I was in a main dealer the other day picking up a brochure for my wife and the salesman there used to work for a different main dealer where we bought my wife's last car from. I was just chatting about our buying experience at the other dealer, which was really bad, and he said that they now charge £30 for a test drive.
Now I can't make up my mind whether this is sour grapes, a sales technique or fact. Has anyone else ever heard of a charge for test driving prior to purchase of a brand new car?
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I'd be amazed if it was true. Dealers are more likely to pay you to take a test drive in the present climate.
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If that £30 was to cover a test drive lasting 24 hours, then it wouldn't be a bad arrangement. The standard 30-minute run in the immediate vicinity of the dealership is grossly inadequate, and I wouldn't mind being able to pay £30 for a chance to asses a car properly.
But I agree with RR a bout the present circumstances. In the current climate I'd have thought that dealers would be begging or bribing drivers to take a free test drive in the hope of finally selling something.
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i've often wondered how dealers sort out the tyre kickers from the real buyers, ...if they get it wrong they'd be doing the hire car market out of jobs
wouldn't pay £30 or any £'s for a test drive though
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How many of the posters on here have accompanied their other halves to a ladies shoe shop and waited whilst they tried on 8 pairs before deciding there was nothing they liked ?
Prepared to pay the shoe shop £30 for that ?
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accompanied their other halves to a ladies shoe shop
Read once somewhere which mentioned that the stress level of men when accompanying their wives/GFs to a shopping mall is comparable to that of a policeman during riots.
:o)
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Read once somewhere which mentioned that the stress level of men when accompanying their wives/GFs to a shopping mall is comparable to that of a policeman during riots.
can you imagine my stress when my mother came to stay, insisted i take her to a local shopping mall because they had a branch of shoe shop the same as her home town and had a pair of boots she wanted... and whilst she paraded up and down the shop deciding...i had to endure the shop assistant saying... "and what does your husband think"
I know i've got grey hair, but that is ridiculous.....she's dined out on that one for a number of years hence.
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A copper that doesn't look younger than me :)
Edited by gmac on 27/11/2008 at 21:16
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I know how it feels WP. Five years ago, when my son was three, he kicked off in church at a family christening. I took him outside to calm him down. A church warden or similar official followed me out and kindly said not to worry, they were quite used to children and their ways and that I should bring my "grandson" back in.....
:-(
Oh.....we drove there in a car by the way, and went home in one too...
;-)
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How many of the posters on here have accompanied their other halves to a ladies shoe shop and waited whilst they tried on 8 pairs before deciding there was nothing they liked ?
Somebody's assuming that all posters here are either male or lesbian, aren't they?
Prepared to pay the shoe shop £30 for that ?
I'm not prepared to pay 50% of the price of something just for trying it, nor anything to try it in the shop for a few minutes.
Taking a £15,000+ car away for 24 hours is a very different matter to placing ones feet for two minutes in a pair of £50 to £100 shoes.
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It's amazing how many dealers think you will walk in to their showroom, look at a car valued at an average of lets say for arguments sake £15,000 and that you will commit to purchase just by sitting in it and looking at the switches.
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Last year Kia was giving £20 M&S voucher for a test drive. The dealers were even saying if you want to test drive just for the sake of voucher, you don't need to drive as we'll just stamp saying you've done test driving.
Thus I got the £20 M&S without test driving :)
Few weeks back Suzuki was giving free cinema tickets for test driving any of their models. I was on the dealership for a check up of my car and told them I don't have any intention of buying a new car now but can I get the movie tickets? The sales guy said, sorry you actually need to test drive to get that. Fair enough, I drove a new SX4 for 15 minutes and got the tickets.
Lexus is now offering 48 hours test drive. But the catch is you need to buy/arrange your own insurance for it.
Land Rover offers free instructor assisted off road driving sessions all the year (I posted about it last week).
If any dealer charges me for test driving, simply I won't buy from them.
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Dealers having been doing that for years;only too happy just to stamp the form rather go to all the trouble of getting a car out and sorting the details.
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I'd happily pass on a £20 M&S voucher in exchange for not having to queue at a disinterested dealer and sit in a car with a bloke with a shiny suit on.
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Setforth always drives alone, insists on at least one hours drive and would refuse to pay.
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If it had been for a 24 hour test drive then that would be understandable but it wasn't, at least that's what I was led to believe! He asked if the salesman had come with us and when I said no he said we weren't insured then!
Most of the test drives we have had they have just given us the keys and off we went.
Edited by andyfr on 27/11/2008 at 11:52
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Times are changing.
I wouldnt be surprised if a charge happens for a decent test drive in the near future.
And what use is a 30 min drive anyway? Its not much different to sitting in the car and playing with the switches?
For a test to be of any use (if you are considering swapping car makes/styles especially) then it has to be conducted over a variety of different circumstances to be of any practical value.
