Quote:
Originally Posted by Restroom
Someone's missing the point here. The reason you drive a car before you buy it is because that's what you do with a car, that is the task that the automobile performs: it gets driven.
There are a lot of factors that go into a test drive, and the motivating force behind every car mag for the past forty years should serve as a good indicator that people generally don't like just jumping blindly into whatever car suits their fancy, since they're all the same. Mind you, this is the case for some people; you'll find none of them here. Anyway, no one's talking about performance numbers on a test drive. You can't do it with a stopwatch or your videocamera or (shudder) your freaking cell phone. You can't do it from inside the car at all, reliably. Disabuse yourself of the notion that it's possible, unless your dealer has no problem with you wiring up a MoTeC or something and its complement of sensors. But we're not talking about numbers here! We're talking about people who are disappointed in how their cars DRIVE. It's the DRIVING and attendant sluggishness which prompted them to investigate further, do dyno runs, take them to the track, and so forth.
If you buy a car you've never driven, sight unseen, you're either a fool or you're buying a car for some other reason than to be pleased to own it.
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But, I thought this thread was about a performance problem? With Scott's car?
Of course you should drive the car before you purchase. But there are some situations that folks get into that may not make that possible - at least to them, and it doens't make them a fool. I was just questioning the validity of accurately testing performance, 0-60 or 1/4 mile with a brand new car and the salesperson sitting there with you. And, maybe he/she weighs 300 lbs.