Car subscription services promise to fill the gap between short-term car rental and car leasing offerings. A fixed amount of money is transferred each month, and in exchange, you may use the car of your choice. It is flexible, uncomplicated, and has an all-inclusive pricing structure. For nine months, I had an active subscription with Finn, one of the rising players in Germany’s car subscription sector.

This article follows the customer journey I personally went through, from the order and delivery to inspection and car return.

Order and Delivery

Finn promises to enable ordering a vehicle within five minutes, and they mostly deliver on this promise. In a similar experience as with rental cars, you select the car, the duration the subscription should run for, and the mileage that you are expecting. Finn does run your credit (Schufa in Germany) but does not seem to have too strict requirements. The fixed duration of Finn is a disadvantage, as a subscription duration reduction is not possible, and an extension (which I would have expected with a subscription service) equally is not possible. A significant disadvantage is that Finn promises a new or new-ish (dt. Neuwagenartig) car. Unclarity at this new/used stage is bizarre as they surely know what kind of car the customer will receive, and some customers may want a new car and will not choose Finn due to the chance of receiving a vehicle that is used.

Having ordered a blue Mazda CX-5 and waiting an additional three weeks over the black variant, it came to me as a surprise when on the day before the car was scheduled for delivery, I got a call that the blue car was not available as it had dents and scratches. As I needed the car, I accepted their alternative CX-5 even though I was not too fond of the jet black color. For me, the surprise not only was that I did not receive the car I ordered but that this issue came up only the day before it was delivered. Although I do not know their car turnaround times between subscriptions, this seemed like bad management. A friend I referred to Finn had his color changed twice before delivering the vehicle, only to the surprise that the car came in the original color (a vehicle which did not exist according to Finn). Fleet management and procurement definitely could use some improvement at Finn.

The delivery itself was smooth as the car was brought to my home by an independent contractor within the promised delivery time. The handover certificate (dt. Übergabeprotokoll) included images of the car around all sides and took only about 15 minutes. The only surprise was that the protective foils' marks were still very clearly visible. The delivery contractor said they would go off after a first car wash, but in reality, they still were visible after the entire 9-month period and were a cause for discussion when returning the car.

Day-to-Day with Finn

Finn is uncomplicated when everything goes well. A significant benefit is that additional drivers can be registered via a self-service online portal for no extra cost. Thus sharing the car is risk-free for everyone involved. Furthermore, each kilometer driven is CO2 compensated automatically. Finn mostly stays out of your way, and that is fantastic!

However, it quickly becomes apparent that Finn is a young company founded only two years ago (in 2020). They are using an MVP approach as much of what could be automated or built into their platform is not. The online platform can’t be used for more than the initial order process and adding drivers. They heavily rely on Typeform and Google Forms to retrieve information from their customers (e.g., have you scheduled a service appointment yet? Please answer in this Google Form). All in all, it still feels like they are in the validation phase, but they are moving quickly. Nine months ago, they partnered with Santander consumer leasing for more mid-to-high-end cars (which was a nightmare), but now it seems like they are standing on their own feet to lease cars. Marketing is one of the clear strengths of Finn, as they have sophisticated funnels linked to you as a (potential) client. Before starting a subscription, Instagram ads show the different cars and the benefits. Once you become a subscriber, you receive mainly ‘refer a friend and earn 200 EUR’ ads, and towards the end of the subscription, all channels (social media, email, text messaging, and even physical mail is sent to you) push you to extend the subscription with another car.

95% of the time, I could not have been happier with the service, but the edge-cases are where a service promising effortless mobility must shine.

Inspection

New cars should receive regular inspections. The CX-5 required this after 9000 km, and, in principle, the process for this is streamlined and straightforward. The customer writes an email to Finn; they look for the partner closest car repair shop and send the repair commission document (dt. Reparaturauftrag). As a customer, I was then required to schedule an appointment, bring the car, wait an hour or so and drive back home.

