don't want to be stuck at 80 on the expressway. Usually 100-110 is my comfort spot for cruising.

Also worried about their cleanliness aspect since the car appear to be badly kept. Don't want the family to suffer due to dirty and dusty cars on my way back.
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Old 8th January 2019, 14:48   #1534
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

Bihar government flags off ‘rent a cab scheme' with Zoom Car in Patna. Here's how to book
Transport minister Santosh Nirala and secretary Sanjay Kumar Agrawal flagged off the service, which allows any individual to book a car to be driven by self at the minimum cost of Rs 70 per hour.
Read further on at:
https://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/bi...131146120.html

Last edited by virgopal : 8th January 2019 at 14:49. Reason: correction
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Old 8th January 2019, 15:04   #1535
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

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Originally Posted by virgopal View Post
Bihar government flags off ‘rent a cab scheme' with Zoom Car in Patna. Here's how to book
Transport minister Santosh Nirala and secretary Sanjay Kumar Agrawal flagged off the service, which allows any individual to book a car to be driven by self at the minimum cost of Rs 70 per hour.
Read further on at:
https://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/bi...131146120.html
Do they have a car that costs 70/hour? There is no price matrix on their website
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Old 8th January 2019, 15:05   #1536
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

Quote:
Originally Posted by akshaymahajan View Post
I have see Innova taxis in fairly good condition with 2,50,000 kms on the Odo. And Zoomcars with 10% the kms covered falling into pieces.

I would imagine that this is one of the reasons. Also, insurance premiums must be higher for these cars I am guessing.
In this regard, I dont understand how Zoomcar initially chose their fleet. They had Scorpios and Figos in their fleet in the earlier days whereas I would have personally picked up an Innova in the place of the scorpio.
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Old 8th January 2019, 15:13   #1537
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

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Originally Posted by audioholic View Post
In this regard, I dont understand how Zoomcar initially chose their fleet. They had Scorpios and Figos in their fleet in the earlier days whereas I would have personally picked up an Innova in the place of the scorpio.
Quoting the Co-founder David -
When they started out, Ford and Mahindra were the only company that worked with Zoom to get the applications and interfaces integrated and also supported them with good initial credit terms. BMW also helped but hiring high end cars does not work in India
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Old 8th January 2019, 15:37   #1538
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

Booked a Tata Hexa from Zoomcar for the weekend gone by. Extended family (7 of us) had to drive to Lonavala to attend an overnight function.

Got one pretty easily though I only booked a few days in advance. Pick-up spot was a parking lot of a school not far from my place. D-BHPian @selfdrive was kind enough to volunteer to drop me there. I took an Uber back while dropping it off.

Overall experience was quite positive. The vehicle ran perfectly. It did NOT have an 80kmph speed governor in action, though I was warned by email and SMS that it did. The unlocking/relocking experience was smooth. This wasn't the case when I'd booked an Ecosport from them but again that was almost 4 years ago.

But the vehicle was not clean at all. Looked like nobody had touched the insides with a clean rag in a while. The seat covers and mats were torn and dusty. To add insult to injury there was a bunch of half a dozen ripe bananas in the central armrest console. Utterly disgusting.

The cars exteriors were dusty, scratched and dented, plus one side running board had broken off at some point. There was an attendant there and he offered to clean up the exteriors with a dry rag (I can hear Viddy and Rudra wince at this!!) He also advised me to take a video of the car for the pre-existing damage.

I've never driven a Hexa before so this was a nice TD of sorts. With its extremely long throws and a not-precise-at-all rubbery gearshifts, the manual transmission variant is not one that would ever land up in my consideration set to buy. Have heard the AT is much better. The interiors aren't cheap but are not exactly premium either. In fact the instrument console looks quite nice. Bluetooth and the USB/iPod interface function perfectly well and the Harman sound is decent. But the Hexa loses out in the smaller things: for example, the last row entry is extremely ungainly and best managed by children.

I also seem to have booked the "fuel excluded" option (there is a tab right at the top which vanishes when you scroll down, so it is easy to miss) and as a result had to shell out 1440/- at the end of the trip for failing to top up diesel (which I could easily have done and it would have been cheaper). Zoomcar needs to make this process more transparent. I travelled maybe 150 km at the most and the price of ~15 litres of diesel is around 975/- I didn't raise the issue with them because the amount involved isn't significant. But it does rankle a bit.

