Reviews
How to plan a test drive that tells you something
Most test drives are too short, too supervised and too flattering. Here is a way to run one that leaves you knowing whether you want to live with the car.
Updated 30 September 2026
Start with the route, not the car
The single biggest improvement you can make to a test drive is to decide the route before you arrive. A salesperson will offer a loop chosen because the car feels good on it: smooth tarmac, gentle bends, no tight parking. That loop tells you almost nothing. Instead, write down four road types you use every week and insist on all four. For most people in this part of the country that means a length of urban road with traffic lights and speed humps, a stretch of motorway at national speed, a rough service road or unsealed edge, and a multi-storey car park with a tight ramp.
Print the route or save it on your phone, and say at the start that the drive will take about an hour. If the answer is that only fifteen minutes are available, take the fifteen minutes, then ask to book a longer appointment on a quieter day. A seller who will not give you an hour with a car costing as much as a small flat is telling you something useful about the service you can expect afterwards. Be polite, be firm, and treat the route as non-negotiable.
Twenty minutes is not enough
Cars are designed to impress quickly. The first impression is the work of the door weight, the smell of the leather, the way the seat holds you when you sit down, and the hush when the door shuts. All of that is genuine, and none of it predicts how you will feel after two hours on a hot motorway. The problems that ruin ownership appear slowly: a headrest that pushes your neck forward, a seat base that is a centimetre too short under the thigh, a ride that is quiet but never quite settles, a wind noise you only notice once the novelty fades.
So the drive should be long enough to become boring. That is the point. When you stop noticing the paint and start noticing your own posture, the car is finally telling the truth. If you can, arrange the appointment for late afternoon so that part of the drive is into low sun, and part is after dark. Those two conditions expose more about a cabin, a windscreen and a set of headlights than anything you will learn in bright midday light.
What to feel for in the first five minutes
Before you move, sit still. Set the seat and the mirrors properly, as you would for a long journey, and notice how long that takes and whether you could repeat it. Check that your right foot rests naturally on the accelerator without your heel sliding, and that your left foot has somewhere to sit. Reach for the controls you use constantly: the temperature, the fan, the volume, the wipers, the mirror adjustment. If any of them needs a menu, remember that you will be doing it at night, in traffic, with sunlight on the screen.
Then pull away gently and pay attention to three things only: the steering just off centre, the first bump, and the brake pedal on a light application. Steering that feels vague in the straight-ahead position becomes tiring on a long motorway run. A first bump that thumps through the cabin rarely improves with speed. A brake pedal that is grabby at walking pace will make every car park uncomfortable for your passengers. These three impressions in the first five minutes are usually confirmed by the next two hours.
Bring the people and the luggage
Take the people who will normally be in the car, and take a real suitcase. Showroom boot measurements are given in litres, which nobody can visualise, and the shape of the space matters far more than the number. A case that has to be lifted over a high sill is a case you will resent every time. Ask a taller passenger to sit behind the driver with the seat where you actually set it, and ask an older passenger to get in and out twice, unhurried, and say honestly how it felt.
Entry height deserves particular attention. A low grand tourer looks magnificent and asks you to drop into it, which is fine at forty and less charming later. A tall body-on-frame vehicle asks you to climb, which is its own problem. The comfortable answer for most people is a seat whose cushion sits at roughly the height of their own knee when standing beside the car, so that sitting down is a sideways movement rather than a fall or a haul. Check this with the person who will ride with you most.
Write it down before you leave the forecourt
Memory is unreliable and enthusiasm is contagious. Before you hand back the key, sit in the car for two minutes with a notebook or your phone and write plain sentences: what the seat did to your back, how long the cabin took to cool, what you could not see at the left front corner, which control annoyed you, what the ride did over the broken edge of the service road. Score nothing out of ten. Numbers invented on the spot look precise and mean nothing a week later.
If you are comparing two or three cars, use exactly the same list of notes for each and drive them within a few days of one another. Conditions change quickly here, and a car driven on a mild evening will always feel better than the same car driven at midday in high summer. When the notes are complete, put them away for a couple of days. The car that still appeals when you read the notes cold, without the smell of the leather in your memory, is usually the right one.
What to take away
- Decide the route yourself, and make sure it includes rough surfaces and a tight car park.
- Drive long enough to become bored, ideally into low sun and then after dark.
- Write plain notes before you leave, and read them again two days later.
Calm reviews from Sharjah
Take the long way home
If you are about to spend a serious sum on a car, or you already have one that has stopped being pleasant in the heat, a conversation costs nothing. Call, describe how and where you drive, and you will get an honest answer even if that answer is that you do not need any help at all.