Car Clubs - the good, the bad and the ugly?

selloptape

Hello motoring folks!

I've searched for a recent thread on car clubs but can't see anything under two years old...

Just wondered if anyone had any recent experience of these, and how they found it?

My car has an unexpected large repair bill and I'm tempted to get rid and not replace (car is only worth a few hundred). I can get the bus to work and although family live far away the train fare is quite similar to petrol costs.

X

Prothet_of_Doom

Car Clubs ?
I used to be in the XRpolishersClub, and may have attended shows with the Mk2 cavalier owners Network, and make occassionally frequent https://www.mx5nutz.com, but usually I'm logging into https://www.autosh!te.com


That's not what you meant is it? what about bla bla car

forgotmyname

Thinking of setting up a car club and selling body kits to turn Toyota's and Golfs into M3's.

From the number of posters on here who have this ambition i feel it would make a good business.

Although it would probably need to be priced at 50p or less because they do not appear to have any money.

bowlhead99

A friend of mine was in the Classic Car Club for a number of years - he dropped it when he moved overseas as the membership fee was lower but he didn't really get back enough to use it.

Basically you pay a joining fee and membership fee of a few thousand quid a year and get a certain number of points, which you can then 'spend' on weekdays or - more expensively - weekend days, with a classic Bentley or Porsche costing more points per day than an old Mini or newer Audi TT. It's not really possible to get your first choice of car over every bank holiday weekend in the year but I think you can book a weekend a long way in advance (potentially at a cost of a few more precious points).

Seemed to work well for him being based in London (and having a good London salary but no need for his own car) - easy to pick something up from the club if he was going to go away for a weekend jaunt. Some of the cars were not exactly luxurious considering you're paying a lot per year, but he did show up places in various interesting motors.

The CCC was one of the first with their membership concept and always one of the more affordable ones as the various celebrity endorsed supercar clubs launched with huge joining fees, not sure how many of them survived the credit crunch!

Looking at the CCC website they have taken pricing off their page in favour of 'contact us' for options ; restricted number of members to match the number of cars they have, and some comments about launching some sort of new scheme soon. Also I remember looking at it 5 or 6 years back they had opened or were opening an Edinburgh branch so it wasn't just London, but no sign of that from the current site.

If you are just looking for a boring mainstream car to use for the odd trip to the shops, Zipcar is a popular one round here with loads of them dotted around London, though they are much more sparse as you get out to zone 4/5. They're in a few other cities. City Car Club allegedly has 300+ in London and more than that across the country, but I rarely see them. Both do vans as well as cars.

The downside is if you just fancy borrowing a car or a van on the spur of the moment, there might not be one on your doorstep or at your local spot. You can book at the last minute if something's available, but it can be a false economy to get a cab to go and find the nearest cheap car... Still, only £60 a year, effectively a retainer to be in the scheme with a zipcard key in your wallet and then £6/hour for the smallest cars, including fuel and congestion charge. More on weekends.

When choosing between clubs I guess the main driver is which one has more cars near you more often.