oklndman

When I went to buy my IS the salesman greeted me and offered me the keys to their demo and said, "We just filled it up, let me know when you are back and if you want to talk about a price." I was gone for about 30 minutes, and I was out the door in about an hour with my new IS.

For the GX I called my salesman and told him what my wife was looking for. He said it would take a while, but to come by and take the demo out for a while. I asked if he had a problem if we had it for a "few hours" and he said no. We brought it back after 3 or 4 hours and actually took it out a few more times while waiting for her GX to arrive, just to be sure it was exactly what she wanted.

Never had a problem, and I imagine I could walk in today and ask to drive a SC or LS and they would be fine with it. I think you either are dealing with a jerkoff of a salesman or the dealership you are visiting isn't doing all they can to get the sale.

Both times we provided our DLs and Insurance, and they handed us the keys with no concerns.

LeslieRC

The same thing happened to me several years ago at Rockville Lexus. I was looking to purchase a then-new 1999 GS300. First, they made me wait 45 minutes to take a test drive; next, the salesman insisted on accompanying me and limited the test drive to 15 minutes; finally, when I inquired about a longer test drive, the salesman told me to make an appointment for later in the week. I left immediately and drove my SC400 to Lexus of Silver Spring where the salesman there told me to drive the car as much and as long as I wished. I bought the GS from Lexus of Silver Spring that afternoon and have purchased 3 more Lexus cars since from them. What was most enjoyable, however, was telling the salesman from Rockville Lexus that I had already purchased the car when he telephoned me the next day about coming in for another test drive.

BobsGX

Last week I test rode a few cars from 3 different BMW dealers and 1 Infiniti dealer and the salesman at all the dealers had to drive the car off the lot. Then I took over and after the test ride I just drove back into the dealers lot. I don't know what the reason is for the salesman to have to drive the car off their property?

gsobol

Liability. If anything happens on their lot with their cars (remember the car is not yours) your insurance company can claim that any incident that happened on private property of the dealer's lot with a private property of the dealer (the car) is not covered under your insurance, but it's covered by the dealer's insurance. And the ugly finger pointing ensues. In the meantime the dealer has damages to his property (car or cars) that he has to invest to fix, which he can't sell as new, loss of revenue, blah blah blah..... It get's even worse if there is bodily injury or death. As long as you are on your own outside of their property, well than it's your problem, isn't it. Welcome to America (at least litigious east coast)

The G Man

Then why do they let you drive back into their lot?

gsobol

I didn't say that it made sense

AsianGirl007

iTrader: (1)

The "logic" behind this is that people generally get nervous in an unfamiliar car which is why most dealers have their salespeople drive first off the lot.
However, it seems ridiculous that customers would be more "familiar" and comfortable after a brief 10 minute test drive.
Go figure eh?

ADVocate

Now that would be a driving experience .... a V6 towing 6000lbs.

And for the original posting to this thread.

I am not sure I know of any dealership in the Los Angeles Area that allows an unknown buyer (unless you purchased from that dealership before) the opportunity to drive a $50K+ vehicle unsupervised for a drive. And that has more to do with insurance than anything else.

Salvator

I concur... although I'm not using my full towing capacity on the GX presently either... my towing duties are usually in the 2K and less range, so even the Inline 6 of the BMW would have sufficed... I guess I envisioned it being much less than that, maybe in the 3K range... Even though they are used as tow-vehicles quite frequently in Europe, BMW doesn't really promote them for that purpose here...