In reality, my inspection was a little more complicated. I scheduled the appointment, and after waiting six weeks or so, I drove to the repair shop. Here “confusion” was written all over the wall. They had received “something” from Finn but did not know what. “Why am I here if I don’t have crash damage” was one of their questions. I also had a document from Fleet Spot stating that Finn would cover costs, and still, the repair shop had no clue what the car needs, how the process works, and why I even am there. Due to a scheduling issue, I had to take a rental car for the day, which Finn paid. However, to be cheap enough to stay under the limit, the garage told me I must accept an insanely high 4000 EUR deductable.

Car Return

Returning the car, by far, was the worst part of the whole car-subscription experience. Finn offers two different options for returning the car: Pickup for 200 EUR or self-delivery for 0 EUR. Pickup is the only viable option for most customers as only three drop-off points are available in Germany. For me, however, the drop-off was only 25 minutes from my house, so I thought I could do it myself. I booked an appointment in the time range of 8:00–9:00 on a specific day, and on that day received a call at 8:20 from the appraiser who was asking why I had not yet arrived. I looked into my emails as I put 9:00 in my calendar and thus was interested in how I made this mistake. In the email from Finn, it turns out that it had stated that I have an appointment at 8:00 and that the drop-off place opens at 9:00. Therefore I put 9:00 in my calendar as I thought this was a system issue, and I did not want to wait outside a shut door for an hour. The appraiser, on the other side, had an appointment scheduled at precisely 8:17, a time that never was communicated to me. Interestingly enough, the appraiser stated that many Finn customers have similar issues, and Finn has “scheduling chaos.”

I then arrived at the ginormous parking lot (see image below) and, after one more call to the appraiser, finally found the parking lot he was at where I should park. The appraiser analyzed the car meticulously for about 45 minutes. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos, but the appraiser had everything from a paint-thickness measuring device to a reflector sheet to look for scratches and a very, very detailed eye looking at absolutely everything and taking photos with a high-quality mirrorless camera. Even though the car had no issues or scratches, I was almost surprised when he said everything looked good. Surprisingly, I was not allowed to sign any document stating the report was accurate — something that is highly recommended for all leasing car returns as it removes the possibility of changing the appraisal report after the fact. Fourteen days later I received an email from Finn with the report, which officially stated that everything was fine.

Once the appraisal was completed, I had to give it to another company on the same premises. This turned out to be a 45-minute ordeal: In the Finn email, they had sent a Google Earth satellite screenshot with some arrows to where exactly I was supposed to deliver the car. This was a container at the entrance to a large parking lot which, when I arrived, was open, but no one was sitting in it. It had instructions on the wall specifically for Finn returns, so I knew I was at the right place. After waiting for 5 minutes or so, I approached people working on the lot, asking them if they knew who was responsible for the operation here. Multiple people responded that I should tell them who the person in charge is because they are falling into despair, too. After another ten minutes or so, I decided to call Finn, only to be kept in a waiting loop for what seemed to be an eternity, although, in reality, it was only about 10 minutes. Here, the call center agent told me to call the number of the boss of the place which he provided. The person picking up was surprised that no one was there and said he would be sending someone immediately. Ten minutes later… no progress. Finally, I took it to myself to find anyone working for the handling company and not let them leave until they took my car. At the other side of the lot, I found a man who said I could leave the car here after filling out a small slip of paper and getting it stamped. Finally, I drove the car back to where I had waited for so long and just parked it as instructed. Lastly, I had to wait about 20 minutes for a Taxi as the drop-off place was in the middle of nowhere. Over three hours for returning the car and standing in the rain… I recommend you choose the pickup.

Recommendation?

Overall, the Finn car subscription was a decent solution for my mobility needs at the time. It provided fast delivery with the simplicity I needed and an unlimited number of drivers. However, for 518 EUR per month, I wouldn’t say it was “worth it,” especially as it was not quite the effortless and seamless experience Finn makes it out to be. The gap between (long-term)-rental cars and leasing is slim, and next time, I likely would go for one of those options depending on my plannable time horizon, assuming that I do not decide to buy a car for the longer-term. I also believe that Finn should improve their end-to-end processes, especially with their partners, but Finn has already started expanding to the US, so I guess they want to scale before refining the customer experience.

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