So who pays for the mileage/wear/fuel on the demo car?
A charge for a decent test, refunded if a vehicle is bought, is in place in parts of Europe already. But it wont happen here will it !
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We usually do several test drives back to back, going from one dealer to another, for about an hour. It takes up most of the day but it's useful for direct comparisons. It would work out expensive if we had to pay for each one.
Edited by andyfr on 27/11/2008 at 12:02
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Charging ~ £30 (incl. insurance but excl. fuel) is not bad idea for at least 24 hours test drive!
It will keep me busy on weekends.
Edited by movilogo on 27/11/2008 at 12:03
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Many years ago a friend used to work in London during the week and nip home to visit his parents in the west country at weekends. He regularly booked 24hr or even whole weekend test drives at London car dealers......
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And what use is a 30 min drive anyway? Its not much different to sitting in the car and playing with the switches?
It gives you at least some idea of what it's like to drive eg. acceleration and noise levels, either of which if bad enough might tell you it's not the car for you.
I know I spent 30 minutes (or less) in various contenders for our Yaris replacement, and for most of them it told us all we needed to know.
F
Edited by Focus {P} on 27/11/2008 at 12:42
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I find this unlikely, somehow- unless it was a charge for insurance?
Might the salesman have been attempting to put you off visiting the
other dealership?
tt
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Might the salesman have been attempting to put you off visiting the other dealership?
Our last experience there was enough to do that from any of their franchises anywhere in the UK!
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i agree its enough time to find out its not the car for you.
But its not enough time to find out if it IS the car for you ?
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But its not enough time to find out if it IS the car for you?
Agreed- you might need longer. But if there was a system where say the first 30 mins were free then you had to pay for extra, that would at least allow you to draw up a shortlist without spending a fortune. And my point is the shortlist would be a lot longer without the 30 minute test drives.
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'So who pays for the mileage/wear/fuel on the demo car?'
Might I suggest the manufacturer, after all they want you to buy their product and they seem happy to spend millions on TV and newspaper adverts that tell you very little about their products.
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Times are changing. I wouldnt be surprised if a charge happens for a decent test drive in the near future.
Any dealer who started doing that should rename his business Hari Kari Motors Ltd, because that is what he would be comitting.
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I think its a wind up.
No dealer in right mind would even try this.
The Manufacturer would not be too happy.
I used to work in a VW dealer as a saleman and would suggest to undecided customers to hire a car from the Car Rental department for the day and if they bought one from me then I would refund the rental charge.... all customers who took me up on this offer went on to buy the car and no one objected to it.
I run a Toyota Dealer who has cars supplied on special terms from Toyota for demonstrator purposes ... if I started to charge customers for these cars then Toyota would go mental ... plus its very poor customer service .... some dealers charge a nominal fee for a service loan car ... maybe he was referring to this.
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What is the difference between the Vw hire/charge/refund and the idea of a charge for a decent test refunded if purchase made? None, its the same, but with less control of the car loaned out.
I think you will find Toyota will be supporting the idea fairly soon. Its not a new idea to them !
As I say, times are changing!
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>>I think you will find Toyota will be supporting the idea fairly soon.
???? you mean charging for a demo drive ?? if you do then I can gurantee that this Toyota Centre wont be making a charge to potential customers.
>>What is the difference between the Vw hire/charge/refund and the idea of a charge for a decent test refunded if purchase made? None, its the same, but with less control of the car loaned out ..... yes you are correct in what you say however the VW customers at the time loved the idea / offer .... was about 6 years ago so customer expectations are a lot higher these days so more than likely would go down like a lead baloon in todays market.
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.... some dealers charge a nominal fee for a service loan car ... maybe he was referring to this.
No, we were talking about the test drive at the time when he told me. Although I'm beginning to wonder if he has been told this by a customer who has got it wrong.
Edited by andyfr on 27/11/2008 at 13:15
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A salesman said............
You believed him? :>)
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Last time I went for a test drive I was chatting to the salesman and he basically told me that getting customers to take test drives was tied into their performance assessment (i.e. they were expected to make so many calls, to get so many customers taking test drives etc etc.). I think the theory is that a test drive creates 'desire' and moves the customer that little bit closer to making the purchase. I can't see them ever charging for this, at least not the mainstream brands.
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In the not too distant future its likely that the dealers will be selling more than 1 brand of car.
Logically there will be less dealers in any area accordingly.
Likely (as in parts of Europe all ready) to "qualify" you as a potential customer and not a joyrider a test drive charge will be levied and refunded if any purchase is made.
lets wait and see maybe?
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Its a really dumb idea.
