After deciding on a trip to Thirupati and booking flightsfrom Thiruvananthapuram to Chennai, we hadn’t decided on our commute fromChennai to Thirupati, for our family of 7 adults and an infant. That is whensomeone suggested renting a car and driving the near 3-hour journey, becausethere weren’t much 8 seaters ( including driver) available.
So I searched onlinefor car rentals in Chennai and found some familiar names like Avis and otherlocal players. I didn’t explore Avis much, which I would regret later, and theothers simply provided only chauffeur-driven cars. That is when I foundZoomCars intriguing. They had a cool looking website and some appealing offerslike full fuel reimbursement, easy pickup and drop from the airport, free kms. etc.They also had a mobile app which was also good.
One thing that caught my eyewas a procedure to unlock the car using app. Means, I could login to my accountin the app and the car would be parked somewhere in the airport and I couldunlock the car using the app and I was ready to go. Same way, I can leave thecar at the airport after I’m done with my trip. I never thought the good thingsended there. I decided to book the XUV500 for 3 days ( May 22 8 am to May 24 3pm) . They calculate the rate based on the hours you need and you need to paythe full cash upfront. They had this package for 550 free kms, I decided to optfor it. The website does not have any customer care numbers for you to call. Soall the communication happens via email. This should have been a clear redsignal, but I decided to go further. Finally, I booked their service and paidthe money and hoped for the best
Our flight landed on May 22 at 07: 25 in Chennai and I decidedto call the number I was provided after booking. And I received my first jolt.The Chennai representative ( ZoomCars is based out of Bangalore) informed methat I have to come to the ZoomCars site to pick the vehicle, when my bookingand the website assured that the car would be 0.0 kms away from the Chennaiairport. How they expect someone new to the city to go to a place that far awayfrom the airport is certainly not clear. So clearly they are misleadingcustomers. And whoever called does not know how to converse in English and I donot understand Tamil. After much back and forth, they agreed to bring the carto the airport. I’m not even getting into the details of the communicationproblem we had in meeting at a common point. So after more than hour after mybooking started, around 9: 20 am, the car arrives and we receive another shock.The XUV was in utter shabby condition. It was not washed since its last service( probably) and it had dents and damages all over, including one of the taillights being broken. The inside of the car was also same. Wouldn’t it be moreprofessional had they vacuumed the car? It was so dusty and dirty, it wouldmake you want to throw up.
As per their website, we had to fill the checklist from theapp. The driver who came to drop the car, insisted we bring the car to theaforementioned site to get the checklist done. I told him it’s not possible, since my booking clearly mentioned pickup at the airport. He said it willaffect his job if it’s done by me from the app. I asked him where he will sit, since we were 7 people already. So we decided to fill the checklist from the appand I found that there was no room for luggage. You could only put one suitcasemaximum in the boot space available in the vehicle. Now we had a problem. Wehad 4-5 suitcases and in no way could we keep them unless we fold the 3rdrow seats, which means the car is now a 5 seater. I asked him if they couldprovide a roof carrier or an alternate vehicle. He said they don’t have anyother vehicles or the carrier. He had no answer when I showed him availablecars when I checked their website. So clearly, they were not going to resolvethe issue and would have wanted me to cancel the booking, which means I willlose half the money I had paid in advance.
So after much deliberation, we decided to go ahead with thebooking at around 1030, and had to hire another car from another taxi service, which meant we had to pay an excess of Rs. 4, 500 one-way. Our problems wereonly starting. Since the car was not washed at all, the windshields were dustyand then I found that the wiper fluid was empty. What that means is the car wasnot given for service regularly. During the trip, the worst thing happened. Theair conditioning stopped without reason.
We returned to Chennai by around 12: 30 pm on the 24th.I called the customer care number to arrange for drop off. They gave me theChennai representative’s number and I called him. Again they were insisting onthe car be dropped off at their site. So again, after going back and forth, Iinsisted I was in no way going to any site and will drop the vehicle at theairport and close the booking using the app. In the end, they agreed to be atthe airport by 14: 30, which was 90 minutes away when I hung up the phone. Iinformed them I won’t be waiting beyond 14: 45 and that I would be closing the bookingusing the app, since I had to get inside the airport building by 15: 00.
At around 14: 40, the same driver and another guy came to pickthe vehicle. The other guy, who clearly had no clue what was going on, had thenerve to ask me to pay for the damages that was there on the car earlier. Fortunately, the driver who had come earlier, had the sense to acknowledge that the damageswere there earlier and common sense prevailed. In the end, I closed the bookingusing the app, as instructed by the driver.
