Zipcar
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Anonymous
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Do you use Zipcar?
Do you like it? Is the customer service generally good? Do you find that cars are readily available when you need them? Does the app work well? Are the quoted per-hour rental prices all inclusive, or are there other hidden costs (tax?)? |
Anonymous
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Tried to make a go of it, but it just wasn't practical.
Cars were never where I needed them, when I needed them. No one ever puts gas in them, so they're always on empty. People smoke in them, leave food trash, change the radio presets to nothing but urban hip hop, the cars feel like they're beat to shit from constant abusing, and they have a funky odor that's a combination of the body scents of many different people, some of whom don't bathe often, plus all their farts. Zipcar is gross, basically. |
Anonymous
| I have had a generally good experience. Only once was the car I reserved not there on time, and Zipcar quickly switched me to another car. The cars have usually been clean and have at least a half-tank of gas. Have never had a car smell like smoke. Have usually had good experiences with customer service. |
Anonymous
| Zipcar stinks solely for the fact that you have to return the car back to where you picked it up. I actually can't believe they're still in business with all the Car-2-Gos everywhere you look. |
Anonymous
That's not what I use them for (one way trips). It's actually great for me to have different cars close to me, with assigned spots. I have no complaints about zipcar: practical, affordable especially for urban dwellers who don't need a car regularly. |
Anonymous
OP here -- I thought Car-2-Go were all two seaters, no? How do you use those with kids? |
Anonymous
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I had a membership years ago and it worked well. It's possible they haven't kept up their vehicles in the intervening years. The car I ordered was always there when I went to pick up, and it always had gas although not always the required half-tank. I often had to Metro several stops if I wanted a specialty car, like a pickup truck.
I found customer service to be very good. They have a local brick and mortar office, and offered me some helpful options when I lost my membership card. |
Anonymous
| I had a decent experience with zipcar. I live in the city and there were usually cars nearby when I needed them, on little notice. The cars I picked up often had less gas than they're supposed to have. My gas card to fill the tank only worked sporadically, and I'd often have to buy gas and get reimbursed by zipcar. Once my card to open the car stopped working, and customer service fixed it for me right away so I could pick up my car. I found it really weird that they didn't let you keep more than one credit card on file at a time, which was a pain for me because I sometimes wanted to use cars for business reasons and sometimes for personal reasons. I'd have to re-enter the information for whichever card I wanted to use every time I switched. |
Anonymous
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I've lived without a car in NW DC (Columbia Heights and Mt. Pleasant) for 8 years and use Zipcar monthly or every other month.
Pros: -lots of car options (especially if you need one during weekday business hours) -weekday, full day, and overnight reservations are cheap due to promos (you get 4 hours for the cost of 3 during the week, for example) -the complete waiver ($9/month) covers any damage, accident, or incident that happens during the reservation -the cars have a sticker that allows the driver to park in any legal curbside space in DC Cons: -cars are often dirty or have cosmetic damage (people abuse the cars, leave their trash inside, let their dogs shed all over the back seat) -I've had multiple experiences where I have a reservation and the car is MIA (even Zipcar doesn't know where it is) - inconvenient to say the least It's not perfect, but it's better than car ownership if you don't need a car or drive often. |