[PVS]

Originally Posted by jaaz

But, how did the taxi fellas make out that the Car is a Rent a Car? Did the Car have Zoomcar stickers on it or they recognized the Driver who brought the Car.

The driver had brought the car and was waiting in front of the Mysore Railway Station entrance (No Parking zone). This got the goat of the taxi fellas who guessed something amiss.
When I walked up to the driver and asked him "Zoomcar?", the fellas were within earshot and immediately caught on.
The driver seems to be in an unusual hurry to move away from the place, and this added more fuel to the fire. The taxi guys attributed this "suspicious" behavior of the driver to a fraud and immediately alerted the traffic cop on duty, and then started taking pictures of the car. And the damage was already done by then, unfortunately. All that was remaining was the traffic cop to clamp the car, and we got stuck.

[PVS]

Originally Posted by PVS

Even as I type, I haven't received any communication from ZoomCar on my refund.

Fed up after having received no response even after 13 days since the last follow up, I shoot a repeat email to Zoomcar customer support, tag Zoomcar in Twitter, and tweet about my frustrating experience. Zoomcar responded with alacrity, and soon enough by around 2120 hours, I get a SMS that the refund has been processed into my account. FINALLY!!. The attached word document lists the details of the follow-ups I had to do:
ZoomCar_ListOfCalls_2.docx

SO LONG ZOOMCAR!! Hope to NEVER, EVER do business with you again

[Mohan Mathew A]

I am visiting Goa along with family next week and is planning on renting a car there. I visited Zoomcar and they provide no details if it will be a legal rental car (yellow on black) or a private car. They have no customer care chat (except canned Q&As) or call option. I am a bit unsure of doing a blind booking. It seems Myles and Revv don't operate in Goa

Are there any other options. Any guidance will be much appreciated

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by Mohan Mathew A

I am visiting Goa along with family next week and is planning on renting a car there. I visited Zoomcar and they provide no details if it will be a legal rental car (yellow on black) or a private car. They have no customer care chat (except canned Q&As) or call option. I am a bit unsure of doing a blind booking. It seems Myles and Revv don't operate in Goa

Are there any other options. Any guidance will be much appreciated

If you want to pick up a car from near the aiport:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/other...avels-goa.html (Self Drive Car & Bike Rental - Zain Travels (Goa))

For other options:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/stree...ntals-goa.html (Self Drive Car / Jeep Rentals in Goa?)

I used this person to rent a car in South Goa a couple of weeks back (commercial number plate so totally legal):
Fraser 9822582402

[Mohan Mathew A]

Originally Posted by Eddy

If you want to pick up a car from near the aiport:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/other...avels-goa.html (Self Drive Car & Bike Rental - Zain Travels (Goa))

For other options:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/stree...ntals-goa.html (Self Drive Car / Jeep Rentals in Goa?)

I used this person to rent a car in South Goa a couple of weeks back (commercial number plate so totally legal):
Fraser 9822582402

Thanks Eddy for the quick reply and suggestions. I will be going via train but looking at the Zain website it seems they will provide pick up anywhere. What I am more worried is incase of any unfortunate incidents (like minor accidents, scratches etc) what will be their approach?. Will insurance cover it and is there a maximum cap in one's liability. I would prefer to avoid any unpleasantness incase of such an eventuality. Would you have some idea about that?

[Eddy]

I have hired from Zain and Fraser. Both warned me that they will not claim insurance for any damages under 50k, and the cost will have to be borne the client.

[Srini1414]

Originally Posted by PVS

Fed up after having received no response even after 13 days since the last follow up, I shoot a repeat email to Zoomcar customer support, tag Zoomcar in Twitter, and tweet about my frustrating experience. Zoomcar responded with alacrity, and soon enough by around 2120 hours, I get a SMS that the refund has been processed into my account. FINALLY!!. The attached word document lists the details of the follow-ups I had to do:
Attachment 2323359

SO LONG ZOOMCAR!! Hope to NEVER, EVER do business with you again

You atleast managed to get a refund I had a very sorry experience with ZOOM car in Hyderabad and no refund.
I have opted revv in mysuru this year April and had a very good experience.

