No. Test drives should be free. Why would I want to pay to test drive a car I might not like and would not buy after driving it?

 

Paying to test drive would be renting a car; in that case they should give you gas and insurance for like a weekend for you to drive wherever you please. I've never had to pay for manufacturer test drives...

 

This.
I seem to remember one manufacturer (was it Saturn?) that offered multiple-day test drives.

But would you want to purchase a "new" car that had 1500 miles on it because it had been "test driven" the last 8 weekends?

No...
If I'm really, really undecided, I'll rent for a weekend and take a trip to Vegas.
I did this when considering buying a Cavalier for my wife.
She got an Echo.
I was pushing for the Echo from the start, but her only experience with "newer" vehicles had been an '89 323 and '91 Storm. She knew my '94 Toyota pickup was a good vehicle but wasn't "sold" on Toyota yet.
The rental turned her off to Detroit.

 

No. Dealers make more than enough money off of the sales or vehicle and on service to offset their cost for offering free test drives. While I do think that allowing someone to keep a car for 24 hours, a few days or even for a week would be cool; I can tell in a 10 minute test drive if I like a car or not.

 

Absolutely not. As someone who drives a whole bunch of these cars, all such a policy would do is entrench people further to brand loyalty and prevent them from seeing what the market has to offer even if their favoured automaker is offering a terrible or a mediocre product. People are already hesitant to go on a test drive as it is already, you'd only guarantee that nearly nobody would do it. Even for the automaker and dealer this can be counterproductive, lets say someone has an older model car and is in for service...without a free test drive you gave up the opportunity to potentially sell a new car to a customer who otherwise might not have considered it.

If they allow their entire lineup to get rented for a single day, only then would it be more reasonable for them to charge. However IIRC during the 2008 crisis there were dealers worldwide who were in fact offering 1-2 day test drives free of charge...so perhaps not even in this case.

 

If dealer would offer paid test drive service on their demo fleet on the following terms:

No sales pressure.

Based on over 30-years experience as a consumer interacting with auto dealers, I absolutely, positively, certainly would never trust them to keep their word on that account.

A promise of no sales pressure. :rofl2:

 

No.

When I test drive cars, I give them the wrong phone number. I learned that lesson the hard way.

 

That doesn't work with Carmax.
You walk in and they ask up-front. No phone or wrong number and you never get the call when a sales rep is available unless it's a VERY slow day and one catches you on the way in the door.

 

The ONLY way I see this making sense would be something like $50 to test drive a Ferarri or Lambo that I really wasn't interested in buying and couldn't afford, but it would be cool to say I drove one once. But I doubt they would do that.

Wrong phone number is a great suggestion.

However - I've never had a problem being honest with the dealer/salesman: i.e. "I have a 14-year-old car. The head gasket could blow tomorrow and it isn't worth fixing at this point, so I want to know what is out there. But if it keeps running, I have no plans to trade it or buy in the near future." If they call you a month later and you tell them you still aren't in the market, they have more productive leads to follow up on than wasting your time.

The issues I have had are:

• It can sometimes be hard to tell the salesman (and get him to listen): "I don't want to hear about the features and convenience items. I've read the brochure. I probably know them better than you do. I just want to see if I like how the car drives!!!"
• Before you test drive a car, they almost always want a copy of your drivers license. With that, they can (and likely will) pull your credit report. Too often with that and it reflects on your credit, but I don't see the scenario above avoiding that ...

 

However - I've never had a problem being honest with the dealer/salesman:

Ditto.
"We're probably going to be buying in the spring, but are looking at features and options, as well as a ballpark on the cost"
"We really are just firming up our ideas, I really don't want to waste your time, as we are most likely going to buy from ____ over at ____ Toyota"

Before you test drive a car, they almost always want a copy of your drivers license. With that, they can (and likely will) pull your credit report. Too often with that and it reflects on your credit, but I don't see the scenario above avoiding that ...

I specifically tell them NOT to run my credit, that I will be financing through my credit union unless they can offer better than xx% on a Fico of xxx
This actually worked well as we got 0.9 on the '15 Rav through TFS. Best my CU would have done for a 60mo loan was 2.9.