121–130 of 192 posts
Zipcar also has a dumb system in-place where you need to use the card first to start the reservation following which you're allowed to use the app to lock/unlock the car. The whole point of using the app is so that I don't have to carry a physical card with me.
Based on my experience, this is not true, I could always open the car via the application.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it should lead to someone fixing the problem. The customer centric thinking in this thread is amazing.
One facet of the problem (the cell coverage) is largely out of Zipcars control, no? I suppose they could add some functionality to their app so that you're alerted when you park at a location without cell coverage?
It appears they're aware of the problem, but certain known issues prevent access (cellular unit draining car battery seems to be the common one and sounds like something that should be fixable).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, the ban sounds justified to me. If you know that parking in the garage will lead to a 50% probability of them having to tow the car, repeating this is just unnecessary. It would obviously be better if they could handle such scenarios but ignoring a known limitation to incur cost to others (since you have no advantage as you also can't use the car in this scenario) sounds wrong to me.
“I ordered the tuna salad every time I ate at the restaurant. About half of the time, the manager informed me that they were out of tuna, and had to send a truck to fetch more. After a while of this, they banned me from the restaurant for ordering the tuna salad.”
In that case, yeah, they should ban "you".
well um, the car's battery was dead. so how exactly would it open via RFID? of course if you put that piece of information first, the headline isn't so catchy. i digress.
How is that clickbait? Even the subheadline is a pretty fair description of events: "In an area without cellphone reception, I was unable to open the car."
well um, the car's battery was dead. so how exactly would it open via RFID? of course if you put that piece of information first, the headline isn't so catchy. i digress.
well um, the car's battery was dead. so how exactly would it open via RFID? of course if you put that piece of information first, the headline isn't so catchy. i digress.
The headline was "When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness." It's a pretty underwhelming headline and I have no idea why anybody would possibly object to it. How is that clickbait? Even the subheadline is a pretty fair description of events: "In an area without cellphone reception, I was unable to open the car."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, the ban sounds justified to me. If you know that parking in the garage will lead to a 50% probability of them having to tow the car, repeating this is just unnecessary. It would obviously be better if they could handle such scenarios but ignoring a known limitation to incur cost to others (since you have no advantage as you also can't use the car in this scenario) sounds wrong to me.
Disagreed about the ban. Since when is shitty technology (which any engineer worth their salt should’ve predicted - this is not rocket science) the fault of the customer? Unless they say in bold in their marketing statements “Only drive within cell coverage” the customer isn’t at fault for trying to use it as a normal car (in fact it’s crazy to think that parking in a place with no reception is no longer normal, at l…
Because companies routinely do the former.
The cars have a key in the glove compartment. After you initially unlock it at the beginning of your reservation you take that key with you. You put it back in at the end of the reservation. In between you use it to unlock like a regular car key/fob.
Am I missing something here?
Edit:
https://support.zipcar.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/360001460928-...
> The key is in the glovebox in ALL vehicles. Throughout your reservation you should use the key to lock and unlock the doors. For a vehicle that has a start button instead of a key, the Zipcard or app can be used throughout the reservation to lock and unlock the doors.
OK so this situation is plausible when the car doesn't have an actual key.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your smell test is a bit misleading in that most car batteries have a drastically lower energy density than Lithium Ion cells. There’s still a lot more energy in the car battery, of course, but not by nearly as much as a naive comparison of the weights would suggest. If it had the energy density of your cell phone, the lead acid battery in your car would only weigh 5 or so kgs. Your cellphone will also last a lot les…
Searching for signal uses some kind of exponential backoff algorithm (somekind because of patent wars between Qualcomm Broadcom and others), the phone doesn't simply sends the maximum power every fraction of a second. 1% per minute means something is wrong with your phone, or a weird edge case.
i had a similar experience with Turo. The car would lock and unlock with a bluetooth connection and would not start unless the bluetooth connection was made. I went on a fifteen minute hike about an hour off the main road to see a redwood grove and when I got back the app had logged itself out with no action taken on my part. We had to hitchhike for 4 hours back to a hotel so that I could log in using my Google accou…
Sounds like it would have been easier to just rent another, closer car at that point, assuming you took your stuff with you since you couldn't lock it.