Guess which we ordered?
Well, not something that would have influenced me unduly. I imagine many people make appts. for test drives & don't turn up, so dealers might sometimes take a chance & 'fit in' an extra sales chance & take someone out for a spin. Maybe this happened at the Honda dealer?
I might have been slightly put out at having to wait a while, but when you're buying something as important as a car (certainly in terms of money, anyway..) & you've nailed down the choice between two makes/models, it seems a bit illogical to eschew one because of a bit of waiting around. I always use any unplanned spare time in those situations for further investigations, questions & explorations (or maybe a cup of coffee & a fag!).
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I might have been slightly put out at having to wait a while
Waiting is going to be irritating if you're up against it time-wise. The OP was doing trying to fit test-drives into both his and his wife's lunch-breaks which, to be honest, is almost asking for trouble. OK, it *should* be possible, but life's not like that (well, not for me, anyway!).
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Going back to the test drive point, yes, you can adapt to any car if you want... but if you are planning to live with that car for several years surely its better to ensure that its comfortable and the engine does what you want it to do before you buy? I remember back in 2001 test driving a Focus TDDi and Fabia, I could not have lived with that engine in the Focus for long as it was so inflexible, but I'd not have got that from just looking at brochures.
Test drive is a must...
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Going back to the test drive point yes you can adapt to any car if you want...
I could never adapt to the driver's seat of a Ka. I had three as courtesy cars in the early 2000s and 25 miles in each was as much as I could stand. I found the driver's seat backrest to be excruciatingly uncomfortable ~ in fact positively painful.
Edited by L'escargot on 17/09/2009 at 10:36
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...I couldn't give a monkey's about the salesman's attitude. I'll probably only meet him twice,..
Wise words, but it's all too easy to be unduly influenced by that and other irrelevancies such as a flash showroom, free coffee etc.
The previous owner of Ifithelps Towers was a very bonny lass.
I had to keep reminding myself I was just buying a flat and she wouldn't be coming with it. :)
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To answer some of your points.
The last time my wife was changing her car there was one particular model which she was really interested in. We arranged for a test drive but within 10 minutes my wife's back was hurting, this was something which hadn't become apparent when sitting in the car in the showroom. I'm amazed that some people would consider spending £11,000+ without a test drive, do you buy shoes without trying them on?
We usually have a shortlist with several cars to test drive but as we only have diesel ones there weren't too many which met out criteria apart from the Fabia. When the new Jazz was originally announced there was a rumour that it would be available with a diesel engine so we had been along to the launch. I have a CR-V so we know what Honda quality is like so even though the Jazz was petrol we thought we would see if it was exceptional enough to be considered. The failed test drive took it out of the equation completely.
I'm a very tolerant person but I draw the line at rudeness, and not having a car ready for an appointment I had called in and booked personally I consider that rude. I know you don't have to like the salesman to buy a car you want but I would travel to another dealer and buy from them instead.
Some of you may disagree with me and that is your prerogative of course!
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I'm in total agreement andyfr.
It's probably indicative of the attitude of all the staff in the dealership.
Imagine taking it back with a warranty problem and as for getting it serviced there........
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I know you don't have to like the salesman to buy a car you want but I would travel to another dealer and buy from them instead.
Just make sure you don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
Edited by L'escargot on 18/09/2009 at 09:00
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>> Guess which we ordered? I couldn't give a monkey's about the salesman's attitude. I'll probably only meet him twice and then only for a few minutes each time. My only interest is in the car model and specification and I've more or less decided on that from prior research before I enter the showroom. The test drive is only for confirmation of my choice.
By and large I agree, all that would worry me is that if the salesman's attitude is so bad when there's a sale in the offing then what is the same dealership's attitude going to be to any snagging / warranty issues?
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"f the salesman's attitude is so bad when there's a sale in the offing then what is the same dealership's attitude going to be to any snagging / warranty issues?"
A fair and valid point. Pre-sale customer service is quite easy to get right, and is a combination of good admin coupled with good attitude. If they can't do the simple things, what about the hard ones?
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I agree.
I've always thought that cars and houses pretty much sell themselves thus making estate agents and car salesmen redundant.
All they have to do is to put the item in front of you and be helpful and knowledgeable.
Looking to change one of the cars a few years ago I went into a dealership, for what I now can't remember.
I told the sales manager what I was looking to test drive. He said he might be able to get one from another dealership. If I didn't hear from him in a couple of weeks, I was to phone him.
At another dealership we went for a test drive with a salesman sitting in the back. After a few miles and minutes of left turns we were back in the road where the dealership was. The salesman assured me this was the test drive route.
Neither of these got the deal and either of them could have.
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Reminds me of the Mazda dealer I went to two years ago when I was considering a 5. The salesman was amiable enough and far from pushy but his idea of a test drive was to do most of the driving (badly) himself, and to hand over to me for a mile each of straight 30mph suburban road and equally straight dual carriageway.
This contrasts markedly with the Toyota and Mitsubishi shops in the same town, who threw me the keys to a Verso and a Grandis and said, "See you in an hour or two." We bought the Verso.
How anyone can buy such a significant item without trying it out properly I have no idea. Does anyone here buy shoes by pointing at a pair in the window and saying, "No need to try them, I've read all about them and I'm sure they'll be fine"?
Although if people do do the automotive equivalent of that it could explain some of the ergonomic horrors I tend to bang on about here. Does anyone who's driven a Picasso or a Yaris more than ten minutes go on to buy one without first finding a compelling reason to put up with a speedometer situated somewhere west of Milford Haven?
