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?