Anyone else come across this or is it just grumpy old me doing my grumpy old me thing..
Nah, i agree, accompanied test drives are awful.
In fact, i feel like they’re preventing me from “testing” the car proper. With our last test drives, with Skoda, VW etc, we pulled over where we felt and played with every single button, opened everything etc pp – without someone talking over what i’m doing.
I wanna figure out the car, not listen to marketing blurb or be careful not to either offend the salesman or have him try to interject when i speak to the wife about things that suck in a particular car. There’s a difference between me figuring out how easy (or not) it is to turn off ADAS stuff, versus me trying and the salesrep then doing it himself.
That being said, my only accompanied test drive i’ve had was with the Ateca, and that was mainly due to not having a UK driving license at the time. Generally though, before Covid, it wasn’t rare to have accompanied test drives – nowadays, it’s vice versa. All my “spontaneous” test drives (never booked in advance) were the lady and me, and a vague timelimit. Except Ford, who straight away offered the Explorer for 48h (which we’ll do once next quarters prices are out – if it stays the same price).
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.