How Zipcar left us stranded in the middle of California

What you should know before using the popular car sharing service

My boyfriend and I had everything planned for a leisurely weekend getaway in Santa Cruz.

This was going to be our first real expedition since settling in California. After hearing so much about the beautiful coastline and state parks, we were finally getting out there and exploring.

We took a Zipcar down from San Francisco, and arrived in Santa Cruz on Friday evening.

The next morning, we drove to Big Sur for a day hike, and eagerly set out on the Buzzard’s Roost trail.

Midway through, we were greeted with 360-degree views of the ocean and the Santa Lucia mountains, and we returned to the car in high spirits. We felt great, and decided we were going to continue hiking after a brief snack break.

At around 2:30 PM, we tried starting the car back up again so that we could drive to the next trailhead.

The engine started to catch, but the car wouldn’t start.

We tried again.

And again.

Each time, the car seemed to make less of an effort, until, by the sixth try, we heard absolutely no ignitor sound.

We laughed it off, thinking it was just battery trouble, and started planning how we could get a jump start from someone at the station.

But as we opened the doors to the car, the car alarm started going off.

Well, great.

This was slightly embarrassing, since the visitor station was jam-packed with cars, and we were getting death-glares from every angle. Some visitors even came up to our windows to see what was the matter.

My boyfriend, Brian, tried every combination of things to turn off the alarm, from swiping the Zipcar card, both from inside and outside the car, to turning the ignition, to stomping on the brake, but to no use.

Meanwhile, I snatched the user handbook out of the glove box, furiously flipping through it, looking for how to disarm the alarm. Every technique either required the remote key fob (which was not provided by Zipcar), or turning the ignition key, which didn’t work for us.

That might have been the longest, most excruciating five minutes of my life.

Since we had no cell reception, we used the station landline to call up Zipcar’s roadside assistance.

After it was apparent that nothing was working (and setting off the alarm a couple more times), Zipcar said they would have to tow the car to somewhere with cell reception, since they couldn’t currently communicate with the car.

So, to proceed, Zipcar said they would first have to look up towing providers, and would call us back at the station number once they had more info. They estimated it would take 30–90 minutes.

We waited, and waited.

1 hour passed, and we were told the station was supposed to close soon.

We tried to call Zipcar again. We were on hold for 20 minutes, but since we didn’t want to hold up the station any longer from closing, we decided to hang up. The station employees pointed us a mile down the road to where we could find wifi.

The sun was getting lower, and it was starting to get cold.

We took what we needed out the car window, so as not to set off the alarm, and started walking towards the Big Sur Taphouse along the main road.

Once we reached the Taphouse, we refueled on food while calling Zipcar again. Again, the rep mentioned they were still looking up providers, also mentioning there was a delay in the area, but wasn’t sure why it was taking so long.

By then, it was approaching 6pm, and we were getting pretty desperate.

We called once more to further explain our situation of being stranded in a state park. This time, they said they would have an update in 15 minutes.

When we called back, they finally admitted that we would have to seek an “alternative” method of transport back to town, while they worked overnight to find a provider that could tow the vehicle.

How were we going to get back to Santa Cruz? We were in the middle of nowhere with no taxis, Uber/Lyft service, or public transport.

We reasoned that if we could somehow get to the nearest city, Monterey, we could possibly take a Lyft from there back to Santa Cruz.

So, hitch-hiking it was.

At this point, we were both drained. I was annoyed that Zipcar’s roadside assistance was so disorganized. And the thought of going up to random strangers, while putting on my least-likely-to-be-a-murderer-face seemed pretty impossible.

After unsuccessfully asking around for a couple minutes, we walked to a small gas station next door.

The first people we asked there happened to be going through Monterey.

What luck!

From Monterey, as anticipated, we were able to order a Lyft back to Santa Cruz, and arrived, exhausted, just after 9 PM.

The next morning, we had two options: 1) See if Zipcar had managed to tow the car, then order a Lyft to wherever that car is, and drive all the way back to SF or 2) Take a Lyft back to SF. Both would’ve cost the same, but the 1st option was obviously more time-intensive.

We already felt robbed of time, and all we wanted was to enjoy the rest of our time in Santa Cruz instead of dealing with Zipcar for once. So that’s what we did.

As we were enjoying breakfast at a local cafe, we ran into another woman staying at the same Outsite house in Santa Cruz. Miraculously, we learned that she was planning to drive to SF in an hour. Perfect timing, yet again.

Looking back, I understand that these types of situations are outliers, and that the vast majority of Zipcar trips go just fine.

But this doesn’t excuse Zipcar for taking 6+ hours to find a towing provider. In fact, it’s unacceptable, considering that the whole premise of their business is increasing convenience for customers.

The real reason behind the car not starting was never fully explained to us, and neither was the alarm situation. Was it because we were out of cell tower range? Perhaps the two events were related as part of an anti-theft mechanism, but we can only speculate.

Zipcar reps refused to disclose any useful information, outside of the fact that they couldn’t see what was wrong with the car, because there was no cell reception.

What we do know is that the employees at the visitor station mentioned that the same thing happened to another person renting a Zipcar last year.

And we can safely say that when a service is based around convenience, it’s best practice to be upfront about the limitations of that service when a user signs up.

Otherwise, customers like us might end up unhappy and stranded with very few options.

edit: clarifying that we weren’t 100% sure of the mechanism behind the car malfunctions