Low Car Diet: Part 1 - Muir Beach

I signed up to participate in ZipCar’s latest promotion, The Low-Car Diet. It’s a 30-day challenge to give up your personal car and get around using any other form of transit, including, of course, the car sharing program offered by ZipCar. To begin my journey, I first drove my own car from San Francisco to Detroit, parked it, and promptly flew back west. Here’s my baby, the car that I gave up. It’s a 2001 Saab Viggen.

A New Kind of Freedom..
For my first ZipCar experience, I made a last-minute reservation for a 2008 BMW 328i named Bui, which was parked at a gas station about a mile away from my house. I was hoping to get a Volvo S40, but someone else snatched the one that was near me before I could reserve it. I was fully prepared to pay the hourly rates for these premium cars, but the Low-Car Diet is covering that cost for now. The nice thing about this BMW was the absence of any exterior markings identifying it as a ZipCar, unlike the cheaper cars, so you can car-share inconspicously if you wish.

I unlocked the car with my credit-card style pass, and hopped in to find that the fuel tank was 100% full. The tire pressure warning light was on, but I ignored it after visually inspecting all the tires. False tire pressure warnings are common in BMW’s, even the brand new cars. So, I took off from Berkeley to San Francisco, where I picked up some friends and then went over the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Beach. I’ve always thought the 3 Series was overpriced. I still do. Granted, the steering and suspension offer very good road feel. As with most autostick-fake-manuals, the transmission’s response was too slow and ended up hurting my brain. A good bit of power comes in around 4,000 RPM, but the exhaust note is rather light and raspy–kind of like a wimpy Formula One?

We made it comfortably through downtown SF, over the bridge, up into the hills of Marin, and across Hwy 1 to Muir beach. The GG and the shoreline were cloaked in fog, though sunny blue skies were clearly visible to the east. I stayed at the beach for a few hours, hoping to even out my Midwestern-style farmer’s tan by only sunblocking my face, neck, and forearms.

So, my experience was pleasant and painless, although there was one catch. After I dropped Bui off at his parking lot of origin, I returned about 10 minutes later to check if someone had left their sunglasses in the car. No sunglasses, but later in the day I was hit with a $50 late fee. According to the website, I had the car for an additional 10 minutes beyond when I know that it stopped moving. Apparently the cars are equipped with fairly sophisticated brains that log data and allow them to be tracked from headquarters, but I’m not sure where this 10-minute discrepancy came from.