How is Zipcar?
Moving to Seattle and dumping my car. I found Zipcar too good to be true. It costs only $7 monthly and and you can just grab any car in the lot anytime for $10 per hour with gas, toll and insurance included? Is there any other caveat or hidden fee? Has anyone used it? Are they for-profit and how do they sustain such business model without any subsidy?
I used it back when I was starting out. Needed car only for the weekend. They are really good. I've had to cancel last minute several times and they were happy to accommodate with no extra fee. They also waived off late fee if I was stuck in traffic. But its expensive. You pay $10/hour, or it's good for short trips. Turns out to be expensive for whole day trips
Right, it's good for short trip such as grocery shopping when it's raining hard. For weekend hiking trip, it costs $70 a day, which is still not that expensive when splitting among a few people(I usually don't hike by myself). It's much cheaper than paying $200/month for garage parking in the city
All the people you hike with are car-less too?
$10 per hour is insane. I normally rent from Hertz for ~$20 per day after fees (unless thereโs something driving the price up occasionally). Why anyone would rent a car for $10 per hour is beyond me. But my roommate loves it.
how do you get Hertz for $20/day??? Even the smallest car here costs at least $40/day. It costs around $30 for Uber just one way trip to some places that you have to drive.
Enterprise would be cheaper for rare occasions. Used both for vacations and rare trip. Last time I used was in LA and costed me $80 for a day. Could have been $50 ish if I didnโt go with full suv.
Moving from? If Bay Area, have a friend who is looking for a car.
Zipcar is the expensive option. For short trips ReachNow and Car2go. The ReachNow daily rate is less than Zipcar. A whole day is also $40 with Avis. I like their overnight rate most.
There might not be a car in the lot when you need it. What if you go to a friend's for dinner. Pay for 3-4 hours?
Yes, have used, you understand the terms right. Wasn't charged any hidden fee, it's a surprisingly good service, owned by Avis. It's pretty expensive, if you do the math, you can only use it for rare occasions, you can't do Zipcar every alternate day.
I take bus to work every day and only need car for grocery shopping and hiking at most once a week. I think it makes more sense to use Zipcar than paying $200 a month for garage parking in downtown.