Team-BHP - Zoom Car Reviews - Self Drive Rentals in India

Had a mixed zoomcar experience on my recent trip to Rann of Kutch
Had booked Creta almost 1 month in advance from Ahmedabad
Went to pick up the car from the location at 8 AM and my worst fears came true
There was no Creta in the parking lot. Checked with the zoomcar guy there and he said he did not have any Creta booking for the day
Just when I was about to call the helpline I get a call from them saying the Creta which was suppose to arrive is delayed so they wont be able to provide it and offered me a Figo
from the same location.
I argued a lot that my luggage wont fit but they didnt have any other cars to give me.
I was getting late so had to take the Figo reluctantly. On the brighter side the car was in good shape and it was fun to drive
After I returned the car the refund was immediate into my paytm wallet and got the refund for the fuel bill next day

Had my first experience with Zoomcar last week. Was visiting my in-laws in Kanpur/Rae bareli, so decided to try zoom car from lucknow. They have pickup and drop facility at Lucknow airport at an additional cost of 500/-

I had initially booked Swift but on the day when i was supposed to take the car, i was informed that swift has some technical issue and they will give me a ford figo. they also gave 200/- credit against this booking for change in car.

The Figo was blue in color and car had around 28K on the Odo and it was fairly clean both from Inside and outside. It had few scratches/minor dents on the left side door and rear bumper. The person handing over the car explained the features, showed the documents and also stressed that the max speed allowed is 125kmph and no pets allowed in side the car. A little while after i took the car, i noticed that there was lot of pet hair inside especially on the back seat carpet area. Also i was made to take a video of the car to ensure all the dents/scratch were noted duly by me.

Since i drive a dzire AMT in Bangalore, it was difficult to drive the manual especially in Kanpur traffic on first day. I felt the clutch was very hard. But i got used to it by second day and the car performed wonderfully. The AC worked nice, the pickup was superb.

The entire process of taking the car and returning it back was smooth via the zoom car app. If i had hired a taxi for my commute i would have paid almost 15K, but with Zoom car i paid only around 10.5K for a total of around 515KM over 5 days. I feel this was decent amount for a self drive car.

Overall it was a nice experience in spite of the hard clutch and i would like to try not just zoom but other such services like Myles in the future

I use the Zoomcar service in Hyderabad every month. Here are a few updates for all the users from my end:

1. The Zoom Commute service has been unavailable in the city since around October.
2. They have apparently discontinued the Honda Amaze, Honda City, Mahindra XUV5OO, Toyota Fortuner, Mercedes CLA, and Mercedes GLA from their fleets. On the other hand, there are new additions like Hyundai Verna, Maruti Vitara Brezza, Tata Tiago, and Mahindra E20 Plus.
3. They have shut down a few pick-up locations like Begumpet (Lifestyle), ABIDS, Madhapur (Vaishnavi College), Madhapur (Chutney's), etc.
4. Vehicle drop facilities remain largely unavailable due to under-staffing.

Hi, I am planning a trip from Chennai to Tirumala (Tirupati), for a day trip. Planning to taking a ZOOMCAR from Chennai. The website was very clear that the cars are All India Permit and can be driven anywhere around India without RTO hassles etc. I have a few questions:-

1. Will I have to pay an entry tax at RTO Checkpoint between TN and AP? If yes, then will ZOOMCAR refund it (Website is silent about it).

2. Are Zoomcars yellow (or) white number plate cars (pardon my ignorance as I am from UAE and haven't rented a car ever in India).

3. Like popular car rentals in the UAE, does ZoomCar have CDW insurance (i.e. in the event of any scratch, accident etc, I do not pay any excess). How do they deal with customers who return a car that has been scratched (inadvertently of course!).

4. Like the UAE, do they honor the car model booked (e.g. I book a Creta and get a Creta and not a Figo!)

Quote:

Originally Posted by CivicheadUAE (Post 4343439)

Hi CivicheadUAE,

I might be able to help you on this matter. Please find my answers down below.

1. Yes you will have to pay an entry tax of Rs 2700 approximately. But Zoomcar used to reimburse that earlier on. You need to mail Zoomcar for the same.

2. As Zoomcars are actually taxis, they are bound to have yellow number plates.

3. They will keep a security deposit from you if you are not a supermilers club. They can charge a maximum of that security deposit. They have specifically added damage insurances against all their car.

4. Most of the time, they do. But rarely, I have found instances when they change the car. They certainly do honor the booking. I have driven Zoomcar for at least 20 times and I have never faced any issues as such.

But on the flip side, make sure that the car is in perfect condition. Do make a video before taking the car from their garage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rajarshi.sarker (Post 4343501)

2. As Zoomcars are actually taxis, they are bound to have yellow number plates.

3. They will keep a security deposit from you if you are not a supermilers club. They can charge a maximum of that security deposit. They have specifically added damage insurances against all their car.

2. Zoomcars are rental self drive cars, not taxis, so the number plate is black with yellow text. A driver driven vehicle will have yellow board with black text.

3. IIRC the max they could charge is 10k. It will be in their terms.

Rented a TATA Hexa XE at Bhubaneswar from the 24th to the 28th of this month. It was a brand new car with barely 11,000 kms on the odo.

Zoomcar does not have airport pick up / drop services or delivery / pick up from location in Bhubaneswar as yet, so had to collect & return the car from their parking lot in Patia, which is a fair distance from the airport.

Pick up and drop off experience was seamless. The only fly in the ointment was that the maximum speed was limited to 80 km/hr, which caught me unawares during an overtaking maneuver as I had not been informed of this policy when being handed over the car.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Babuda (Post 4346784)

80kmph, really?:Frustrati

I know of people renting endeavour in bangalore and was told that speed limit is 120kmph

I believe speed governors are installed to cars which are not owned by Zoomcar (leased/attached cars).

As per Zoomcar website "A speed governor will be installed in your car. This device is required by the government of India, and restricts the top speed of the car to 80km/h. This helps reduce wear n tear in your car, as well as the overall accident maintenance cost."

Source : https://www.zoomcar.com/why-zap

One of my friend had hired an EcoSport recently at Bangalore which came with this speed limiter.

My First Zoom Car Self Drive Rental.

I was in Kochi for a wedding. The reception was over on Sunday and we had our flight booked for Monday night.

So needed a car as we did not want a cab.

Arrived at the Zoom Car location. They asked us to check the available cars using the App.
The App showed multiple cars, but only this Creta was ready to go.

Booked it.
Then realized that I need to get my profile verified. Took a picture of my driving license and a screenshot of my Aadhar card.
They rejected the screenshot of the mAadhar app. Luckily, I had the Aadhar pdf in my google drive.
This screenshot was accepted.

Only after this verification did they allow us to check out the car.

I took a video of the car as a record.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTCtO0cFh-g

The car was dirty on the outside and they cleaned it before giving it to us.
Despite my telling them that we did not care about it.

The interiors were very clean. This Creta had done less than 17k kms.
The car had no issues at all. It was a pleasure to drive but had its speed limited to 80 kmph.
This was not a problem as we were driving on normal roads and rarely got to touch speeds over 60 kmph.