One in 10 new car buyers don't bother with a test drive: study

By Tim Beissmann
August 14th, 2012

FIND DEALS

A study of new car buyers in the US has found more than one in 10 does not bother taking a vehicle for a test drive before purchasing it.

A report by Detroit Free Press quotes the results of the Maritz Research survey, which found 11.4 per cent of owners of a 2012 model year vehicle bought their car without even taking it for a spin.

The finding is linked to an uplift in the number of new car shoppers researching vehicles online, which increased to roughly four in five for owners of 2012 model year vehicles.

Those who do still go for test drives at dealerships are also more likely than ever to schedule it over the internet, with the percentage of online bookings increasing from 7.4 per cent in 2010 to 9.5 per cent in 2012.

The study was based on the responses of more than 80,000 new car buyers and is a disturbing trend for new car salespeople and dealerships, which largely rely on test drives and face-to-face interactions with shoppers to spruik their vehicles over those of competitors and upsell customers to more expensive models.

Some owners who did not take a test drive said they updated to the latest version of their current vehicle and felt comfortable that the new one would perform satisfactorily, while others identified a hatred for car salesmen as their motivation to avoid dealerships.

Vice president of strategic consulting for Maritz Research Chris Travell told Detroit Free Press he found the results of the study “quite fascinating and a little baffling”.

“As cliché as perhaps it sounds, there’s that new car smell that needs to be experienced first-hand and cannot be experienced over the internet,” Travell said.

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TG

In other news, 10 out of 10 new 86/BRZ drivers don’t bother with a test drive.
- Crummydore
  
  Ha!
- Jp
  
  Actually not entirely accurate. I know that both our local Subaru and Toyota dealer had one on the floor available for test drives and purchase. The BRZ is still there not sure on the 86
  - Sydlocal
    
    That is interesting Jp considering the BRZ is only officially available on-line and not via the dealers. Maybe your local dealer purchased one for themselves?
    - Amlohac
      
      Subaru actually have an alotment of vehicles they truck to dealers on rotation in order for customers to have a drive.
      
      My local dealer had a red one for about 2 weeks, then it was moved onto another dealer for more demo drives.
      - Jp
        
        Well that is a possibility, this one is red too. It has been there longer than two weeks though. I reckon both the Toyota and Subaru dealer purchased themselves as sydlocal suggested
Mad Max

I like the comment regarding a hatred of car salesmen as a reason to avoid new car showrooms. I personaly have never had a bad experience in my dealings with car sales people but I’ve heard some horrendous stories of people that have. Maybe some of the car companies need to take a long hard look at the people that actualy sell their cars.
- Johnson
  
  Going in to a dealership armed with information is the best way to deal with sales staff. A new car is big purchase for most people so research, research, research.
- JooberJCW
  
  I think it may also come down to how easy the customer can be twisted, good salesman are sharks and can smell blood of a easily swayed person and be all nice and sharing manipulating stories. If u come as a hard sell theyll be cold to u and generally ud more likely walk out
- Jacob
  
  No, they need to learn from prestige marques.
  
  BMW have non-pushy staff in showrooms (i am avoiding the word salesmen). Their philosophy is that BMW cars sell themselves, people walking into a BMW dealership already know that BMWs are good cars and dont want to be teased by aggressive salesmen. The staff are just there to facilitate you having a test-drive or inspection before you decide to buy.
jekyl & hyde

the “turn or burn” mentality of the big smoke is still there.the guy’s who run these dealerships don’t realise it’s actually 3 times easier to keep a customer than get one in the first place.burn the customers,burn the salesman.burn yourself…
Johnson

That would explain why the pictured vehicle sells
Martin

Some salesmen are too aggressive and arrogant and try to trap the customer by getting them sign the contract without offering a test drive. Some of them do not have any knowledge of the product they are selling so they refuse to offer a test drive to avoid further questions from the customer. Some salesmen are too lazy to offer a test drive even if the customer ask for it. One of the salesman of a famous brand which is going down day by day in their market share told me that there is no fuel in the car and also no fuel anywhere in the highly explosive dealership. So it is not always the customers fault for not bothering for a test drive.
- whatgoesaround
  
  sometimes its the customers attitude that turns salespeple off and customers have to realise that they ultimately have controls of how they are treated by how they treat others.
  - Amlohac
    
    Couldnt have said it better myself.
    
