Comment by cujo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cujo | Hacker News Reader

I'll share my last car buying experience. We had done our homework and more or less knew within a couple within a couple of models, which car we wanted.

After going through the test drives and the stupid dance with a couple of dealerships, the process smoothed out.

I checked out a few regional dealers, and called 3 different ones for prices. 2 of them were willing to me prices over the phone. Great. I found another regional dealer which had this "amazon-style" process. I could configure the car I wanted on their website, and it showed me the price. It was the best of the 3 prices I was quoted, so I "placed my order".

I got an auto-responder email email saying that paperwork was on the way and salesperson would be in touch. The guy called to discuss the trade in process, and tell me how the paperwork would be handled. In about 3 days I had a new car, delivered to my house, having never set foot in a dealership. They even did the trade in estimate remotely (I took some photos and sent them in).

Hopefully that's the trend things move in the future. It was a breeze.

Related to this I have the "best-worst" idea for a business...

So everyone hates car dealerships. But we need to test drive vehicles (or physically look at them). Right now car demos are linked to buying, and therefore the dealership.

What if there was a business that ONLY did car demos? You go in, and there's a row of SUVs from all the major manufacturers.

This saves you from driving all over town for the different dealership, and because they aren't selling you vehicles it is a no-pressure situation.

I'd pay money for this. But people are cheap and I doubt it would work as a concept, unless buying cars online became the norm.

The carmax experience isn't too far off from this. Carmax specializes in used cars. However, most of their used cars are 3-5 years old. I've always used them as a starting point when I'm not sure which make or model I want for my next car.

And the developers can call the process test driven development!

I thought this post was sarcasting and only halfway through I've realized that you're actually serious. Renting. It's a thing. You can rent cars for short periods.

Yeah but no one is doing a one day rental on the 4 cars they want to drive. Not to mention finding the exact make/model they are looking for.

If I’m interested in a car, I’ll try and rent one for a few days on Turo. It’s a great way to see what it’s like to actually live with the car. I’m never buying without renting again.

It's difficult to rent a specific car from most traditional car rental businesses. They generally take reservations for a class of car (economy, intermediate, full-size, etc.)

I thought of this idea recently as well. You pay $20 bucks or whatever and get to drive X number of cars, book your time slot online, etc.

You would have to have enough volume to justify the inventory that is sitting on your lot. And what if someone wants to test drive a 2017 instead of a 2018 or a 2014 etc... The number of combinations of various makes, models, and years, seems like you could never cover the overhead and be profitable unless you specialize in specific niches.

I suspect the capital costs of this would make the business unsustainable. The company would have to maintain essentially a dealership sized inventory of cars, but instead of having the revenue stream of car sales they'd just have to rely on this test drive fee. How many $20 test drives would people have to take in order to offset the costs of buying millions of dollars worth of cars?

It would make more sense for the manufacturers to just have test-drive centres.

I’ve been doing my test drives with Getaround. They don’t have everything, but for the cars they do have, you can actually spend some time with the thing on your own terms.

You can rent other people's cars with turo. https://turo.com

Car shows.

Providing the latest vehicles for people to try is expensive. It only really works if you make the money from selling them.

My last three cars, all second-hand, I bought without having driven them at all.

Most recent: Emailed dealer interstate. Negotiated price by email. Sent interstate mechanic to review/report on vehicle. Paid. Vehicle was delivered to me - first time I'd even seen it.

Previous: Bought through local government fleet online auction. First time I'd even seen the car was when I picked it up.

Another: Attended fleet auction. Could look over the car but not test-drive. Bought same day and drove it home.

Low hassle and all have been decent cars. In the most recent search, I emailed another interstate agent who said of the car, "I wouldn't buy this one sight-unseen, mate. It's a bit rough." - so I didn't.

Had you ever test drove a car of that brand before?

Brands were Mitsubishi, Subaru and then Kia (most recent). I had driven a Mitsubishi before, but never driven a Subaru or Kia before buying them.

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