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

[Monvelo]

Went to a big car dealership just to have a first look at some options. After looking, there were three types of car in the running so I asked about booking in test drives for a future date. I was told that they only let you test drive the one you are definitely interested in, having helped you narrow it down to just one. The reasons given were that it would take over an hour of staff time, it would be too confusing to me as the driver, and it's just not how they do things. I just don't understand this, based on price, space, mileage, reg etc, there is nothing to pick between the three types of car, so surely I would want to drive all three to see what I prefer!

If that's the case, I'd find another dealership and drive the car you want there, until you've found the model you like.

I’ve worked in dealerships. They just can’t be bothered so I would go elsewhere if possible.

Go elsewhere. They can’t be arsed.

It was a big car supermarket type place, how on earth can't they be arsed?! It's literally their job.

I was helping a friend to buy a car last year, driving her to dealerships and stuff, it was hard bloody work, the majority were rude, difficult and not at all helpful.

They acted like they were doing us a big favour, when it was her looking to spend a not inconsiderable amount of money!!

Yanbu OP.

Buying a car, unless you’re after a really old S/H model is really quite a huge purchase, especially when buying new. It probably doesn’t bode well for the future with the dealership too; you may need help or servicing or advice from them after the purchase, and if they’re basically being this lazy and entitled before they’ve even sold you the car, they’ll probably be even worse with any after sales care.

I wonder if your budget means they can't be arsed to invest a lot of time in you.

I was surprised when DC1 pulled up on their own in our drive in the car they were test driving - now it was just the one but I didn't realise dealerships would let the cars go out without a member of staff?

Yep. I've had several test drives (for me and accompanying DH) and we never had anyone in the car with us.

Ditto

Are the cars easily accessible? Or are they all parked together. If they are all parked together, they won’t let you drive it until you have shown serious interest, not saying it’s right, but that how it was with the car supermarket last time I went.

I once test drove 8 cars at a single dealership over the space of 5 hours. They were falling over themselves to help me and I wanted to be 100% sure before spending £60k+.

YANBU, they're either lazy or they think you can't afford it and don't want to waste their time.

When we helped DD buy her first car she test drove 4 different cars at one of those big car supermarket type places. The chap there had no issue with that and when she thought she’d decided he let me and DH take it for a drive too. It took a while but it did end in a sale for the guy. When we made the appointment we told him there were several we wanted a good look at so he booked us a two hour slot.

I tried to buy a car from a big car supermarket place, firstly we had to fill in a form and sign for the keys,we also had to search for the cars from the hundreds they had in site.
I arranged a day for me to test drive the 3 cars we had narrowed our selection to.
When I turned up for the test drive, they only had 1 car ready. I did test drive the car, and liked it. But there was no way on earth I would have bought it from them, if they can be this bad about trying to get you to part with your money, I couldn't believe that would be interested in any after sales service.

I found that when I went to test-drive one car, the sales guy wanted to accompany me. When we went back and test-drove another the following day, we got a different sales person who just handed the keys to DH and sent us on our way.

Last time I was considering a hybrid. One dealership let me try two or three. I drove out on my own so didn’t take much staff time at all.
Find another dealer.

I still remember going with my dad as a kid to test-drive a car and being so excited at being allowed to sit in for the drive as it meant I was trying it before my mum, lol.

In all seriousness I just imagine it depends on the dealership and how busy the staff are that day.

This is such bad customer service from the dealership. When I wanted to buy a new car, I test drove a model several times. It was approx. 14k and I was there hours. I test drove it a fair bit (alone) then all the niggles I had took another hour to address and renegotiate price on. Due to my very short height, I was concerned about something also and the salesperson went to Halfords to buy a corrective device even! Anyway at the end I was 100% this was the right car for me with my needs and instead of looking for cheaper price elsewhere I did the deal immediately to repay them for their attention and understanding of my anxiety to get such an important and expensive purchase ‘right’. If at any point they had become frustrated or told me ther wasn’t enough of them to help me I’d have just gone elsewhere for sure.

A local to me Hyundai garage did let me test drive cars on my own, they just took a copy of my driving license. But most do it with a member of staff in the car.
Back to the original post, yes its reasonable to be able to test drive as many cars as you want, especially if its a big car supermarket type place.

We bought a new (to us) last year. Ended up at a huge car supermarket type place. Asked to look at 2 cars and was told that you had to ring, answers a whole pile of questions and then book in for the following weekend. I went to the car park,rang the call centre. Was asked what makes you interested in this particular car? I scoffed and said oh the colour and the wheels. And was told if I don’t take it seriously then they wouldn’t let me buy off them. I disconnected,drove to Evans Halshaw and spent £15k on a car they let me sit in and drive. Its bonkers

Madness isn’t it? I went to buy a car once and they couldn’t be less interested, I was spending a good chunk of money.. think they saw a woman on her own and assumed there wouldn’t be a sale until the “man of the house” went. Anyway I bought the car elsewhere and then went back to the first dealership and gave them feedback, it was a pretty woman moment 🤣

They can be so lazy.

We tried to order a brand new car from an expensive brand via a local dealer. They more or less said no, just choose from what we have.

We declined and some time later they phoned and said they had something in for us it was just a different model, different colour, different specs.

We bought from a competitor brand and when they next contacted ( with another not quite right offering) we had already purchased and they seemed quite irritable about that. But it was clear they were just relying on making a sale off what they had in the showroom. It’s like they think people are desperate to spend money.

I'd email the head of sales and let them know you'll be taking your custom elsewhere as their sales people can't be arsed to let you test more than one car and you have more than one in the running.
Works well if you are a cash buyer, you could add that in.

Excellent!!

There’s a newish big car supermarket near us. Went in with OH a few months ago and couldn’t believe we had to answer all their questions before we were even allowed to have a look round. We didn’t stay and nor did some other people in the car park though I guess the business model works as it’s still there.