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Comment by jakobegger | Hacker News Reader

My experience with test drives is that you immediately know if you like the car or not. Reviews have never really made sense to me, most reviewers seem to talk about stuff I just don't care about.

The only problem is that dealers usually only have cars with the most popular engines available, so you often can't actually try the car you want to buy...

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Interesting. My experience is that if I want some idea of how I'll feel about the car in a year, a test drive of less than a week gives me almost no data.

Personally? yeah, I think renting a car is the way to go, if you want to evaluate how you will feel about the car later. A 20 minute test drive, to me, is like laying on a mattress for 20 minutes in a store and expecting to know what it will feel like to sleep on.

An important part of choosing a car is ergonomics. I like to rest my arms on the door and middle console armrests while driving, but my brand new (expensive) SUV, bought sight unseen, comes just short of being able to do this, which bothers me a little every day. Obviously these things differ from person to person, so yeah, next time I'll probably go for a test drive first.

Find a reviewer that has a similar body size to you. There's literally hundreds of car reviewers on youtube, there will be plenty who will have the same ergonomic structure to you.

Remember: you're not special. You're just another meat bag that fits within a bell curve of normalness.

Edit: to the one person who voted me down, I was wrong. You aren't a meat bag, you are special.

I feel the same. I’ve had stronger urges to buy a car I rented than one I test drive for 10 minutes. You just never get the same level of familiarity, the little quirks and knowing how your body feels after an extended multi-day drive if you simply test drive at dealer. I like to have my cars for a week at the minimum before I can confidently form a strong opinion in regards to purchase.

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