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How to Get That New-Car Test Drive
Basically, you gotta make the salesman comfortable. Here are 15 tips for success.

The first thing you should know is that test-drive rules are unique to each dealership. We visited a Volvo store where a salesman said, "If I believe you're a serious customer, I'll let you take a car home for a night with unlimited miles." Then we visited a Honda dealership where the general manager said, "Our test drives are restricted to less than five miles, with the salesman driving half that distance."

What's more, few dealerships maintain a fleet of demonstrators. "Too expensive," explains a Subaru salesman. "I sell Outbacks, Legacy sedans and wagons, Impreza sedans and wagons, WRX sedans and wagons, and we have three engines and a bunch of trim levels. I'd need 20 demonstrators to represent those variations." We talked to a Ford dealer who kept "a few" Explorer demonstrators, and we found a Toyota dealer who maintained a handful of Corolla and Camry demonstrators. But that was about it. When you take a test drive nowadays, it will usually be in a new car.

"That's one reason why salesmen are so eager for you to test the exact car you're thinking of buying, right down to the color," explains Ford sales manager John McLellan of Varsity Ford in Ann Arbor. "We're hoping you're putting miles on the car you'll own—miles we won't have to explain to someone else." At his dealership, in fact, new cars with as few as 35 test miles get parked until they're sold. But at a BMW dealership three blocks distant, the limit was more like 300. "If you buy a car with 300 test miles," said the general manager there, "tell the salesman you want the warranty extended by that number of miles—he can do it."

In any event, here are the best methods—according to the salesmen—for wangling a long, meaningful solo test drive:

Tip No. 1: Do not lie to the salesman. Not about anything. First off, the salesman will know. He's heard every lie ever invented by man or beast, maybe 200 times a week. Also, it's completely unnecessary—it affects the eventual price of your car not one whit. But there's a far more important reason not to lie. Once he catches a customer fibbing to him, the average salesman feels justified in lying right back.

"People lie about the dumbest stuff," says Mercedes salesman (and former C/D "Brevet Motor Pool Officer") Michael Brueger. "They'll boast about all the Benzes they've owned, like a 1984 supercharged Gullwing so-and-so with 25-inch dubs or something equally crazy. I always think to myself, Why the hell did we just go through that little piece of fantasy? Where did it get us? It's like lying to your plumber about which toilet is leaking." A lot of customers lie to salesmen from the git-go because they think it'll somehow demonstrate their take-no-prisoners attitude when it comes to negotiating the car's price. "Tell me," asks Brueger, "exactly how does that work?"

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We can do without any article of luxury we have never had; but once obtained, it is not in human nature to surrender it voluntary.