My wife is very into test-driving cars, but she only really gives into that urge when we’re actually looking to buy one.
I’ve never really seen the point. My argument is that all cars drive well when they’re new. When I test drive a car, my direct comparison is to my old cars. And we originally bought our cars to last a long time. There’s no way a new car is not driving significantly better than our 19-year-old van.
Plus they say that as soon as you drive a new car off the lot, it loses value. But test driving is driving off the lot, yet it doesn’t lose value. How does it know?
“Well, there’s a GPS in it.”
But that’s the thing: If you’re buying a used car, I get it, because you want to see if the car gives off any funny noises or smells. With a new car, the one you’re test driving isn’t even the one you’re buying. That’s the floor model. You get in the car and go, “Ooooh!” and the guy goes, “Oh, that? Yours wouldn’t come with that feature.”
And then he takes you around the same 3 blocks that he’s been taking everyone around for the past 23 years. And you’re thinking, “Even our old car can drive 3 blocks. This proves nothing.”
They don’t even love when you actually test the cars. Like at one dealership, the guy was talking about how the car had great suspension, so I saw a pothole on the road and I went for it. Just to see. He wasn’t thrilled, so I had to pretend it wasn’t on purpose. But it totally was. And I was impressed. When I go over a pothole in my current van, I hold my breath until I confirm that the van is still running.
Right now we’re looking to replace this van, but we’re not sure if we want something new or old. We’re considering our options. We got our last one new, but we’re B”H at a stage where the number of people we have to schlep around is IY”H going to get smaller in the next 19 years, so we don’t need a minivan that will last us 19 years anymore, but we do need something that’s bigger than our other car, so we can continue to say things like, “Everyone get in the big car.”
One big distraction when you’re looking at cars is that you can get sidetracked by the features that will not actually determine whether you buy the car. Like we have to see what the dashboard looks like. Are there enough compartments? Where would we put our trash? Where would we plug stuff in? Can my wife put her bag between us, or do I have to sit in the back?
Or like my wife was concerned that some of the newer cars don’t seem to have a radio, so she needed to inspect each car in person.
Our kids asked, “Why do you need a radio? You never listen to the radio in the house.”
“We don’t need to know traffic in the house.”
“Well, doesn’t your device tell you traffic?”
No, my device only tells me traffic where I am. I want to be able to sit there and say, “This device is supposed to steer us around traffic, but we’re sitting in traffic. Is it even working?” and then turn on the radio and it says, “Well, there’s even worse traffic on this other highway…” and I say, “Good.”
How are people still getting stuck in traffic? Everyone has devices meant to steer us around traffic. So how does the traffic exist? Does anyone not have devices at this point? Is the entire traffic just frum people?
Personally, only 3 things really matter to me in a new car: rear passenger space, cargo space, and gas mileage.
Gas we understand can’t be a main priority, because for example a motorcycle gets way better mileage than a minivan.
Cargo space is non-negotiable. And you’re like, “Eh, so you’ll rent a U-Haul when you need it.”
You don’t always know beforehand, and you don’t always want to rent one. One time back when I had a sedan, I went to Home Depot to buy an outdoor garbage can, and after I got it out to the parking lot, I realized that I couldn’t fit it into the trunk or the back seat. I’m going to rent a U-Haul so I can bring home a garbage can? Or should I just tie the can to the back of the car and bounce it around town, to give it some practice for what it’s going to be going through over the years? If a garbage can can’t stand to be dragged a few miles, it’s not cut out to be a garbage can. This is the main factor I look for in a garbage can:
- Can it stand up to being dragged without developing holes? And
- How easily can I drill holes in the bottom so I don’t have to schlep five gallons of rainwater to the curb?
It’s all a balance. Most of the cars we’re looking at, if you want to carry more cargo, you put down some seats, and then it holds fewer passengers. The more cargo, the less seating; the more seating, the less cargo; and if you have both, it’s worse gas. You can only get 2 out of 3, tops.
See, when we were growing up, this wasn’t an issue. We had station wagons, and if your parents bought something big, they put down the seats and put the stuff in there, and then you sat among the stuff. Also the front seat was a bench, so a kid could sit between his parents. Nowadays it’s more important to hold cups and plug things in. It’s not just a kid sitting in front of a cigarette lighter.
The way they figure nowadays is that you’ll either have extra people in your car or extra luggage. But this is not an either/or. If you’re going on vacation with all of your kids, you need all of your luggage.
“It’s okay, you’ll use your roof rack.”
I don’t think my kids can hold on for that long.
The first dealership we went to, the guy just let us test drive the car without him. He said, “You live around here; you know the streets.”
We also know where the potholes are.
I guess we didn’t fit the profile of people who would steal the new car and leave our old car in their parking lot.
So what would you do if you were doing a test drive without the guy?
That’s right; we drove home.
Then our daughter came out, and my wife had the idea that the three of us should sit in the back seat just to see how much space we had.
See, car manufacturers say that a bench holds 3 people, but it doesn’t actually hold 3 people. Not well. Nowadays, everyone’s pressed up against each other. One of the cars we looked at has a row that’s 44 inches across. 44 inches is not 3 people. Not for any real length of time. You could count the change in the pocket of the person next to you without using your hands.
MIDDLE PASSENGER (looking left): “Do you have a pen?”
LEFT PASSENGER: “No.”
MIDDLE: “Yes you do. I can feel it. There’s an impression of your pen on my leg from the last 50 miles.”
RIGHT PASSENGER: “You’re not going to start writing now, are you? I don’t need your elbow wiggling in my face for the rest of the drive.”
MIDDLE: “Excuse me, we were having a private conversation.”
So we sat back there. Because you can actually look up how much space there is, and you’ll get numbers, but you don’t actually know what they mean. Even if you then go around measuring everyone in the house. What are you going to do? Put a tape measure on the floor of your living room and sit on it with your spouse and a child? You could be spilling over and not know it. You need at least two more pairs of eyes standing over you and figuring this out. Your best bet is possibly to find someone with a couch that’s the same width as whatever car you’re looking at. Go visit your friends and stare at their couches thoughtfully.
“Can I help you?”
“How wide is your couch? Can the 3 of us sit on it side by side?”
“This is the 2-seater.”
“I know.”
As a point of comparison, I measured our 2-seater couch, and it’s 46 inches.
My point is that they call it a test drive, but it’s not really about the drive. Really what you’re looking at in a test drive is things like size.
“How much luggage can we actually fit in the back? We brought all our suitcases.”
But we should do more. Every test drive should include driving to your house. You want to see how it looks in your driveway, how it fits in your garage… How does it handle on that narrow street a block from your house? Maybe do carpool in it, go shopping for groceries… Will I lose a milk under the seat? Talk about losing value on a test drive.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.