Dealer won't allow road test of used car
- Thread starter Elkins45
- Start date
Most don't have insurance for test drives. I ran into this in Georgia. Test drove one for a couple of days as the owner knew me as I had bought several cars from him over the years. On the turn to pay for car a guy ran into the back of me and totaled car with me going to jail for no insurance. I tried the, "I was test driving," with his response was I was driving it's my responsibility to make sure there is insurance on vehicle. First thing I do now is ask for a card to carry on test drive or send my insurance information to put on vehicle. Bought my Caravan and I had insurance as soon as financing was done. Salesman said that was smart as they only had insurance for short test drives, but people always leave getting insurance within 48 hours. Don't know where people get this.
Several years ago, Bradley Ford in Lake Havasu City had an Accord listed on their website for $ 2,600. I called about it and was told it was a "back lot" car and would be sold as is. I told them I was interested and would be down the next day. The next day the car was still on the same website, same price. However, the car was across the street at Bradley Chevrolet with new tires, new battery and three times the price. I told them I would pay for the new battery and tires plus the posted price, but no more. They told me I was being unreasonable. Some dealers just cannot help being skunks.
When I sold cars for a VW dealership there were no test drives on the Golf R. Dealership manager said they received only a couple per year. Same thing with the Subaru sti . But if a bhph lot says they weren't inspected id be
Never because I never shop at the dealers for such an old car, private sale only for me.
A BHPH lot is not interested in selling cars. They are interested in putting people with poor or no credit/jobs into a vehicle they can profit from whether owner keeps or gives up . People in that desperation are not looking for a specific vehicle , more a method of acquiring a vehicle.
Agreed. And true to a point even with new car dealers. Sure, they do want to sell cars but they also make money on financing so saying that you're paying cash rarely excites them or gets you a better price.
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Why that makes no sense? I test drove the E92 335i in October, 2006. Across the country there were zero cars available for sale. Each dealer had 2 of them. One auto, one stick, for test drives only. The fact that oooooh it's a Golf R, and can't be driven, is something made up over the years, due to consumers being so soft. I hear every other day at work, I got that house 30k over asking!
This reminds me of when the BMW dealer told me they forgot to add Training and MACO fees. I said that's ok. The sales mgr laughed and said no, it's not, you have to come back in and redo the paperwork. I said just cancel the order and give the allocation to someone else. he put me on hold for a few minutes and probably was laughing about it. Came back and said, ok, no need to redo the paperwork.
Yup, it seems people are tripping over themselves just to spend money.
+1
I've never bought a car from a buy here pay here lot, but I have family/friends that have. I think the mentality they share is that somehow they might have some recourse if the car is complete junk leaving the lot compared to buying it from an individual. We all know that isn't the case, but most people have no clue what they are looking at/for, and feel an "establishment" of some kind must be more trustworthy than some guy selling a car in his yard.
But they specifically said this car wasn’t eligible for financin.
Anyway it‘s a moot point. No way I would have bought it without a test drive, yet somehow it’s not on their website anymore.
Yes!
2004 Pontiac GTO
Ford F150 Lightning with the 440 HP Suoercharged Engine, cannot remember the Year!
Your fault? Wisconsin law is that you can’t be held liable for someone rear ending you.
Considering mandatory car insurance is unconstitutional it should have been used as a mechanism to overturn the law.
You're charitable. They know 95% won't pass an inspection, and the last 5% were mistakes that got through the cracks. Those lots are affiliated, perhaps loosely, with "honest" dealers (trading back and forth). There aren't a lot of extra cars out there and ones that could be rehabbed with a several thousand dollar profit margin are getting that work done. In other words, a professional has looked that car over and decided it would best sit at a "derp, we don't have a mechanic, so we don't know" lot.I dunno, I've noticed some wholesale lots popping up, and I suspect their deal is, we don't bother, we just flip. They know some percentage won't pass, but they don't want to have a mechanic on staff (my guess). Seems like an odd business model but maybe it existed before but didn't advertise much, instead flipping mostly to BHPH lots--and their model is to open up and cut that out middle man.
I don't want to deal with something I can't test drive. Several years ago I was somewhat tempted by a 4Runner, it had some red flags but eh. Took for a good spin, was fine, got out and did my detailed inspection, by the time I got back in, it was overheating. Started pinging on the drive back... was starting to wonder... but it quickly cooled off. Dropped off, said I was interested as it had a cooling problem--guy knocked some money off and said as-is. Said I'd think about it (translation: same as when my wife says "maybe").
I used to work with a guy many years ago that told me he'd get dressed up along with his father to test drive Corvettes. They had zero intention to buy one but it was a fun and free way to kill a couple hours on a Saturday morning. So I can understand why don't cars don't allow test drives.
This.
Most of the small lots are affiliated loosely with new car dealers. They'll buy the cars that the new car dealer doesn't want on their used lot and they save the new car dealer auction fees.
I looked actually bought a car from such a place, but they had let me drive it quite a bit and it was a good deal. It was a six year old five speed Accord coupe with around 60K and I paid 6K for it. We put another 140K on that car and never even had to charge the AC.
The guy also showed me a Tracker that needed an engine and told me that you sometimes had to take things like that to get things you actually want and can move at a profit.
As Eric O said: not all the cars at auction are bad but all the bad cars are at auction
A friend of mine just bought a new trike(three wheel motorcycle) and they wouldn't let him test drive it because of supposed insurance purposes. He bought it anyway.
