The Chainlink

zipcar or igo?

Now that I no longer own a car, I was wondering if anyone had any insight on which service they prefer to use. Prices and locations seem similar.

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Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on February 25, 2011 at 3:39pm
I would say the last 6 months or so.   Apparently too many people were leaving the interior lights on and draining the battery.

Melanie said:
When did they start disabling interior lights? I have a membership, but I think I use it about 3 times a year, so I am unaware of this. Last time I used IGo the interior lights seemed to be fine. Wow, interesting. Maybe contact IGo on that to see what the deal is. Sounds very strange and time consuming to disable the interior lights, not to mention silly.

Julie Hochstadter said:

I use both services.  It's awesome that we have so many options.

 

IGO is close to my house. 

 

Zip has Audis, BMW's, Mini Coopers, etc. which is nice when I am taking out clients.

 

Currently IGO has disabled their interior lights, which is a bit annoying since I'm notorious for leaving things in cars.  Since I often times bike to the spots I simply use my bike light if I need to find something.  

Permalink Reply by lauren sailor on February 25, 2011 at 3:45pm

a plus for zipcar that hasn't been mentioned is that it's a nationwide service, so you can rent a zipcar while you're vacationing in a different large US city... http://www.zipcar.com/find-cars/

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on February 26, 2011 at 6:57am

I-Go has a partnership arrangement with car sharing organizations in other cities, including 2 in Canada.  I haven't tried this yet, but I know they've had it for a while.

 

I've had an I-Go membership for almost 5 years.  They've had cars in the neighborhoods where I've needed them.  Zipcar is catching up, but they're not in my neighborhood or the areas where I most often need to use a car.  I've had very few problems with I-Go.  It's worked smoothly for me.  I plan my trips to maximize use of the car when I've got it and just use it for a few hours at a time.

Permalink Reply by Carl on February 26, 2011 at 7:31am

I-Go is comparable to WBEZ, as ZipCar compares to Top-40 radio.

 

I-Go has the greenest fleet in the city, because they have an evironmental mission.

They rent sensible cars (I impressed some family by taking them out for their first ride in a Hybrid).

 

Zipcar's mission is to create a carsharing monopoly (which they've nearly done).

They rent what they think people want (I'm surprised they haven't started renting Hummers).

And their founder, Robin Givens, once said "nothing is more efficient than a car full of people". Erm, except a bus full of people, or a train full of people, or even a jumbo jet full of people, or a flotilla of bicycles with single riders.....

 

If you let me refer you to I-Go, I'll get a reference fee, and I'll give that back to you. So free membership if you want it! Just message me.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on February 26, 2011 at 9:57pm
Carl - That's a great analogy - public radio vs. top 40.  One of the reasons why Zipcar isn't all that tempting to me is what they rent.  I appreciate I-Go's green aspect.  The cars they rent meet my needs for nearly every trip.  I don't need to rent a gas guzzler just because it's a stylish car.  I'd rather just use something that gets the job done with less of an environmental impact.
Permalink Reply by S on February 27, 2011 at 12:20pm
Anne, zipcar has quite a few hybrids as well as well as smartcars so there's also green options with zipcar.
Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on February 27, 2011 at 12:52pm

I have no use for any sort of car sharing except a truck. I don't think I-go has any?

Zip Car shows two near Logan Square, which is too far away, and the rest waaaay too far away.

And $80-90 a day? $12/hr?  Sorry, I just don't see the advantages.

I'd be interested to hear how people use car sharing and how it benefits them, in specific examples.

Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on February 27, 2011 at 12:56pm

To Michael--

Are you newly car-free? Sharing from my own experience, I'd say hold off a bit.

When I got rid of my car, I figured I'd be renting one from time to time to get car-dependent needs met.  In 8+ years I think I've rented a car three times.  As you adapt, many of the things you thought you "needed" a car for kind of "go away."

Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on February 27, 2011 at 12:57pm

And, while we're on the topic--

I'm still on the market for 3-4 others who'd like to go in on a van or truck-share for occasional heavy hauling needs.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on February 27, 2011 at 4:08pm

The closest thing I-Go has to a truck is the Honda Element, which has quite a lot of hauling capacity.  It's not quite the equivalent of a truck or full-sized van, but it's as large as I ever need.

My husband and I share one car.  He needs it for work - most nights and some days.  I use I-Go when I need to do heavyweight or large capacity shopping, bike-unfriendly-destination shopping, or visiting friends in locations where public transit or bike don't work for me.  I usually get a car for 2-3 hours at a time.

Anyone else got stories/usage to share?


H3N3 said:

I have no use for any sort of car sharing except a truck. I don't think I-go has any?

Zip Car shows two near Logan Square, which is too far away, and the rest waaaay too far away.

And $80-90 a day? $12/hr?  Sorry, I just don't see the advantages.

I'd be interested to hear how people use car sharing and how it benefits them, in specific examples.

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on February 27, 2011 at 4:29pm

Menards has a truck for rent and the nice thing about it is they rent it by the hour instead of all day.  If you just have to haul one load of stuff or something really big you can just do that rather than have to pay for  whole day's rental.  It's a BIG heavy-duty 3/4-ton truck too with a flatbed -not a regular pickup bed.  4x8 sheets of plywood or sheetrock fit in nicely with much room to spare and you can really load it up with weight unlike a small 1/2-ton or mini-truck.  You don't even have to hauling menards stuff in it -you can use it for anything.  They only require that you have insurance -they don't use it but they use that as a guide to see if you aren't too irresponsible.  I guess anyone who doesn't have insurance at all is a big risk.

 

Ikea has a rental place built into it as well.  You can rent a van from them and some bigger flatbeds too.  We used this a couple of years ago to haul back our bedroom furniture and some other stuff that wouldn't all fit in my Camry in under 4 trips, much less my wife's Miata.

 

I'm sure there are other places like this as well -places that have a rental unit set up so that their customers don't decide not to buy something on the grounds of having no way to haul it.

 

 

Permalink Reply by Jared on February 27, 2011 at 6:09pm

I have an I-Go membership.  With few exceptions I only use it to go to estate sales on Fridays to buy books to resell.  Last week I hit up a sale in Portage Park which could of easily been done by bike but the rest on my list were all in the suburbs, Elmhurst, Cicero, Stickney, Schiller Park and Niles.  Easily over 100 miles and much too many books to carry on the back of my bike. 

 

It's about $78 a day (the price tops out at that after about eight hours) which personally I think is a bit pricy so I'm not about to use it unless I have a really good reason.  Some people here seemed to indicate that traditional rental agencies are cheaper which doesn't really make sense since I-Go appears to have lower operating costs.

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