Wheel Deal: June

Community Comments

If The Car Fits... Drive It

By Art Garcia

Among its list of common, costly car-buying mistakes, Consumer Reports has at No. 10: skipping a test drive. The magazine advises devoting at least 30 minutes to a complete test drive and recently researched the situation, contending “the trick is getting your butt into the car in the first place. It’s not as easy as we thought.”
     Don’t know why. Rob Simpson, sales manager at Woodland Motors, which sells Cadillacs and other marques, expects a prospective customer to ask for a test drive. “If that’s what you want to do, that’s what we’re here for,” he says.
     At Jaguar Sacramento, a salesperson will ride with the customer “all the time,” says Ben Hodson, general sales manager. In Woodland, Simpson says a salesperson is a passenger “99 percent of the time,” so expect company when you roll off that dealer’s lot.

Going Solo
The remaining 1 percent are mostly customers who want to take the car to show their spouse. “A lot of salesmen don’t want to ride with the customer if he’s going to show the car to his wife,” he says. “You kind of use your judgment. If some kid of 19 wanted to come in and take a test drive in a Cadillac CST, stickered at $36,000, or the $80,000 XLR model, probably no.”
Continued...

• Share
  • Digg This
  • del.icio.us
  • Newsvine
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Furl It
  • !Y My Web
  • Google
• Email
• Print

Recommend This

Community Comments