[vharihar]

Is there a single portal/aggregator for self-drive rental cars?

Is there any good self-drive rental car offering pickup and dropoff in Mumbai airport?

[Horizon85]

Originally Posted by vharihar

Is there a single portal/aggregator for self-drive rental cars?

Is there any good self-drive rental car offering pickup and dropoff in Mumbai airport?

I have used Revv at Mumbai in 2020. It was good. Kayak and goibibo do show aggregated self driven cars, but the market is shrinking and many players have shut shop or have opted out of the offering.

After reading all the white-board car issues of Zoomcar here, I wrote to Zoomcar to enquire about the availability of legitimate yellow-on-black plate cars, but no response. Does anyone know the email id of Zoomcar support?

Wrote to Revv as well and they have responded:
"We would like to inform you that Revv owns the semi commercial vehicle only"

What does semicommercial mean? Is it yellow-on-black board registered cars?

I have to drive into MP from Nagpur airport with family and I don't want to get into hassles of a white board registered car.

[Nissan1180]

My relatives took a Zoomcar last week in Kerala. The experience was horrible, to say the least. The car had a weak suspension, was parked in the middle of nowhere, and had to be returned to the same location. Their call centre’s are unreachable and arrogant.

Please avoid Zoomcar if you want peace of mind.

[ritedhawan]

It’s quite a shame that Zoomcar seems to have hit rock bottom. The bad experiences shared by many Tbhpians accentuate the fact: 'Stay away from zoomcar'. I was cursorily going through the last few posts, and it seems to me that Zoomcar is going down big time.

There was a time I was at the mercy of their vehicles. It was in the year Dec. 2015 when I had lost my beloved second hand 2007 Honda Accord 2.4L AT, its AT gave up thanks to my negligence and it was not worth fixing.
I had no car of my own from Jan. 2016 till Mar. 2019 when I bought a third hand 2008 Honda Accord 2.4L (Still own it). During that period, I would get my hands on my father's i20 (only on Sundays) or later in 2018 my brother's second-hand Toyota Camry occasionally.

It was between March 2016 and June 2017, that I relied on Zoomcar for any excursion outside Delhi. I got the opportunity to drive the following vehicles under the banner of Zoomcar: a diesel Ford Figo, diesel Ford Aspire, diesel Honda Jass, diesel Honda City and finally a diesel Hyundai i20 in June 2017.

The Zoomcar collection point was five hundred meters away from my home and at the start, I realized it was easy to book a car, transfer the amount via digital wallet. My first experience with Zoomcar was a one-day excursion on a blue diesel Ford Figo. It was five in the morning, I walked up to the car, used the app to unlock the car. Opened the glove box which had the car key and car papers--it was quite a novelty for me to see for itself a car being unlocked by an app. You don't have to rely on anyone to hand you over the keys. I started the car and went along. The car didn't have much mileage on it. It was clean and there didn't seem to me any lag in its ability to perform.
I was happy with my first experience, and therefore decided to rely on it for my one-day excursions outside Delhi, once every one or two months. Till the end of 2016, I followed the same routine, got my hands on a diesel Ford Figo, Honda Jass and a Honda city. The last one had seventy thousand kilometers on it and its brakes were uninspiring and relatively unclean compared to the previous cars that I had driven from Zoomcar stable. I could no longer use the app to unlock the car as they had decided to have attendants who would hand over the keys. I would always pick up the car in the morning and would deliver it back the same evening.

The last occasion when I used Zoomcar was in June 2017. This would be a three-day excursion instead of the one-day stints that I had with their cars. It was a three-day excursion from Delhi to Kullu (H.P). I reached the collection point at eight am but couldn't find the blue diesel i20 nor the attendant. I decided to wait, however, neither the car nor the attendant was in sight. It was 8:30 am, and no one was in sight neither the car nor the attendant. I decided to make couple of calls to their customer service, finally at 9:10 am the attendant drove in with the car, didn't even apologize for the delay, followed the usual process of taking videos of the perimeter of the car and finally handed over the keys. I started the car, it had 19k km on it, and the fuel gauge showed that it required a visit to the nearest fuel station. I thought, what the attendant had been up to for the past one hour, that he didn't have the time to fuel up the car. A quick glance around and the attendant was nowhere to be found!