Car was mechanically sound and the Hexa engine is quite powerful so overall we had a nice time. Would definitely prefer the AT variant next time.
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Old 8th January 2019, 17:00   #1539
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

So my first Zoomcar experience went quite well over the weekend. Had a wedding to attend in Cochin and thought ill give it a try for local commute. Had booked using the credit card and used the card for the deposit locking too. I had selected Figo freestyle since it was a new car model that I had not driven, and being new would make it a un-abused specimen.

And yes it was a new 6k kms only car, used the app to do check list enter the km reading (that was off by few kms) and went off with the car. When I reached hotel I realised the remote fob does not lock the driver door, though it enables the car siren. So if someone tries to do hanky panky, it would blow the horn.

Anyways moving on, the car came with 80 kmph sticker and that stupid governor in place. This would just cut the fuelling at that speed irrespective of the gear. I feel this is outright dangerous, imagine a serious overtaking situation and your car goes life less!! Anyways I did not get an opportunity to touch these speeds apart from one stretch where I could and that too just to check if it has a speed governor. Still I seriously advice zoom to have a better implementation of the governor than this, maybe allow occasional bursts for such situations and not holding it steady. Another interesting feature was the map chime (feeble ones) for speed limits, I found this very useful.

Had taken no fuel plan, but thanks to Noop's experience and early warning, filled up couple of litres to make it full tank level similar to when I had taken the car.

Spoke to the drop point person about the lock and he mentioned, team from BLR has to come down and fix the glitch with the lock, due to the GPS and remote access software they have installed. The work around is to use the physical key to lock the door. We are so used to these remote lock feature, I tell you! that I didn't even bother to try the traditional key!! Then again for me the car was always parked at safe locations during this trip and never mattered.

Other points:

- Saw couple of other cars being collected on Sunday, and the popular swifts seemed to be pretty tired with all the abuse. Good decision I made paying more, the 100 odd bucks for the Figo.

- My car was bathed before delivery, but quiet a shabby job and the wheel covers were almost full of mud. My OCD and joblessness almost gave me the urge to take it to the nearest car wash

- Overheard the guys at zoom speaking to Hyundai for fixing service appointment, so the cars seems to be serviced, maybe at least during the free service schedules lol and he was heard insisting on tight deadline of 10 am to 5 pm to workshop, and how they needed to ensure the washing is also done within that time lol

Last edited by suhaas307 : 22nd January 2019 at 16:37. Reason: minor typo
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Old 22nd January 2019, 12:01   #1540
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

Completed my 5th and 6th booking with zoomcar. This time with mahindra E2O electric car
All bookings so far had been hassle free. To summarize here are bookings i have made so far (reports were also posted previously)

1. Swift - First booking, hassle free experience.
2. Ford figo - Figo somehow wasn't ready for delivery, they gave me a scorpio instead.
3. Ford figo - Everything was fine, fun to drive car. while dropping i was asked for video proof (which they ask us to shoot before delivery) whether a scratch on bumper existed before i took delivery. Showed them, all okay.
4. Ford freestyle - This is the car that made my fiance cancel her booking of baleno and go for freestyle instead. Engaging reverse was an embarassement for me as i wasn't aware of that pull up ring type reverse gear lock. had to see a youtube video when i got stuck in parking unable to reverse.
5. E2O - 300 Bucks for 45KM was super cheap. Better option than ola uber for sure. Being a pro supporter of manual transmission, this was my first auto trans (or single speed motor? whatever we call it) car and i loved it for its bumper to bumper traffic usability. Its way too under powered to climb out of basement parkings with 3-4 people onboard.
6. E2O - charge was only 90% they warned me not to go over the KM limit of 50-55KM


Now coming to a funny thing that happened to me, I knew original reva was a 2 door car. What i wasn't aware that E2O is a four door car despite its compact dimensions. It has rear door handle located near C pillar (like new swift and chevy beat). I made my fiance sit on the rear seat by folding my driver seat full forward, shoving her inside through the front driver door. Only then she saw rear door handle inside the car and realized that this is a four door car. Please dont ask what happened next.
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Old 22nd January 2019, 12:11   #1541
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

