www.whipcar.com/
Does anyone know how good it is? I had a quick glance and rates appear higher than those of Enterprise/Avis/Hertz etc.
Concept is quite unusual though.
Last edited by: movilogo on Tue 11 May 10 at 15:11
|
I've just had a look, the nearest one to me is over twenty miles away. Am I expected to drive there to pick it up?
I tried putting the Kia Pride on, they wouldn't accept it - snobs!
|
I think it is very early days for them. 55 cars available for me within a few miles but almost all of them have never been hired out and the rest only once.
Cars included a RangeRover and a Fiat 500 Abarth so an hour's hire of each could be fun on a quiet afternoon!
|
I viewed the video and the hirer is covered by Whipcars associates but how do you stand legally with your own insurer as the owner ?
Most have an exclusion in there for hire or reward. By hiring out the car are you not voiding your own insurance as the owner ?
|
|
My nearest (35 miles!) is a nissan almera twister......cant wait
|
|
It seems to be a bit of a case of "rentabanger.com" to me there seems to be far too many legal problems to make this work.
|
|
wow I have a fiat 500 arbarth nearby!
|
I read the review in the Guardian, the founder claimed it would not affect your personal insurance.
My immediate thought regarding this was if you declare 6000 miles per annum to your insurance company and you have an accident in say year three, how will the assessor react to a car showing 30k miles or more ?
|
Mileage should not matter. When you insure your car for say 6k miles/year, it is when you (or any other named driver) drive the car only.
When someone else (as in Whipcar) drives the car, it is NOT covered by your insurance and the driver needs his/her own insurance!
|
>> Mileage should not matter.
>>
If it doesn't matter why do assessors check the mileage ?
If the vehicle is written off do you receive pay-out the 30k miles on the odometer or the 18k miles you claim you have driven ?
Not something I would like to negotiate with my insurer.
Last edited by: gmac on Tue 11 May 10 at 21:21
|
In case of write off, your insurer will pay you market value which is based on your odometer reading.
If you want to avoid that, just don't allow anyone else to drive it.
The point is, for WhipCar, your personal insurance will not be affected. Of course, by lending your car to other drivers, your depreciation will be higher and there is chance of misuse by other drivers
But again, you are earning by lending your car. So, one needs to balance the pros and cons.
Not sure whether it will be popular, but the concept is quite nice. If I want to taste driving a different car, I may hire one (as long as it is cheaper than hiring from rental fleets and no test drive possible from dealers).
|
Currently in a Battle with them!
WHIPCAR - DAMAGE CAR + BAD SERVICE = OUT OF POCKET.
P.s The Majority of your own car insurance company will STRONGLY advise against it! too much grey area and loop holes was their exact word!
I believe I am Honest and fair man. I work hard to earn the things I have. I changed job recently and as a result I got a luxury company car as part of the package. so my recently bought beloved BMW saloon was left at home only coming out rarely on the odd Sundays whilst still paying a insurance premium. I came upon Whipcar purely by chance, and just like you are now, thought this is amazing, that such service are available. I thought I could make use of my spare Car and boost my income in these economically difficult times by having my car work also.
Being a caution person by nature I was highly sceptical and I was reading up everything thing and googling review by previous customer but I didn’t see any! Which was weird, I read up on them in a few reporters article and it seems that they were fairly new. So I thought why not, lets give it a try. I signed up my car, gave my details, uploaded picture of the BMW everything done in a matter of minutes. Majority of the cars on there was your average Peugeot, Vauxhall, Ford ect…
Within a couple of hours of being on the website I had a booking request for my car 2 days for £130. I thought Wohhh, happy days. Sure enough I followed the process, did everything I was meant to, had the car valet the night before the driver was meant to collect. The car was shinning! Driver came to collect in the morning I checked his id as per process I walked him around the car and confirmed the car was flawless. Showed him the press start ignition, sat nav ect. All was well.
The car returned after the agreed hire period straight away walking to collect the car I spotted damages. I confronted the driver about it and he pretended not to have noticed anything! As if he was blind. He had the cheek to say that it was there when he took the car! Anyways thinking that insurance is covered I called Whipcar straight! From then on the nightmare started.
Getting hold of someone at Whipcar is impossible! They have an agent call centre company that answer phone calls on their behalf, So basically they take your details and email it to someone in Whipcar that is suppose to call you back! That call never comes! Numerous call attempt later if you lucky you get a email from someone Call Sam ( No Last name, tittle or details).
To summarise below -
- They claim that all their drivers are carefully vetted before being accepted.( Completely false) I had my 19yr Nephew register. He registered in less then 1 minute and was available to book any cars.
- They further claim any damage under £500 is considered your responsibility and is un claimable. So you can constantly be forking out for scratches, scrapes & dents to your vehicle.
- They suspend your account without notice or explanation if you dare make to claim whist still allowing the driver to carry on booking other vehicle.
- They are unavailable and highly secretive. They use no names, no title, no contact details except that of their call centre.
- They are late in paying you money owed.
After weeks of unsuccessful telephone attempt, emails & messages!
I have now decided to write to their Director before escalating the matter to legal. I will update here when I receive a reply from them.
I tried Whipcar and got burned. A Very good business model but incompetent staff and in my opinion bad customer services makes it a nightmare experience.
One piece of advice if you have a decent car STAY CLEAR!