Anyways, I drove to the nearest fuel station and to my amazement all tires seemed under inflated. The puncture guy got all four tires removed from the car and identified at least one puncture on each one of them. It took an hour and half to get the puncture job completed, tires re-installed and then I got the car fuelled up. It was 12 noon when I began my journey to Kullu.I began to wonder, what took the attendant an hour and 10 minutes to deliver the car, maybe he was getting a car wash completed. Yet he certainly didn't bother to fuel up the car or at least get the tires inflated. I lost four hours getting the car prepared, this was not a good experience. All along my drive up to Kullu, the car seemed gasping for breath. When I reached Kullu, I got it checked from a local mechanic who showed me the chocked air filter! Once the air filter was cleaned and re-installed, everything seemed fine and at the end of my three-day excursion when I delivered the car back to the Zoomcar collection point, I decided that this would be my last Zoomcar experience. I uploaded the fuel receipts via their app and got the required fuel refund.

[createrkid]

Hi guys, any clue of a service that offers one-way trips? I was planning a drive from Hyderabad to Bangalore in a self drive but couldn't find any information on such an offering. Zoom had something called Hop that I think is discontinued. Need to basically pick up from Hyderabad and drop off at Bangalore.

[StepUP!]

Hey guys, I am looking to book a self drive car from the Nagpur airport for a week. Looks like only zoomcar has presence in Nagpur. When I checked their site, I see couple of Tribers, Swifts, Dzires.
I was surprised to see private number plates in the pic for all these cars. Also, no pick-up spot at the airport. Looks like these private cars are attached to Zoom and I need to pick up from the respective owner's place.

Anyone has any experience with self drive cars in Nagpur?

[Horizon85]

Originally Posted by Horizon85

I have to drive into MP from Nagpur airport with family and I don't want to get into hassles of a white board registered car.

So, I had booked a car from Revv a month in advance for last week of February, 2023. However, Revv shut their Nagpur operations sometime in January mid and issued me a full refund. Now, the only other choice left was Zoomcar.

I booked a KIA Carens on Zoomcar, however on the day, got a call from their Nagpur executive that the said car was unavailable. He offered a new Suzuki Dzire with just 3000 kms on the odometer. With limited time at hand, I accepted the change in booking. All their cars are now privately owned by individuals.

The car was delivered by a driver (this service is outsourced) and I asked him to stay in the parking area, so as to avoid taxi drivers' attention. The handover was smooth. I clicked a lot of pictures.

The car was indeed in "showroom condition" as the Zoomcar executive was claiming. The drive was smooth. I was a bit worried about any traffic police and RTO checks on the borders. I am not confident about the white number plate private registered car renting legalities. But luckily, there were no checks.

The only issue was that Zoomcar did not facilitate fasttag. But their representative at Nagpur was very helpful and got me connected to the car's owner. We agreed that I'll pay the toll charges directly to the owner and the fasttag was sorted. At the end of our trip, I left the car at Nagpur airport parking with the parking slip, cash for parking charges in the car. Their staff picked the car up a few hours later.

[AnnaRocks]

ZOOMCAR & an Old XUV 500 - A rattling combo

For a sudden trip to Mumbai, my friend and I found ourselves in a predicament with limited options and time constraints. Despite a previous positive experience with Zoomcar in their early years, this particular adventure turned into a series of mishaps and left us with a lasting impression. Buckle up as I recount the tale of our ill-fated encounter with Zoomcar and an XUV500 that seemed to have seen better days. Getting the driver profile verified after installing the app was a headache. This was followed by car pickup fiasco. Throughout the process, I got a strong 'Golmal hai bhai sab golmal he' vibe from Hera Pheri.




