Gocar.ie - Are they gonna spread to other cities?

BogMonkey

Gocar is a brilliant system by the looks of it, I wonder why it is only in Dublin and Cork. It would be handy to be able to drive to a different city (i.e. Belfast) then dock the car while your there, that way you wouldn't have to pay for the time spent walking around. I'm new to gocar, are they continually setting up new bases in different locations?

dgt

So it's a rental service....

Celly Smunt

Whoever used this font on that page should be shot.



rather unrelated,yet highly annoying.

Sobanek

That looks fairly expensive! €0.45 per km driven on top of the hourly rental?

Anan1

Sobanek wrote: »

That looks fairly expensive! €0.45 per km driven on top of the hourly rental?

I would have said that is cheap - it includes fuel and everything else. Take the car for an hour, do 20 kms and pay €14 - sounds ok to me.

ironclaw

Anan1 wrote: »

I would have said that is cheap - it includes fuel and everything else. Take the car for an hour, do 20 kms and pay €14 - sounds ok to me.

I'd say its fiercely expensive for anything other than an hour or so. €40 per day is more expensive than any Hertz rental I've made, including fuel.

Anan1

ironclaw wrote: »

I'd say its fiercely expensive for anything other than an hour or so. €40 per day is more expensive than any Hertz rental I've made, including fuel.

I'd say that's the idea.

UDP

ironclaw wrote: »

I'd say its fiercely expensive for anything other than an hour or so. €40 per day is more expensive than any Hertz rental I've made, including fuel.

Much like the dublin bikes system the car system is geared to short term driving e.g weekly shopping etc.

Peanut2011

If it was the usage that you pay for only I would understand, however:

When joining GoCar there is a once off fee of €50 and then a monthly fee of only €5. After that you simply pay for the trips you make. We have three different classes of vehicles, one to fit whatever need you have.

If you include that on top of the cost per Km....... :eek::eek::eek::eek:

L1011

When I first looked in to this a few years back they were in Cloughjordan in Tipperary, and Cork City, so the 20 bases in Dublin have come on since then anyway.

UDP

Peanut2011 wrote: »

If it was the usage that you pay for only I would understand, however:



If you include that on top of the cost per Km....... :eek::eek::eek::eek:

Compare that to the cost of keeping a car in dublin that is only used for short trips maybe once or twice a week. Cost of car, insurance, tax, repairs etc.

ResearchWill

ironclaw wrote: »

I'd say its fiercely expensive for anything other than an hour or so. €40 per day is more expensive than any Hertz rental I've made, including fuel.

I use the service mostly for short distances and short time, for any thing else I use rentals. Have to factor in the getting to rental place and back, as there is a go base really near where I live. I suppose I use it for what I would have got a taxi for before.

munchkin_utd

UDP wrote: »

Compare that to the cost of keeping a car in dublin that is only used for short trips maybe once or twice a week. Cost of car, insurance, tax, repairs etc.

+1

a lot of folks in cities have cars, are paying 1000s per year in insurance, depreciation and maintenance and really only use them for nipping to the shops the odd time and then the odd spin down the country every other month.

Grand if you can afford it but it does work out cheaper to simply pay as you go with car share and car hire if you are a low user and not needing the car daily for work/ creche spins etc.

matrim

GoCar is a good service for short trips where you are getting something bulky. I'd use it about twice a month for trips around Dublin that I otherwise would have used a taxi for and it's generally about the same price and much more convenient.

However, I wouldn't consider it for longer trips between cities. It would be way too expensive. I think I calculated the price for an overnight trip to Offaly before and it was more than 100 euro.

keithclancy

ironclaw wrote: »

I'd say its fiercely expensive for anything other than an hour or so. €40 per day is more expensive than any Hertz rental I've made, including fuel.

Walk up to the Hertz desk now and ask to rent a car for an hour.

It will be fiercely expensive.

They have a similar system here in Germany:
https://de.drive-now.com/rates/flexi-rates/?L=1&language=%252Fboot.ini

The system here is that you can drop off in another city for an extra fee (E.G. Dusseldorf-Cologne) as long as there's a drive now there also.

