Aibu to expect to test drive 3 cars at a dealership?

My SIL didn’t test drive a car then spent years complaining how uncomfortable it was. She’s short like me, you have to know you can see, reach pedals comfortably.
Ive also had a few hire cars I’ve hated (fiat 500 being the worst).

Im sure there are a lot of people just looking out of interest and not committed to buy but that’s the nature of sales.

I tried three almost identical cars when I bought mine... The second one clearly had something wrong with it. The first had a luxury spec I couldn't justify. The third one was perfect.

My husband also drove several of seemingly the same car to find one he felt drove well.

We'd have been asking what they were trying to hide!

Where you looking to spend £6k or £60k? That will be the reason I suspect.

@Monvelo find a different dealer. A good dealer will let you test drive as many as you want.

I found car showroom staff to be incredibly rude/lazy the last two times we’ve bought a new car, calls not returned, avoiding questions, test drives seem like a massive burden etc. Maybe they are trying reverse psychology!

It wasn’t Big Motoring World was it? They have a Facebook group of nearly 5,000 dissatisfied customers, many of whom have had to reject the knackered cars that they sell and fight for refunds. Their sales process is a joke. If it was them you’ve well and truly dodged a bullet.

We’ve been lucky with the car that we bought but we were massively ripped off on a missold warranty and had to threaten legal action to get the money back. They are an utter nightmare.

I would never buy a car without a decent length test drive unless it was more or less identical to what I’m used to
I’ve been unlucky enough to need quite a few hire cars recently due to accident (not my fault) or breakdown and it’s really reinforced for me cars that I would never consider buying! Sometimes it’s just comfort - I had back ache for weeks after using a hire car when I broke down 300+ miles away from home

me and DH run a small independent car supermarket (75 cars), most of the motor industry is an absolutely joke. Please name and shame them! You could come to us and test drive as many as you want with us, tie up a sales person all day and then go away and think about it with no hard sell. As long as we have provided a good service that’s that matters.

Hrft but I drove mine for 48 hours pre purchase, tbh it sold it to me.

I went to a dealership before buying my current car about three years ago.
They were dreadful; pushy, misogynistic and rude. I test drove one car and mentioned that I was testing another at a different dealership. They were disparaging and said I couldn’t possibly like that car as the clutch was slightly offset.
I gave up and went to Arnold Clark, who were friendly and helpful. They gave a stonking great discount and many extras.
They even phoned me me six weeks later to say they’d accidentally taken £100 more than I owed so pays the back with interest.

One garage, when asked if I could test drive a car, said, if you get your husband to come with you, you can test drive it'- Reader - I never went back

Surely that's the ad a Tage of a dealership. You test drive. You can't buying online.👁

The whole car buying process is abysmal and set up to be antagonistic. A combination of dreadful customer service from dealerships and some dim buyers who don’t know what they want and haven’t done any research. Everyone from salespeople to buyers think the other is trying to put one over on them. Buying a new car they will try and sell you GAP insurance, paint protection, wheel insurance and other stuff you don’t need or could get cheaper elsewhere.

No it won’t tell you what will go wrong long term (although if you’re mechanically savvy like my partner then it will pick up engine noises or rattles that indicate if there may be an issue or something close to wear out) but it certainly will tell you if the visibility is good for you, if the seating position is comfortable, whether the buttons and the control panel are well situated and easy to use, if the car has a decent amount of power and torque in low and high gears, how it feels to corner, if the radio picks up decent reception, where the bite point on the clutch is etc. Basically all things you cannot tell about a car from researching it online.

Right so you probably bought a “marque”.

”I don’t care whether these shoes actually fit and if I can walk in them - they’re Louboutins, the red sole is what matters”.

But a relatively short test drive WILL tell you if you can get the seat, steering wheel, mirrors etc. into a good position for 5 foot me AND 6 foot DH. It will tell you if the pedals and gearstick are a comfortable reach (I actually couldn’t drive one car I test drove because if the seat was forward enough for me to reach the pedals I couldn’t comfortably use the gearstick). It will tell you what the all round visibility is like. It will tell you (if needed) that your pushchair will fit in the boot and leave room for shopping.

I can never be bothered to test drive a car. I do some online research and then haggle for the best price I can get.

My last 2 purchases were both £50k+ and I never sat in either car until the day I picked them up.

they can do what they like, in my experience a 1 day test drive doesn’t tell you what’s good or bad about a car. It certainly won’t tell you what you will or want like or can go wrong long term

And that’s fine for you, but if other people do think that a test drive is important for them, why should they not be allowed to?

Go elsewhere, car supermarket places often don’t care if it’s a little more effort. Try a smaller dealership and they’ll often let you test drive as many as you like.

I bought a car from Fords of Winsford a few years back (a large all-makes car supermarket in the North West of the UK) and they were brilliant. Without asking any questions, they handed over keys to three cars at a time to sit in, start the engines etc and then arranged for me to drive the ones I was most interested in. Given that the main role of the dealership you went to is to sell cars, I can only assume they couldn't be bothered to assist you. It's rare that the sales people are rushed off their feet for every hour of the day. It's too big an expense to get wrong. Go somewhere else.

That's shocking. Go somewhere else

I drove 4 cars at Porsche all vastly different, all difference prices and all lovely. So I’d go to a different dealer tell them about the other one and get them to get your 3 cars sorted. 👍

Did they let you test the indicators were working?

Ive been to many dealerships and there's one local one I really rate so helpful and I've driven 3 before to get the right one. They deliver across the country apparently so must be decent! Car supermarkets are just after a sale and I'm pretty sure the sales people get more commission on different cars as they never seem to give a crap what you want, just push you onto certain cars.