Quote:
Originally Posted by hgps View Post
Completed my 5th and 6th booking with zoomcar. This time with mahindra E2O electric car

Now coming to a funny thing that happened to me, I knew original reva was a 2 door car. What i wasn't aware that E2O is a four door car despite its compact dimensions. It has rear door handle located near C pillar (like new swift and chevy beat). I made my fiance sit on the rear seat by folding my driver seat full forward, shoving her inside through the front driver door. Only then she saw rear door handle inside the car and realized that this is a four door car. Please dont ask what happened next.
Usually Zoomcar will give E2O with full charge, how come the car was not fully charged?
E2O is a two door car, E2O plus comes with four doors.
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Old 22nd January 2019, 14:45   #1542
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

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Originally Posted by moralfibre View Post
Can someone confirm if Zoomcar still has governors on their Hexa fleet? I am renting one for a Bombay airport run end of this month and don't want to be stuck at 80 on the expressway. Usually 100-110 is my comfort spot for cruising.

Also worried about their cleanliness aspect since the car appear to be badly kept. Don't want the family to suffer due to dirty and dusty cars on my way back.
Hi, yes I had rented one for 15 days and it did have a speed governor which never allowed the car to be driven beyond 80 km/hr. The car's exterior wasn't clean at all. The interiors were ok not bad. But I got the car cleaned.

The overall experience was decent. Car was in decent condition, the sound system conked off in the middle of the journey.

One glitch is getting a refund for the fuel, I have ben following-up for the same and through the trip ended on 8th Jan - yet to get the same. The security deposit was refunded promptly.
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Old 22nd January 2019, 18:13   #1543
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

I happened to come across this article on Zoomcar deploying Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) from a company called Netradyne on their fleets.

Did anyone who booked recently have this device installed in the car? It is a windshield mounted multi camera setup, so should have been very visible.
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Old 23rd January 2019, 21:56   #1544
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

Just back from a trip which involved two one-way hops.

Drive 1: Bangalore-Mangalore - i20 Sportz
It was a Feb 2018 registered model with 62k on odo. It must have been quite a workhorse to clock that kind of running in 9 months, a daily average of 180+ KM. It had few scratches to show for it, but nothing major. Interiors looked dated for a car less than a year old. Interior cleanliness was ok, but nothing outstanding. Staff at the pickup location was helpful in explaining few things to me as i was a first timer with Zoomcar. He made it a point to explain how to engage reverse gear in i20 as it was different from usual position. He also advised me to record a video of full car exterior before starting off.

Coming to driving, important point - Car DID NOT have 80kmph speed governor, although it had the sticker on the windshield. Car was ok to drive on highways, but in the curvy section i felt it was sliding a bit in corners. Could be the tyre quality or may be that's how i20 handles the curves in general (compared to my Punto).

Booking included free fuel and 340 free KMs. When i picked up the car it had around 40% tank full, and was advised to put some fuel to last the distance. I filled diesel for Rs 1000, which was later refunded back after couple of days along with security deposit, after accounting for excess KMs driven. I had overshot the distance by 2 Kms. I wonder how they calculate the free KMs in such one-way bookings. May be they consider the actual distance between pick-up and drop-off locations and vary the KMs and booking price accordingly?

Drive 2: Mangalore-Bangalore - Ecosport Trend
When i arrived at pick-up location, the staff onsite said that the car couldn't be unlocked due to some network error. So i had to call the customer service number and get it unlocked remotely! Car had no visible external damage or scratches as such, but the checklist already had few things marked, i left them unchanged. Inside, it appeared nobody had bothered to clean the car. I wonder if it wasn't cleaned because they couldn't unlock it before? There were lot of small food-waste kind of stuff near gear-stick storage area. Also had few empty water bottles and a cigarette lighter under driver seat! I wonder why people who used the car couldn't remove their stuff promptly when done!

It was a July 2018 registered car, with odometer reading just under 12k. Was surprised to see such a low number having seen i20 with 62k earlier. Right next to this, there was another Ecosport parked with registration number off by just 1. Must have been part of a bunch of Ecosports registered together. While i was going through the documents, there was a document from Ford, mentioning retro-fitting of 80kmph speed limiter. There was no such document in i20, so i was pretty sure that this car had the dreaded device installed. After picking up the car i went for a small drive before going home to pick rest of the family, just to check how this limiter works. Unfortunately, never managed to find a stretch to hit the required speed and just ended up wasting 15-20 minutes and 7 kms of drive.