Greenwheels in the Netherlands:
https://www.greenwheels.com/nl/Home/Particulieren/wat-kost-het

There's even a novel idea to rent private cars over here too:
http://www.snappcar.nl/

So say for example you only use your car during the week, you can rent it out on the days you don't use it, or indeed just rent a neighbours car when you'd like to go for a trip someplace.

If you need a car all the time then of course owning one is the cheapest, but I think people rarely calculate the actual cost and think that its just the fuel they stick in the tank.

Anjobe

I can imagine the vans being useful for those trips to Ikea etc, although looking at a few of the bases on the web site I couldn't find one that offered GoVan as a vehicle class!

Del2005

BogMonkey wrote: »

Gocar is a brilliant system by the looks of it, I wonder why it is only in Dublin and Cork. It would be handy to be able to drive to a different city (i.e. Belfast) then dock the car while your there, that way you wouldn't have to pay for the time spent walking around. I'm new to gocar, are they continually setting up new bases in different locations?

It's only of value for short journeys. A friend used it, or one like it, in London and it was dead handy for getting the shopping or other small journeys. They took one for a weekend and it cost then a lot more than if they'd rented properly.

mickdw

Del2005 wrote: »

It's only of value for short journeys. A friend used it, or one like it, in London and it was dead handy for getting the shopping or other small journeys. They took one for a weekend and it cost then a lot more than if they'd rented properly.

How do they work out who damaged a car if a car happened to be damaged slightly?

Del2005

mickdw wrote: »

How do they work out who damaged a car if a car happened to be damaged slightly?

I'd assume it's the same as any hire company. Who ever had it last gets the blame. IIRC when I asked my friend there was a damage sheet in each car to be filed in before you take it.

Which is why you need to inspect all hire cars before you move them.

mickdw

Del2005 wrote: »

I'd assume it's the same as any hire company. Who ever had it last gets the blame. IIRC when I asked my friend there was a damage sheet in each car to be filed in before you take it.

Which is why you need to inspect all hire cars before you move them.

Yes but hire company is staffed whereas I believe you dont actually deal with any staff on daily usage of these cars. I dont see how the system is secure from abuse if damage has been caused.

matrim

mickdw wrote: »

Yes but hire company is staffed whereas I believe you dont actually deal with any staff on daily usage of these cars. I dont see how the system is secure from abuse if damage has been caused.

Basically if you are taking the car you check for any damage, if you notice anything you call them and report it before taking the car. Then you cannot be blamed for it.

Del2005

mickdw wrote: »

Yes but hire company is staffed whereas I believe you dont actually deal with any staff on daily usage of these cars. I dont see how the system is secure from abuse if damage has been caused.

Plenty of threads floating about here of people getting done for leaving hire cars back with damage from before they collected it. If you don't note the vehicle is damaged before you take it you are to blame for the damage when you return it, the only way out with hire companies is to have any damage noted before you leave with the car.

positron

mickdw wrote: »

Yes but hire company is staffed whereas I believe you dont actually deal with any staff on daily usage of these cars. I dont see how the system is secure from abuse if damage has been caused.

I feel this area is rife with scams from all sorts of rental providers. For instance I rented a Kuga in Frankfurt airport a few months ago, and the rental desk is right on arrival hall, but the cars parked a good bit away in a multi-story car park. There is no representative of the rental agency there - you go and find your car and then, if you are not already running late, and if you are not tired and if there's enough natural light (which there wasn't) you go around the car and inspect all issues, and if you find something, you will have to walk all the way back to the arrivals hall to make your case! Compare this to returning the car rental - there were about a dozen folks hanging around there checking every minute detail, and they spotted a small scratch on the rear bumper in my rental, and I had no idea if it was there before or not, and ended up paying for it in the end.

BogMonkey

Sobanek wrote: »

That looks fairly expensive! €0.45 per km driven on top of the hourly rental?

Yeah, I didn't notice that at the time. Driving to northern Ireland from Dublin and back (which is what I had in mind) would cost over €100 just for the distance.

mickdw

Much better do a traditional car hire for that trip.
These are set up to be super handy, on your doorstep for short hops