I'll go further: the test drive is the single most important reason for having a dealer at all. Without it we might as well buy a car the way I've taken to buying shoes. (I got tired of the looks I got from shop assistants when I asked them for a 12 or a 47. And no, matey, a 46 is not a 12, not this side of the Atlantic anyway.) But at least when the shoes I ordered online don't fit I can return them; neither so cheap nor so easy to do with a car.
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Does anyone who's driven a Picasso or a Yaris more than ten minutes go on to buy one without first finding a compelling reason to put up with a speedometer situated somewhere west of Milford Haven?
Yes! On a mk1 anyway; don't know which version you're talking about. Apart from the fact it was digital, didn't notice anything odd about it. Which just proves your point - just because someone else likes/dislikes it doesn't mean to say you'll feel the same way.
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Does anyone who's driven a Picasso or a Yaris more than ten minutes go on to buy one without first finding a compelling reason to put up with a speedometer situated somewhere west of Milford Haven?
Well, yes -- the many people who like having the speedo in a place where you can at least see some road while looking at it.
I'll go further: the test drive is the single most important reason for having a dealer at all. Without it we might as well buy a car the way I've taken to buying shoes.
Actually, I think that in many ways a test drive is a rather pointless exercise for most newish cars, unless you fancy yourself as an enthusiast.
Most modern cars are a form of white goods, a variety of similar products which have converged to produce a lot of remarkably similar models. Most of them are reasonably fast, go round corners reasonably well, and all that sort of thing. The biggest differences between them relate to interior design and to construction standards, and a test drive tells you sod all about that -- construction standards are something for research not feeling (unless, like the teenage scribblers who write for motoring mags, you are naive enough to think that soft-touch plastic indicates good build quality), and all the interior design issues can be checked in the showroom. Does the driving position work for me? Is there room for oddments? Will the boot fit my golf clubs/baby buggy/double bass? Will the baby seats fit in the back, and kids actually see out the side windows?
The only really significant things that most people will really learn from a rest drive are about ride comfort and noise level.
I have bought three vehicles in the last few years. First was the Almera, which I test drove: that just confirmed what I knew already, viz. that it is a typically easy-to-drive Jap car, with a hard ride and more noise than other similar cars, but not enough to make me want a more expensive alternative.
Second was a Vectra for a friend. We just checked that the boot was big enough to fit a musician's clobber and that the driver could get comfortable. As to driving, well it's a repmobile, and it drives like a repmobile: no vices, no thrills. A test drive would have told us nothing we didn't already know from a little reading.
The third vehicle I bought was my campervan, which I didn't even get to touch before I bought it from Japan, based on lots of pictures and the auction reports. When it arrived, I found that it drives like a van (surprise! surprise!) -- okay on the straights, but not good for fast corners, and it's vulnerable to side winds. Hold the front page ;-)
With most of the newish vehicles I have test driven over the years, I have learnt all I really need to know in a short distance. Can I see out the back when reversing? How bad are the blind spots? Are the controls easy to use? Is it noisy, and is the ride acceptable?
A long test drive may make sense if it really matters whether the car has the finer points of high-speed cornering down to a tee, but for how many drivers does that really matter at all?
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Most modern cars are a form of white goods a variety of similar products which have converged to produce a lot of remarkably similar models.
That might be true for the cars you've test driven, but the 4 I had a go in (1.2 Corsa, 1.3 Yaris, 1.1 and 1.3 Colts) were all significantly different in terms of the way they drove.
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It's a way of finding out if there are any points on the car which would niggle you and drive you mad, but which another person wouldn't notice or bother about. Personal taste.
I had a test drive in a used Mazda3 a few weeks ago; nice car, well built, goes well and they always get good reviews. But..... the dash and instruments were over styled, horrible flat black plastics which looked basic and like something rejected in 1965. Maybe it was well-built and screwed together, but it looked really cheap and low-rent. No way I could've lived with that in any car, so I didn't buy it.
And I wouldn't have found that out if I hadn't driven around with that in front of me for a few miles.
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I'm no enthusiast, at least in the bobble-hat-wearing, Clarkson-venerating sense. But I do know what I want a car to do for me, and I can't tell most of that in a showroom.
I've mentioned previously my 250-mile test drive in the Volvo S60 I eventually chose. I returned from that trip (Coventry to Basingstoke and back) determined to have one despite its (gasp) being a saloon car, because of (a) its superbly supportive seats, (b) its relaxed power delivery and cruising ability, and (c) its superb audio system, which really can shorten a long trip.
At about the same time (2002) I did similar trips in two VW models that were, on paper, better suited to my needs and budget than the Volvo. The Golf I generally liked, but I couldn't quite get comfortable and would have found the lack of LW on the radio irksome in the cricket season; the Passat I didn't like at all, except for the automatic wipers, which worked far better than I'd expected them to.
Without those long test drives, I might well have ordered a Passat from the company car list and been nothing like as satisfied as I have been with the Volvo.
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If I am spending my hard earned money I want to make sure it is on something I am happy with !!
I had arranged to test drive a VW Tiguan for the day I drove about 2 miles and retuned it to the dealership I just knew there was no way I would be happy with it .
I am not saying the car was rubbish it just did not feel right .
I always take the attitude that if a dealership will not put themselves out when you are making a purchase what chance have you got when they have your money .
If you arrange to test drive a car it is unprofessional for the car not to be there for you as arranged
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