JPS6VXKLD is my booking id and the car that I rented is a Mahindra Scorpio - bearing registration # KA 03 AC 1016 and picked it up at ** TEK Towers on OMR, Chennai. Here’s my experience in detail and hope this helps others. While I did not have any unpleasant experience in my drive to Tirupathi from Chennai but there were lot of issues - be it in the service by the staff at the pick-up parking lot or when returning the car. Realized or noted half the flaws only at my first stop as the sun was out in full view. Attached PICS to support my detailed review below.however this site lets me attach only 2 pics.
First - my experience of picking up the vehicle itself was horrible. My scheduled time of pick up was EARLY MORNING AT 5:00 but I reached this place around 5:20AM or so. There was no directions whatsoever to reach this facility though the telephonic VRS connects to the pick up location and the staff gives you direction. But if you are new and not familiar with the city or location you are in for nightmare early hours. Anyways.once I reached this place I see the parking lot on the 6TH FLOOR of a multilevel car parking not well lit. It was dark with a fleet of cars lined up from Zoom. Was happy to see the wide collection of car - there were at least 4 other SCORPIOS. But I was asked to take a vehicle that was already allotted - with 83k miles on its speedometer.
The staff asked me to go over the checklist on the ZOOMCAR app on my smartphone - everything is marked as’available’ by default. You got to be careful BEFORE tapping"CONTINUE’ button on your phone. Ensure you deselect if a particular document or condition is not available. Unfortunately, in my case as the parking lot was dark and I couldn’t notice many cosmetic faults - some are major.here’s a complete list of the issues that I noted in my car including plethora of issues inside the cabin:
1. Dent on the left front lights,
2. Windscreen was not clean affecting visibility when driving - it was very foggy on 13Jan in Chennai outskirts and the visibility was very poor due to unclean windscreen. I had to park on the curbside and clean it with newspaper and then proceed.
3. Both left and right side-view mirrors broken but functional(fastened with large zip ties)
4. Rear Tail lamps glass broken but functional
5. Inside Door handle to hold for entry and exit - was loose and shaking.paint completely peeled off
6. Floor carpets missing in the back row seating
7. AC vents broken
8. Automatic window button broken(couldn’t down one side of the window)
9. 12-VOLT charger was very loose and I couldn’t charge my phone.had to enter with just 3% battery on my smartphone and was lucky enough to complete the checkout process when returning the car.
10. Inside the vehicle cabin - the rubber casing for the windscreen to prevent wind entering the cabin was hanging loose.so now you can imaging how it would be inside when cruising at 100-110KMPH.
- Fuel lid does not open with the press of the button.it’s a 4-step process(instead of 2).press the inside cabin button(under the steering wheel), then open the backside door, there’s a lever that you have to pull for the fuel cover to open, open the fuel lid to fill.and guess what - the fuel lid was dented and scratches all over.UFFFF.
12. No cup holders or accessories to even keep your phone.you cannot keep it on the dashboard nor near the gear rod place nor anywhere.wow.brilliant ZOOM. YOU GUYS ARE CHEAP.cannot even provide basic things for convenience of your customer is it?
13. Spare tyre completely no grip.is as smooth as butter or paste
14. Shifting gears was not easy.may be because of the wear and tear by different type of drivers.
15. The guy at the parking lot - Daya or someone - when returning the car at 6:30PM - a full 90-minutes ahead of time - was not even polite. Instead of checking if some of these damages where there earlier - he was questioning me if I caused these dents. How rude is that? Felt like dealing with him physically but thought I will handle him through ZOOM CAR.
I just hope ZOOM CAR either take this vehicle completely off their fleet or repair and refurbish it so customers don’t have to go through this unpleasant experience.
I wish I had a pleasant first time experience renting a large SUV in India but if this continues then we are way way behind how it is in US/UK. The prices of renting are way above on how much these costs in the US or elsewhere. Given that they charged me 8200 bucks and change(only good thing is there was a ZERO DEPOST Offer) for renting their car for under 38 hours - it is not worth the price or experience.
Hope this review is comprehensive and detailed so at least you can have a better experience. Hope in the near future ZOOM lets you rent the car of your choice at the parking lot and not go with the pre-allotted vehicle(provided they have a good fleet of the same model).
Zoom executives reading this feedback, you can look at the booking reference # and contact me on my mobile if needed.