    Honestly imagine you are a sales person, a customer comes in and is a Grade A wanker right from the word go, your instant reaction will probably be “get the hell away from me you jerk, I dont want to talk to you now, let alone for the next 3 months while you wait for your car”.
    
    A polite customer will be treated accordingly, a polite sales person will be treated (should be anyway…) accordingly. A rude customer is likely to be ripped off as the sales person will probably do it out of spite.
    
    Its a bit over done this statement but it still hold true “treat other how you expect to be treated”.
    - Amlohac
      
      It appears the “S” key on my keyboard is on the fritz…
    - celica(silly car)
      
      justifying ripping pple off coz they are up themselves is just ripping pple off! come on now, the job is customer service, if you iltreat pple word is going to get round and you end up losing business from the other wankers!
      
      sometimes the sales people start it off by offering coffee from a machine and having the gall to ask how it tastes, very patronising! I told one it tasted like machine coffee and he tried to pull the dirty “sign here” on my girl when we had got back from an overnight test drive ready to buy, before agreeing on final exchange $. Needless to say, we got exact same model from another dealer “without a test drive” as we had got one already. and yes I found it online!
      - Amlohac
        
        Im not saying ripping people off is ever justified. What i am saying is human nature trumps everything. Some people (not just sales people) when confonted by a “jerk” right from the off set will be automatically in defencive mode. No one likes to be treated like crap, especially when it is unwarrented or seems to be just because you have a sales position.
        
        I do know know some sales people that will simply refuse to sell people anything (be it cars or a beer over the bar) if the customer comes in being a huge jerk “just because all sales people are children of the devil”.
        
        If you sterotype anyone, at all, and expect to be then treated with any form of respect by that person you’re insane. Its a two way street.
        
        Chucking a hissy fit and being a rude jerk didnt work when you were 3, and most certainly doesnt work when youre 33.
- Martin
  
  The replies to my post shows how many car salesmen with the above mentioned sales skills are visiting this website. Such people should realise that you are there to serve the customer and its your bread. I hope none is doing their job just because of their passion to cars. Selling cars need more skills than working in a butchery.
Showtime

I bought my car online 2.5 years ago having only seeing the ad online. It was such a simple process of speaking to the sales person on the phone and negotiating over the phone. This was after having a bad experience with a dealer who was desperate for me to buy a car. I had them value my trade-in (which was terrible) and after I laughed at their offer I wanted to leave. The thing was that the sales person didn’t want me to leave and as he had my keys to my car he said that I wasn’t leaving unless I bought a new car!

It was seriously a threatening situation.
- Legnab
  
  I have made my initial contacts online , soon gets their attention rather than just wander in , they get so many tyre kickers and brochure gatherers .
  
  The process seems to be taken more seriously , and i try out up to 3 different makes in the catergory iam interested in , test drives are a must , although i have friend who has bought $80k cars with no test drive , too busy .
  
  The euro sales people are generally proffesional , dont know about the oz brands .
  - Vt362rwkw
    
    Mate everyone knows the above is how you pick up men haha, contact them online and test drive, everything you said above applies to your love of men hahah
    Mate they must love you in your VW convertible, peep peep, here I come,
Save It For The Track

Having been an avid reader and follower of all things automotive before the internet was accessible, I’ve had many a ‘play’ with car salespeople over the years. Ranging from initially ‘playing dumb’ and saying some truly silly stuff (to have them agree), to listening to the ineptitude and misinformation that some try to pass off as ‘service’. I particularly recall many years ago when the Mazda 626 was running out and it wasn’t yet clear whether there would be anything other than a 4 cylinder, and whether or not there would be a replacement of the old 2.5L v6 from a few years previous, and the ‘knowledgeable salesman’ said that the new car is called a 6 so it will have a v6. I’m sure many of us would have stories from over the years. I recall about 10 years ago the first female salesperson I came across, and what she didn’t know (and didn’t try and BS about anything either) she would find out. I would think that anyone not test driving a vehicle before driving it, is simply after A to B transport and not actually interested in or having knowledge of the joy of driving. Much like Camry and Corolla buyers then….
- celica(silly car)
  
  same story here. I quizzed a mazda salesMAN about an entry level cx7 and he told me it had a 2.2l. So I walked away to another dealership where salesWOMAN knew it was a 2.5l while the turbo was 2.3l. and when she didn’t know something, she checked on her computer or books.
  