The dealer will have an open ended insurance policy which will cover them for every customer they will ever have driving a car on test drive, so the idea that it is accountable to the individual buyer is daft - they will pay for it anyway so relying on customers to fund it is folly as they are less likely to buy in the first place. It would loose more customers than the money saved.
I have been offered an i10 for long test drive - 10:30am till 4:30pm on Sunday. I could have had it overnight if I wanted. They cover the insurance and only ask that you put some fuel in it. That to me suggests a company that understands the difficult decision car buying can be and they are genuinely trying to give you the best possible amount of time to form a rounded opinion.
Charging for those who dont buy the car on test drive is simply penalising someone for not liking the car as much as another one - its like Labour charging people to vote Tory, unless the Tories win the next election.
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Any dealership that requested any level of fee to take a test drive - or even to pay for the cost of fuel - would never, ever get my business.
A car is the second most expensive purchase anyone can make and the dealerships should work on that basis.
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In the not too distant future its likely that the dealers will be selling more than 1 brand of car
It's already happening! A good number of dealers in South East now deal with over 3-4 brands at least.
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>>A salesman said............
You believed him? :>)
!!! ouch
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Some muppet tried to get one of my former colleagues to put a deposit on a car before he could take it for a test drive!
It was a used car dealership that didn't stay in business for too long.
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Why pay £30 for a test drive when you could buy the car for £25 then if you don't like it, throw it away.......
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A lot of variabilty over unaccompanied test drives, at least in the Poole/Bournemouth area. Regarding my most recent projected car purchase:
Fiat Panda. Whole weekend, no problem (but it was too small and I didn't take up the offer)
Kia C'eed. Snooty, "We don't give out cars for free transport " (rich, considering Kia nationwide were offering a whole week not long before)
SEAT Ibiza. Snooty, suspicious, finally got half an hour on the dual carriageway (although this was enough, dreadful suspension)
Hyundai i30 1600, "No problem, take it all day, we'll fill the tank for you, really get to know it". I bought one.
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Living in Portsmouth, I had a similar thing.
I wanted to test drive a Peugeot 308. There were adverts all over the place at the time for a 24hr test drive. So I phoned my local dealer to arrange one.
Them: "Oh sorry, we don't offer 24 hour test drives, we found that people were using them for long trips and airport runs."
Me: "Erm... what did you expect people to do with a car for 24 hours? Park it on their drive and take photos of it"? (I didn't really say that)
Them: "We can offer you a local drive- I'll get a salesman to call you back" - They never did.
SEAT Leon - no 24hr drives, but allowed me to test 3 different cars with differing suspension setups, so I went for one of those in the end
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You didn't miss anything with the 308, an unbelievably underwhelming car.
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I was asked to pay for a test drive.
I went to a local dealer to look at a Mondeo, was given a pretty short test drive, and then got down to haggling. He told me that the price you paid was list price, and any deals on the net were probably 'smoke and mirrors'. I said I wanted a deal, but he refused to budge.
So I went along to a major chain, quoted an internet price at them, which they matched on the spot, and did a deal.
About a week later, the first dealer phones up, and asks how my search is going: I reply that I have bought a car from someone else. At this point he gets quite shirty, nearly abusive, saying that he picked up the cost of the test drive, which was most unfair, and he now wanted me to pay him for the test drive, suggesting £20. He was very unpleasant, and he left it by saying that he expected me to reimburse him.
Well, if he had been prepared to negotiate....
Peanut
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When we wanted a new kitchen the supplier was happy to drive to our place (about 30 KM), measure up & design the thing.
For this the charge was a very reasonable 30 euros, refundable if we bought.
We did and it was!
I don't see the objection to paying for a test drive if it is of a sufficient length.
30 minutes no - but 24 hours or more - why not?
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"I run a Toyota Dealer who has cars supplied on special terms from Toyota for demonstrator purposes"
Toyota dealers seem to be particularly good about test drives, so this must be why. My impression is that Toyota GB are rather better at supporting their dealers than some other manufacturers / importers. Our local Toyota dealer (Octagon of Bracknell) have on several occasions let us go out on our own, and they'll let you have a car for 24 hours when one is available. I almost felt guilty at not buying a Verso - although my daughter has had 3 Yarises from them.
If you see this, niceguy eddy, do you know when the revised Prius will be in the showrooms? With the promise of more power, it might be as good on motorways as the present one is in town.
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>>If you see this, niceguy eddy, do you know when the revised Prius will be in the showrooms?
New shape Prius around April - June time.
However in 2010 we are definately getting 2 new small hybrids .. not sure if based on current models i.e. Yaris / IQ or 2 completely new models ?? Toyota keep things very quiet even to their dealers.
Eventually they will have a seperate Hybrid range which will be split from Toyota . Simlair to how Lexus used to be sold alongside Toyota but now totally seperate franchise.
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Many thanks. I hope your dealership continues to flourish.
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