I have to say in a 35 year period with Motability test drives are still controversial, I think it’s the most essential part of a buying decision, and yet the one you are most likely to have to forfeit, in order to secure a car within a period or price or even the lack of vehicles, we have even had customer cars bought to us with a look don’t touch attitude because we don’t own it, it was crazy then and still rarely better. This time we put our foot down and decided we would have test drives regardless and if we didn’t we would not consider the car. This failed pretty quickly as one after the other we got 10;mins or nothing or in the next month etc. So imagine our surprise when Mini offered an unconditional test drive over the phone, brilliant it was unlikely to be suitable but if they are prepared to let us try why not. The day of collection was to take the car home for a couple of hours , but the guy said no you have it till tomorrow 6pm so a 30 hour test drive unbelievable.
so we drove 250 miles to check comfort put wheelchairs in it walkers luggage and then two large dogs all of which worked for us ( we did give it a hoover)
on returning the car we met the salesman who took the keys thanked us and turned to go, can we do the paper work? my wife asked. Certainly he said we never apply pressure after a test drive we want you to be sure. 45 days later we had our lovely new Mini.
I am the carer / driver for my wife who cannot drive due to disability