• by Karl Greenberg , August 4, 2013

You’re buying a $20,000 car. Is a half-hour test drive enough? A lot of people think so. They aren't taking much time at all to form an opinion of the car they are testing. AutoTrader.com says 44% of shoppers think they only need to do one test drive of a vehicle to form an opinion and nearly half think that they only need 30 minutes or less to thoroughly test a vehicle. 

The auto shopping site says, based on its consumer survey, that while nearly two-thirds of shoppers take another person with them, that's not true of males who tend to go it alone. Only 14% of the women queried take test drives by themselves.

Joe Richards, director of research at the Atlanta-based online shopping and research site, tells Marketing Daily that good dealers don’t make consumers feel guilty about taking the car out for a long ride. The best, he says, are low-pressure dealers who encourage customers to take longer test drives because "they are making the consumer feel relaxed and at ease in the car, and make them feel at home, which means [the shopper] can take time and explore more."

He adds that test drives are also too short -- especially today -- because people don't "test drive" a car's telematics systems, which nowadays should be mandatory. "And the few who do tend to be Millennials, who are more focused on the in-car technology. So I think that has a lot to do with it." 

Ronald Montoya, consumer advice editor for Edmunds.com, says dealers, indeed, should engage people much more in the infotainment/telematics exploration because if the customer buys the car, he or she will give the platform a bad name if there's knowledge-gap frustration. "What tends to happen is that the dealership schedules [the telematics tutorial] for another day rather than take you through it during the purchase process. It's a mistake because if the navigation system seems too complicated you may want to move on to something different." 

Montoya says psychological factors play a role, with some car shoppers worrying that taking a long test will mean having to “take it to the next level," he says, explaining that some consumers may feel a sense of obligation -- that if they take a "long" test drive -- the dealer may put the screws to him or her. He also says people may, after test driving, feel an impulse to buy. "It's hard for a lot of people to be able to walk away after a test drive. But we encourage them to do so."