If finding a suspicious looking package in my zipcar a couple of weeks ago wasn’t enough, what happened to me and S yesterday took the biscuit - to the point of me cancelling my membership entirely.

I decided to book a zipcar for the entire day yesterday just to run some errands in the city, and to get S back to Westchester for her Optimum Online engineer visit - they were schedule to arrive at her place between 2pm and 5pm. I picked up the car from by my place at around 10:15am, and drove into the city to make a couple of stops - Nike Town, and potentially Barnes & Noble. After trying to find a parking spot for 10 minutes to pay a visit to B&N, we decided to just cut our losses and drive to to her place via the FDR Highway - a major three-laned highway that stretches up the entire east side of Manhattan, running north and south.

To cut a long story short, I hit a major pothole at around 63rd and 1st Avenue, and must have hit it with such force because I felt the brake pedal shudder with a BANG! under my foot. I felt the steering shake immediately, and it grew to such a degree that it became problematic - but by this time I was already on the FDR… then I started to smell burning rubber, and the car started veering to the right. Luckily we were approaching a lay-by, which I took to survey the damage.

S got out and I shouted, “is it flat?!” - she nodded, with a look of horror. I got out of the car and walked around the back to see the front passenger side tire had completely blown out sideways. Now bear in mind, there are cars flying northbound on the FDR doing 70 are 2 feet from our zipcar, so I’m a tad nervous about our safety too. I call Zipcar immediately, and open the trunk to locate the spare tire, jack, and tire iron. With my cellphone in between my shoulder and left ear, I rummage through the Mazda 3’s trunk and little hidden compartments looking for the tire changing tools… nothing. There’s a spare tire, but no jack or tire iron. Just as I let out my dismayed “FUCKING HELL!”, a customer service rep (the first of 3, Jonathan) came on the call. I explain what happened, the situation involving the lack of proper tools to change the damn tire, and I’m told that they would get right onto calling their local towing company to come get us - “they should be calling you directly to give you an ETA within the next 45 minutes to an hour… is your cell number blah blah…?” - I confirmed all necessary details, and we climbed back in the car… and we waited.

Forty five minutes went by, and still no call. In typical [impatient] fashion I called Zipcar back for an update. I got a different CSR (Don) who apologized and said he would find out - and put me on hold.

Now I don’t mind being placed on hold, just as long as THEY’RE FUCKING DOING SOMETHING TO HELP ME.

Don came back after 5 minutes and said… wait for this, you’re going to love it:

“I have just spoken with our dispatch people in New York, and they’ve told me that the people we normally use for breakdown services said it’s actually illegal for them to stop and service any vehicle on the FDR, considering it’s classed as a major ‘highway’. You need to report this to the police to get them to create a roadblock and notify the appropriate breakdown service company that monitor the FDR Highway.”

Bear in mind I have been sat in the car for almost an hour now and not received a call from anyone, including Zipcar - I had to call THEM for this new piece of information.

[strike one]

I tell Don that I need to speak with his supervisor - quelle surprise, nobody’s around to take my call. He assured me that they were doing everything in their power to help me, and I respond with some colorful expletive announcing my deep regret in having to deal with such incompetence. Again I’m assured that someone is coming to help, and I’m put on hold for TWENTY minutes!

[strike two]

I hung up, and began to consider my options.

Calling back, I had a plan… and as it turned out, a bloody good one.

[by this time it's about 2pm - S's cable guy was due any second at her place, over 20 minutes away... luckily she'd already spoken with their dispatch people to give them the heads up that she was running late, and they were going to try and make it as close to the end of the appointment range as possible... 5pm. I know it's only cable internet, but still]

I called Zipcar a third time, this time getting Chad - I remembered him from the only pleasant experience I’ve ever had with their company, and it was a refund from some other fucking mess they’d gotten me into a few weeks ago.

Thankfully, my record at their customer service office had been frequently updated with what was going on, so I didn’t have to go through every minor detail with Chad again. This time however I had decided that I was going to kick up the pace a notch. I told them S was pregnant.

[she's not, but it worked]

This guy Chad seemed to kick into high gear - I could hear it in his voice. I explained to Chad that not only were we alone on the side of a major highway, cold and feeling the onset of the need for a pee, but S was pregnant. He told me to stay on the line, he was going to call his New York fleet supervisor right away… he came back and said that Moses, their fleet manager in NY was trying to get hold of his guy in the field - Damian Richardson. Chad guaranteed that Damian was on his way from servicing another of their cars at a Brooklyn location, and he was coming with a tire iron and a jack. This was 2:45pm.

3:00pm and Damian pulls up behind us. I greet him, as does S, and Damian jumps into high gear - changing the tire like a world athlete. He explains to us that only today he serviced 3 other vehicles at one location and their jacks and tire irons were all missing too… you could just tell how pissed he was with how they run their fleet.

In 10 minutes we were back on the road with our temporary wheel (donut), following behind Damian to a nearby tire garage just of exit 14 so we could get the donut off and a proper one fitted.

Forty dollars and some dirty hands later, we were back on the FDR (avoiding potholes with the concentration befitting a chess grandmaster) to S’s place… it was about 3:45pm.

Then the snow comes. When I say snow, I mean lots of it. A snow storm so strong and thick that we couldn’t see Manhattan from the bridge that crosses into Queens. What should have taken us 15 minutes took us half an hour.

We finally get to S’s place at about 4:20pm and guess who’s parked up… the engineer… waiting. Superb.

Anyway, we go through a blown tire, stranded on the FDR for 3 hours, deal with brainless twats that have the ordacity to call themselves “customer service” reps (not you Chad, you were awesome), drive through one of the worst snow storms I’ve seen since moving to New York, and back to S’s in time for her cable internet hook up.

Ahh, what a weekend.

Finally, I called Zipcar this morning, calmly advising them what they are going to do for me (that’s right, I didn’t ask, I told them what they were going to do), and escalated it all the way to the Director of Member Services, Julie Ronneburger - who made the fateful error of referring to me as “honey” [strike three] when I engaged in further demand requests - a “calling me Mr. Hannan would be the proper course of action for you at this time, Julie” retort soon changed her tune, to the effect of the entire cost of my rental yesterday being refunded. Every cent.

Zipcar… bloody great idea, but poorly managed. Customers are not treated with distinction as they should, nor do they train their CSRs consistently.

I cancelled my membership today. I may as well give a complete stranger $100 to kick me in the bollocks, because that’s how I feel I’m treated every time I rent a fucking zipcar.

Good riddance.