  mazda 6 thefore v6 is too funny!
Brendon

I am about to buy a new car and I am dreading going into
a dealership. I have only bought two other cars in my life and loved them both
but hated the experience of talking to these slimy salespeople. If I could buy
a car exclusively over the net I would. My experience is that most car sales
people will tell any lie they have to in order to sell a car. I intend to go in
with my own finance and insurance and with a full armoury of information. Even
then I will be hoping for the best. Funny thing is the women salespeople are
sometimes pushier and more arrogant than their male colleagues.
- Showtime
  
  The Subaru BRZ is online only, give that a try!
MK

Comes to think of it, who’s is still ‘test driving’ their washing machine, dish washer, phone, computer, lawn mower,etc. before purchase. Your google it and then you buy it.
Rick

And in other news …………100% of Toyota buyers didn’t test drive anything else
- Paul
  
  More like great wall buyers
No Fears

Guess that 93 Liberty wagon is getting long in the tooth,the new car money is in the bank,but
I too dread the car dealers & know the day will come when I will be forced,dragged in kicking & screaming to a dealer.Have spent some dollars on the old car to keep it going,reliable & rw.
I prefer to spending with my long term mechanic than any car salesperson.
Which car to buy? I think ask your mechanic.
His recommendation to me, stick with the brand I have & forget the Europeans.
All I did was mention Renault & the affable demeanor changed for the first time in the 17 years since becoming a customer !
tony

Some people make me sick. I am a car salesman. and I happen to love my job. I’m 28 married with 2 kids and a mortgage. I deffinitly don’t appreciate being called slimey. I happen to be a complete car nerd and make a habbit of being up to date with my product and competitor products. what I don’t appreciate is the arrogance of customers who walk in or phone in to my place of work and treat me like a lesser species. I don’t appreciate lying customers who swear black and blue.the dealer down the road offered them a $2000 bellow cost price. I don’t appreciate customers coming in at 5 mins to closing time.on a Sunday arvo after sitting at home all.day doing nothing expecting me to stay back and kiss their ass while my family has another dinner without me. I don’t appreciate a customer calling me and making an appointment for a test drive not turning up and not having the courtacey of even picking up their phone. I don’t appreciate a customer takeing up 3 hours of my time giving them thw highest level of service only to have them buy a car elsewhere cause it was $200 dollars cheaper and giving me an oppertunity to match or beat it. this is only a fraction of a car sales man’s life. I would argue it is not me that is slimey. but perhaps take a look at yourself.
- Legnab
  
  Well said tony , i know the feeling in sales too , as time goes buy you learn to read faces and eyes , soon sort out the time wasters .
  
  My time is precious i dont waste it or the sellers time .
- Amlohac
  
  Damn right. A sales person is bound by law really to not be misleading in any way shape or form, and as a customer you’d expect that.
  
  But some “customers” i’d imagine feel it is totally fine for them to lie and cheat and be misleading in every single way.
  
  I ask you this, you lying cheating misleading customers: Are you ok with being cheated out of your money? The money you use to live, feed your family, pay off your many loans?
  
  Its not ok for a sales person to lie to you, and its not ok for you to lie to them.
- Gibbut
  
  good call!
- jekyl & hyde
  
  hi tony,
  i hear you.
  buy the book “how to earn $100,000 dollars a year selling cars” by the “joe verde group”
  the light may turn on…
Laurie

What is considered a test drive? FMD a 5 minute trip around the block,how about a 4 hr loan of the car for you to take it where you spend most of the time driving/traveling oh no said the salesman its a demo car and we are trying to limit mileage so we can sell it with low kilometers FFS!!
- Legnab
  
  DEFINATELY 4 HOURS , some are happy to hand it over for half a day on your own, others take you for a drive and then give you 10mins in the blurbs , i like to get out on highway and B roads , worst experience was the lexus sales man , thought he was selling a RR , so patronising , did sir want to drive it , sorry not today .
  - Sarah
    
    Have to agree, my current car is great but I definitely shoudl have taken it for a longer test drive, with my next car I definitely will. How am I going to know otherwise that the car I take on my daily route to work is going to be nice and smooth in one car and bumpy and horrible in the next. With my current car when I get it serviced I get a loan car, it’s $25 so it’s fine and I usually get a mazda 3 BUT in saying that, because I’ve driven it to work I would never get a mazda 3 because the ride feels incredibly harsh.
Vt360rwkw

