Does it matter which car you take lessons in?

[hastingsmua1]

Person A is paying for Person B’s driving lessons.

Instructor 1 charges £690 for 30 hours block booking, and £27.50 for standard lessons. Lessons in a new BMW 3 series.

Instructor 2 charges £610 for 30 hours block booking and £22 for a standard lesson. Lessons in a Corsa.

Both instructors charge the same for practical test days and have similar availability.

Person A wants Person B to go for the 2nd instructor, also the individual lessons are cheaper if extra lessons are needed. Person B doesn’t want to due to the type of car used (they plan to buy a car similar to the 3 series) and they want a female instructor which they can only have with Instructor 1.

Who is being reasonable or not?

I am paying for DS1, I went against the block of 20 which whilst cheaper I didn’t want to risk getting 5 lessons in and it not working.

£25 a lesson. Have already driven 5 different cars and haven’t even passed my test yet. It’s definitely good to get used to driving different cars so shouldn’t matter that the instructor has a different car to the one they plan on driving afterwards.

I would also recommend that Person B has a single lesson with their instructor before booking a block as they may find they don’t get on with them - finding an instructor you get on with and feel comfortable with is much more important than the type of car they drive.

Easy solved. Person paying goes with cheaper price and if learner wants more expensive lessons then they have to put the extra to it.

Win win.

£8 an hour to learn in in a Volvo 460 - no power steering, though,and they were hefty old cars for their medium size.

This was back in 1994/95, though - and the instructor did it part-time, so he was only allowed to earn so much before he would have apparently strayed into punitive tax circumstances.

£28 an hour for my daughter, i paid £9 an hour back in 1983

There are 2 main differences between the BMW and the Corsa. The BMW is much longer than the Corsa and is a saloon with a boot which might be more difficult to judge when reversing than the hatchback Corsa. Also, the BMW is rear-wheel drive and the Corsa is front-wheel drive, meaning they will feel different to drive.