We’re at the tail end of Week 3 of our “We Have No Car” Experiment and it’s going ok so far. We’ve been using the zipcars next door and it’s pretty convenient. It did, however, start out with a little hiccup a couple weeks ago when we reserved a car on a Saturday morning (to get me to the airport). The reservation site said that the car was available but when we went down to get the car, it wasn’t there. When we called, the operator said “Uh, I guess it’s out for service.” Hm…it would have been good for them to tell us that ahead of time. Since there weren’t any other cars available, I ended up having to catch a cab for $35. Boo… Luckily, Jes was able to get one to pick me up the next day without a hitch.

We gave it another go this weekend and had a good time watching the clock. We reserved the car for 2 hours and headed out for some shopping. We “zipped” over to Best Buy, which took only about 20 minutes since we knew exactly what we needed to pick up. Next was Costco, which was just across the street from Best Buy and we managed to get everything we needed within about 30 mins. We even took some time to dilly dally around the possible purchase of a laptop. Next stop was Whole Foods where we dashed from aisle to aisle and were out of there with 25 minutes left. So, we went to Safeway on the way home to complete our shopping trip. As we got back into the car, I noticed that we had a whole 14 minutes left! So we went through the drive-thru at McDonald’s to pick up a little lunch. When we arrived back at the lot, it was 2:56 pm. Perfect.

Our third experience was this morning. It was President’s Day today and I had to work. Since there wasn’t going to be an employee shuttle today, I reserved a car for an hour and convinced Jes to drive me to work. He was not happy about the early morning wake-up on his day off. Anyway, it was just enough time to get me over the bridge, drop me off, head back over the bridge, and Jes even got to pick up an Egg McMuffin for breakfast.

Out of the four cars parked in the alley, we’ve tried the Mini Cooper, the Matrix, and Yaris. So far, the Mini is my favorite but it costs $11/hr while the others cost $8.75/hr. So, taking price into consideration, my favorite so far is the Yaris. Of course we haven’t driven the Scion xB so we’ll see how that compares.

So far, the reservation process is really easy and convenient. You can also call them to extend your reservation if no one is waiting for the car back at home. It definitely makes you value your time and helps you shop more efficiently. It’ll either save us money because there’s less browsing but it can also cost us more if we get impulsive. We’ll just have to see…