The following was the car shown on the app for representative purpose(I wondered why the original pic wasn't shown then)




The Dirty Dilemma:
We headed straight to the parking lot after landing. As we approached the car, parked in the dark underground parking of BMC near Mumbai Airport, our enthusiasm began to wane. It was as if we stumbled upon the dirtiest car we had ever travelled, surpassing even some of those leased unkempt Uber/Ola vehicles found in some metros. And to think that we had to spend the next 3 days in this. The level of filth was so extraordinary that my friend flat-out refused to touch the steering wheel, creating an instant bond of disgust between them. Prior to this, I had used Zoomcar years ago, and if my memory serves me right, it was a relatively smooth process when Zoomcar managed the cars themselves. The cars were neat, had those Zoomcar stickers prominently displayed, white and yellow plates etc. However, I must confess that I haven't kept up with what happened to them since then, as I rarely used their services. On a couple of occasions while waiting for the delivery of my new car, I resorted to using EVMwheels, which turned out to be a pleasant experience.












The Never-Ending Handover:
The process of car handover turned into a lengthy affair, taking a whopping 45 minutes in the humid basement parking. The car itself was a sorry sight, with signs of severe abuse and a nonchalant caretaker who couldn't care less about its condition. As we waited for the car handover and completed the formalities, the combination of the stifling humidity and lack of proper ventilation created a near Sauna bath experience for us. To add insult to injury, he demanded a fuel deposit of Rs. 3500, making us feel like we were being taken for a ride before the ride even began. Nevertheless, pressed for time, we reluctantly transferred the money and embarked on our journey

The Wallet Quest:
Shortly after our departure, the caretaker called in a state of panic, claiming he may have left his wallet in the car. We reluctantly pulled over in the chaotic Mumbai traffic to search for the elusive wallet. Alas, there was no wallet to be found. The caretaker, still flustered, promised to check with other cars he had rented out that day. We resumed our bumpy ride, with my friend expressing his colorful dissatisfaction with the XUV.

The Symphony of Warnings:
As we continued our adventure, the car treated us to a symphony of warning sounds and illuminated warning lights. Confused, we called the caretaker for assistance, only to receive an incredulous response claiming that the car was in perfect condition. We couldn't help but chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. Miraculously, the warnings gradually became less frequent and eventually stopped altogether, granting us a temporary reprieve.

The Bonnet Fiasco:
Just when we thought the comedy of errors had reached its peak, the caretaker called again, suggesting that his wallet might be there in the engine bay. Yes, you read that right. His high levels of hope and equal levels of sheer stupidity led him to believe that a wallet could survive a two-hour drive nestled within an engine compartment. Finding a suitable spot on the highway, we attempted to open the bonnet, only to be met with stubborn resistance. Even the boot had a secret trick to open it, which we learned during the car handover in the basement. We must have looked like amateur detectives trying to crack a case. We even consulted a mechanic at a petrol pump, engaging in video calls and troubleshooting over the phone. Time continued to slip away as we fell further behind schedule.

From Concern to Crankiness:
The caretaker's incessant calls became more aggressive, and that was the tipping point. We decided to put an end to the madness and refused to entertain his increasingly demanding requests. With no refund or apologies forthcoming, we returned the car post our journey to an unfamiliar face in the "Pataal Parking," bidding farewell to our unforgettable Zoomcar experience.

Post-trip, our attempts to address the refund issue with Zoomcar were met with automated bot responses in the app. It seemed like an endless loop of frustration until a glimmer of hope emerged. Finally, a human representative from Zoomcar replied and suggested connecting with the host to settle the refund matters. Unfortunately, the chat option was no longer available in the app since the trip had ended, and the provided phone number yielded no response.
This was the available options in chat which got responses from bot. I saw no other customer service contact number.

Frustrated but resigned, we ultimately decided to let it go, vowing never to embark on another Zoomcar adventure anytime soon, and my friend declared a temporary ban on Mahindra cars in his automotive aspirations.

As we bid adieu to Zoomcar, we couldn't help but reflect on the importance of reliable customer service and the role it plays in shaping our perceptions of a brand. Although this adventure had its fair share of frustrations, it gifted us with a humorous story and a cautionary tale about the perils of last-minute bookings and overlooked car maintenance.