GoCar

Mr.S wrote: »

For Dublin - GoCars have free on-street parking in the DCC applicable areas, eg any of the pay & display spaces.

If you're parked illegally (like in that parking thread) then you'll get clapped. GoCar send you the clamping release fee + whatever their callout fee is.

Not sure about other cities but assume it's the same in terms of council parking areas.

Most of the GoCars I see clamped around Dublin City are either parked in an e-car charging bay while not charging (a$$ move if ever there was one), parked in a disabled bay (worse again) or parked across two spaces.

When they have free parking in every pay and display space in the city you’d really wonder about some drivers.

Key phrase here "I've not been using them long".

I use an iPhone with the latest version of the app, which is always on 4G in my area, and I've been using GoCars 4-6 times a week for the past seven months alone.

Also: they're not your mates. Interoperability with devices/OSs is expected for a product like this -- and it's never been a big issue for the several other carsharing services I've habitually used in different countries/cities since 2011.

No. You pay whenever you use it. Kinda like a taxi without the driver. Different fees for how long and how far you go. They may have had a subscription thing in the past, it's only recently come to my area so don't know how it used to operate previously.

You can't. In the 24 hour edit window, you can change it to '...'or whatever.

After 24 hours, only possibility is to Flag Report the post and ask a mod to delete it.

Just to repeat: I've used GoCar hundreds of times and four days a week since November of last year. I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who has used them as frequently. I'd be less interested to hear from anyone who has used them, say, twice a month, or even once a week for a few years.

I just want to flag that you appear to have joined Boards in June 2021 and have made five posts, all on this thread and all highly negative about GoCar. Maybe you are completely genuine and maybe the site is not showing your prior history but the pattern of your usage is troll-adjacent and it seems strange that if you've been having such intense and continuing problems this thread would be the first time you decide to vent about it.

Some of what you say seems completely feasible but I can't help feeling that if your experiences were typical of the GoCar experience then a search for GoCar on here or on Twitter would just show pages and pages of complaints and issues (and it doesn't).

Feel free to correct me if I am wide of the mark but I just wanted to highlight the concern that seemed obvious to me.

Main issue I found is it took a couple of days to get account activated. You also need to leave car back to where you got it, which is not ideal. It is highly advisable to link an RFID card to your account, say your leap card, as if you have no phone internet or signal when you go to unlock the car later say in rural Wicklow, the phone app won't unlock the car if either the car or the phone has no connection to the mothership. If you tie an RFID card to the account, you can unlock gocars with no signal or a dead phone.

Hi, anyone have a code for free credit? I missed the above code on registration and it comes back as invalid when I add it to the app.

I have just signed up to GoCar and all seems well apart from the fact that you need to leave the car in the exact same place as you left it. What is the point of that if you have a one way trip. Next question is how strict are they if you leave the car at another bay or has anyone else tried it?

I think you get 4/500m radius of the name of the place the car should be . Outside that, you need a good reason (like no space to park). I think they just charge you if not back, but don't know how much.

I'm a GoCar customer for the last 6 or so years. Rented a car for an hour on Friday, returned it with no issues. Tried to log in on Saturday via the Android app and it displayed a message saying that my account was blocked and that I should contact their customer support. No explanation, no contact details given. After multiple phone calls I was told the car I booked last Friday was involved in an accident and that my account was blocked pending an investigation. They can't give me any more information than that apparently. Absolutely terrible customer service, not to even have the courtesy to tell you your account is blocked or why, and to seemingly presume guilt until proof of innocence. Laughable how their phone line's on-hold music keep repeating the benefits of having a car without the hassle of owning one. There's no way you could rely on them if they can just arbitrarily pull the plug like that.

I've seen these gocars around and as a concept they seem okay. Although to my mind there are a few flaws. They cost too much and as an above poster has pointed out, if you're on a one way trip from Dublin to Cork say. the service isn't much use to you.

I find with my own car if I go one way, it also needs to get back somehow too!, but yes not being able to leave the gocar say anywhere in Dublin is a pain, and with modern apps others could find it and hire it from where it's left like the bike hires with no stations.

Say you have a 4 hour business meeting away from office, why not allow someone else take the car and then you hunt for a free car later, assuming you agree and it makes sense.

If there was a dozen cars just up the road from my home I'd consider dumping the 2 cars at home and downsize to one.