The Lifestyler: Do you need to test drive?

The LifeStyler’s daughter is in the market to buy her first brand new car and it got me thinking do you need to test drive? 

EFTM reviews are mostly on cars, TV’s and mobile phones and when you think about it do you test drive TV’s and phones?

So if we go back to last weekend the daughter asked her father for help test driving cars which let’s face it was flattering for a start as 22-year-old girls don’t want much from their Dad. Anyway my role was to help her with what to say to the salesperson, I did not drive any of the cars.  For that matter I did not even go on every test drive as the boyfriend also joined us and with COVID restrictions not everyone could go so we took it in turns.

Over the day we drove 4 small car hatchbacks and in the end she said they are all the same.  As a showroom warrior they were pretty much the same except for the boot size.  Yes they are slightly different in price, features, and warranty but she is upgrading from a 17-year-old car so everything is new and somewhat unknown.

Now my daughter is not brand loyal her only want is that it is safe and has Apple car play so how will she decide? Interestingly enough we are down to two based on what the boyfriend thinks and the fact she drove a hire car of one of them for a week.

If we change gears for a minute and talk TV’s we now have a different buying experience where we visit a store with many bands rather than one are available to compare. The salesperson gives their opinion, you probably come in with yours, and to make matters worse the salesperson may have an incentive to sell you a certain model rather than what is actually best for you.  What I find most interesting here is that although you look at the TV how many people test drive it?  How do you test drive a TV? Easy, you pick up the remote and get a feel for how the interface works. How do you change the channel, what is the Netflix experience like or how do I share photo’s from my phone to the screen.  But nobody does it!

What about mobile phones.  Again we visit a store with multiple brands and in this case we probably just buy the brand we had last time.  Once you take the sides of a Brand /Operating system, it is unlikely you change.  Just give me the Samsung or Apple in my price range.  What no test drive? Almost every store has live units that you can test the user experience, camera, etc!

Back to where we started – Do you need to test drive?

My answer to this is NO! Do you agree?

Why? because you have web sites like EFTM that review products day in and day out and provided informed expert advice from someone who test drives every day. 

There are plenty of other review sites to also give an informed opinion not that you really need to go beyond this one.

You as an individual may buy a Car or TV every 5+ years and a phone every 3 years but you don’t really do it enough to know what is best after a 30-minute sales experience.  Of course, the new one seems better than the Old one but all the choices do!

I will let you know where we get to on the daughter’s car (lots of reviews now being read) and what swung the final decision. Cheers!