As with i20, i had to fill some fuel here too, and it was amusing when i didn't know how to open the fuel tank lid! For what it's worth, Zoomcar provides a short video of booked car explaining few controls. The video had a remote-lock key while i got a car with manual key which didn't have any buttons. We must have easily spent few minutes trying various things and finally i notice an unlock button on the inside panel of driver side door. It basically unlocks all doors including fuel tank lid.

Once i hit the highway, it was obvious that this car had the 80kmph limiter. Car itself was great to drive otherwise, especially in the twisty sections crossing the Western Ghats, but driving in highway with handicap of top speed was such a torture. It's by far the most boring and frustrating drives we had, and i could literally finger-count the number of cars we were able to overtake in highway - 3 cars overall (excluding city limits or heavy traffic scenarios). I saw vehicles of all size and shape overtaking us without any mercy - Force Travellers, Omnis and even KSRTC red buses. While 80kmph is the legal maximum speed limit on the highways, limiting the speed of the car to same makes it difficult to drive safely especially when overtaking or letting others overtake. At least there should be a +10 or +20 kmph range which would help when a burst of speed is needed.

At the end of the trip i had clocked 351 KMs (extra 11 KMs over the free KMs). At the end of the trip we are expected to upload a photo showing the odometer reading, and i am pretty sure i entered correct number. After dropping off the car and reaching home, i got a shock seeing a due amount of Rs 6032 for excess KMs. It was showing total driving distance of 717 KMs! I was thinking to myself what kind of challenge it would be to cover 717 KMs in little over 9 hours with 80kmph as top speed! Anyway, i called up customer care and the person on the other side verified GPS logs of the car which showed 350Kms as total distance, and he issued a reversal of charges for excess KMs and it's resolved.

Overall i would say, a decent experience, except for car cleanliness and obviously the annoying speed limiter. Customer support so far has been great in resolving couple of issues pretty quickly (which are pretty minor ones), and i did not have any problems during the actual drive itself which is the most important thing.

A note on speed limiter in cars - Has anyone got any i20 with speed limiter in it? May be one of the reason why the i20 had clocked so much was because people pick i20 over other cars because of lack of speed governor?

Last edited by SilentEngine : 23rd January 2019 at 22:14. Reason: Added Ecosport fuel lid opening story
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Old 24th January 2019, 13:52   #1545
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re: Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

Hey SilentEngine,

Quote:
Originally Posted by SilentEngine View Post
Has anyone got any i20 with speed limiter in it? May be one of the reason why the i20 had clocked so much was because people pick i20 over other cars because of lack of speed governor?
On their twitter page, Zoomcar says that few of their cars are fitted with the 80 kph speed governor. Unfortunately, you'll only know about it once the actual car is assigned to you, which is 3-4 hrs before your assigned start time. In other words - it's all down to luck. Link

Chances are that there is another i20 at the same location, with an 80kph speed governor as well, which was probably assigned to some other poor soul.


Quote:
Originally Posted by SilentEngine View Post
.... but in the curvy section i felt it was sliding a bit in corners. Could be the tyre quality or may be that's how i20 handles the curves in general
I frequently drive my 5-yr old i20 on the Mumbai-Pune expressway and even while cornering at 100+ speeds (wherever possible), it sticks to its lane. I'm guessing 2 iterations and 5 yrs later, the 2018 i20 should perform equally well, if not better. I have never driven a Punto, so I can't really compare that part.

The sliding is possible if the tyres haven't been changed. What was the tread like? With 62,000 kms on the ODO, it's highly likely that the factory fitted tyre will have a shallow tread. This could result in the slipping you mentioned.

Another reason, which I personally experienced, was slippage due to low air pressure in the tyre (again, you need to corner at 80+ to feel it a bit, else the car is rock steady).
In my case it was down to 24psi vs the 32-34 range that I usually keep it at. A quick 2 minute stop at the petrol pump and the slippage was gone.

Last edited by sidpunjabi : 24th January 2019 at 13:57.
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