Last edited by: Pugugly on Thu 5 May 11 at 10:29
|
|
A slight edit has been made to comply with the name and shame policy.
Last edited by: Pugugly on Thu 5 May 11 at 10:29
|
>> One piece of advice if you have a decent car STAY CLEAR!
I would have thought anyone with an ounce of commonsense wouldn't lend their pride and joy to a complete stranger, regardless of the 'promises' made by WhipCar (or other similar companies). No offence intended, btw.
I would imagine good percentage of people who hire vehicles tend to drive them like they've stolen them. Only difference is they hand them back afterwards instead of setting fire to them.
|
hand them back afterwards instead of setting fire to them
Ah, that's where I'm going wrong.
|
nearest to me is a Citroen C1
The owner could probably do with reading the thread about what is and isn't important in car ads.....
'As my car is black it suits male & female drivers alike'
|
|
My nearest is a Lancer! The best feature it has is the sound system acording to the owner
|
Nearest to me is a three year old MINI for £31 per day. Reckon that's a bargain.
As is the four year old 318d saloon for £36 per day.
And the three year old Convertible Megan for £38 per day. Cool!
No idea what happens if you hire out an unroadworthy/otherwise dangerous car though. Who is responsible? Not sure I'd fancy renting out a car I owned; hiring on the other hand, why not!
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Thu 5 May 11 at 19:26
|
Nearest to me (3 miles) is a pretty tidy looking 7 yr old Nissan Primera S for £35 a day.
Some more interesting stuff slightly further afield:
2 yr old Fiesta ST150 at £44 a day. Are they mad? How is this going to be driven?!
1 yr old Fiat 500 Pop at £37 a day
5 yr old Mercedes E220 CDi Avantgarde automatic estate at £45 a day
5 yr old Prius T4 at £44 a day, which apparently is "so comfortable it feels like my old Lexus but without the fuel bill"
|
Interesting results up here in this impoverished former mining district...
5 miles: 08 Lexus IS220d £44/day
7 miles: 08 Citroen C4 Picasso 7st VTR+ HDi £42/day
£34/day to hire out my car apparently, but I wouldn't trust anyone else to drive it as gently as I do. I'd have to make a lot of money on it to offset the knackered clutches, flywheels, brakes and so on, plus you don't know what other damage might have been done. Drive it like you stole it, that's the problem - if I ever had a car stolen I wouldn't want it back because I couldn't guarantee it hadn't been banged up a kerb at 40mph and 3/4 sheared a track rod or something.
|
|
@DP - the ST is 5th in my list and the Primera is 6th :)
Last edited by: Focus on Thu 5 May 11 at 20:10
|
The lancer by me (walking distance) is £46 a day
Hired an insignia from Europcar for £27 a couple of weeks back (corporate rate) only had 100 miles on it
|
|
I assume the lancer is an Evo?
|
>> I assume the lancer is an Evo?
>>
Its a GS4 GiD whatever that means........
|
>> @DP - the ST is 5th in my list and the Primera is 6th :)
I'm sure if I hadn't had a long day and a couple of beers tonight, I could work out roughly where you live :-)
|
Incredible!
Nothing would persuade me to let someone use any of my cars unless i knew them very well, and trusted them implicitly.
The figures mentioned are peanuts anyway.
|
Several sheds near me.
I'm sure I could get one from Focus cheaper though. I hear they have a sale on.
|
|
Skoda VRs 30 miles away 30 quid a day.....!
|
|
Nothing of any note near me!
|
I can get a Passat CC for £44 per day! Don't tel rtj70 !
I assume it works some sort of feedback system / scoring rating? Near me, they are all shown as zero!
|
|
Nearest one to me is a black Mini Cooper convertible for £44. But it is Cheshire I suppose.
|
>>
>> I assume it works some sort of feedback system / scoring rating? Near me, they
>> are all shown as zero!
>>
Same here; most exciting car round my way (10 mile radius) is an MX5.
|
>> I can get a Passat CC for £44 per day! Don't tel rtj70 !
Okay ;-) Does that come with the cap and driving gloves though?
So how much do you get of the £44 I wonder as the owner? The Passat CC will cost me about £6.50 per day in terms of tax paid on it and the small amount I pay up for it. Although that does not factor in the money I'd get in lieu of the car if I didn't take the company car.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Thu 5 May 11 at 22:49
|
Read the terms very carefully
Insurance does not cover cars stolen when keys are left in it . . . .
Many other issues.
Even if I only had a banger I would not touch them with the proverbial.
Now it says no vans but last time you saw one what was a Renault Traffic - available near me.
|
I reckon you'd have to be pretty desperate to rent your own car out on that.
But if you need a car, looks like quite good cheap harmless fun to me!
|
|
Your own insurance company is always quick to seize on any extra exposure to risk even if they won't be covering it. By hiring your car out in this way you demonstrate a relaxed attitude to risk. I can't think they'd be happy if this was declared??
|
>> But if you need a car, looks like quite good cheap harmless fun to me!
>>
Not when you see what you are authorising them to bill to your credit/debit card.
|
>> Not when you see what you are authorising them to bill to your credit/debit card.
From a quick scan I didn't see anything that I wouldn't expect from a normal hire firm. What do you have in mind?
|
Anyone used WhipCar? - bathtub tom