Me and my cousin went to a ford dealer once with a big bag of money, we said to the salesman we will buy this car right now if you flap your arms like a chicken a yell out I’m a poofter, I’m a poofter!!!, hahaha, and he did it, ford sales must be bad hey, then we run out yelling that poofters trying to get us, get away you big poofter, mate I laughed for a week at the stupid ford poofter
- Daniel
  
  Hahaha, that would be funny if it was funny!
  - Johnson
    
    Haha!
- Legnab
  
  ALL i can say is nemo and robin are quite normal nice people compared to this bogan .
  - Captain Nemo®™
    
    Why thank you kind sir!
Chalie

The luxury brands tend to have much better sales experience.. This is my story until I settled with a used IS350

-Mercedes- They’re generally nice people and want to do business, they offer you test drives etc
-Audi- They are good, but I didn’t like their cars lol

BMW- These guys must be some of the most stupid people around, they probably thought that I was just playing around or something?.. I was in the dealership for 10min and not even one person came up to me! So I just left.. Glad I did anyway

Lexus- These guys are the best, they generally tell you everything, they don’t make stuff up to just get rid of their stock and they insist on test drive = win
- Amlohac
  
  You shouldnt generalise down to specific brands. Its probably just the dealerships you went into. Some are amazing, even the ones that sell those Cherry…things ( do feel sorry for those guys though they have it tough). Some are god awful and shouldnt be in sales.
JamesB

It just goes to show that many car buyers are stupid and gullible. Several tests have shown which cars are better, but they still go for the inferior ones.
- Tesm
  
  What did you go for?
  - JamesB
    
    X5, with a C before that.
Basil Exposition

Ooooh, I love the colour and it looks cute… Where do I sign.
Gibbut

ah this explains holdens good cruze sales!
Gibbut

also know a few girls that purchased mazda 2′s without test driving them, they just wanted them.

so many better choices out there!
Vt363rwkw

I remember me and my cousin took a V8 commodore for a test drive and went 220kmhr past these road workers, haha the bloke with the stop go sign was shaking his fist, hahaha. So we took it back and they had rang the dealer, but we called the dealer a poofter and ran off, the went back to the road worker with the sign and threw a milkshake on him, ha haha
Sarah

I don’t know how you can’t take a car for a test drive, what if you like the look of it but the seating is actually quite uncomfortable? I went to look at a couple of cars, went to the kia and honda dealer but nothing really interested me. Then went to the joint mitsubshi/ subaru dealer and did not even get a hello from any of the sales people so just walked off. Then went to toyota and mazda, sat in a yaris and absolutely hated it, looked at mazda 2′s and was interested but didnt test drive. Then went to suzuki and hyundai and test drove a swift, it was alright but not a car I could see myself driving constantly so decided against it. Then went shopping and kept thinking “I should have test drove the mazda 2″ went back to mazda and the guy was obviously extremely helpful, testdrove the 2 and felt completely at ease with it. Left 3 hours later after paying a deposit. In saying that my sister purchased a 08 brand new toyota yaris without test driving it. So each person to there own, I would never do this, everytime I get my car serviced I get a test car (usually a mazda 3) and to be honest I don’t like the feel of it, yeah there a nice car but wouldnt want it as an everyday car, just doesnt suit me. You have to test drive a car to know if it will suit you and your lifestyle, at the moment my mazda 2 suits me (except for the tiny a** boot space) but in 5 years I know it won’t so again I will go test drive a car and see if it suits my needs, I like the mazda cx5′s but know they probably won’t be what i need at the time.
Zzzzzz

totally agreed Sarah…. doesn’t matter what others told you. It is me who is driving it not them. Oh yes definitely a long test drive preferably on your own.
Al

Do car dealerships mind you choosing a certain salesperson based on how well you get along with them? I’ve often found there to be both good & bad salespeople at the one dealership, and have gravitated to the good ones, and then gone on to purchase the car……
- jekyl & hyde
  
  its a free country al,just tell your guy you only want to deal with him…
  - Noddy of Toyland
    
    It’s not a free country, you’ve been brainwashed by American television and movies. We do not have free speech here, which IMO, America doesn’t really have it either.

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One in 10 new car buyers don’t bother with a test drive: study

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