Do you bring cars seats AND children on test drives?

When I bought my first car I did some test drives with Daniel while Jacob was in school, nobody ever gave me a hard time.

When I bought our first van I had Jacob and Daniel with me and I nobody gave me a hard time about it then either.

I decided to check out the 2005 sienna's and did a test drive and had Benjamin with me and the guy didn't care either. He was SOOOO pushy though really turned me off. He would say things like "don't you want to buy this van today?" I told him I can't buy a van without my husband seeing it and he said "really would he mind? hum let's see would my husband mind if I bought a brand new van without telling him?

Our van now I bought online and had it shipped in but took all 4 kids with us to go see it, we were in Omaha and drove to Kansas City. We bought it from carmax and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them! Not only did they not care that we had all the kids when we test drove it but they also had someone to watch the kids in the play area while we filled out the paper work. We will be buying our next car from carmax even though there isn't one in st. Louis, we will drive to chicago or Kansas City.

I test car seats but it's not a deal breaker for me if they don't fit because I don't mind a good reason to buy a new seat. Actually, when I bought the Armada I didn't try even one car seat in it, now that I think about it.

But years ago when I bought the Altima (99) I not only tried all my seats in it (had to fit 3 in a row) but I talked the sales guy into letting me check his DS car seat when he mentioned that he didn't realize you had to install seats so tightly.

The Armada is so big, do they even make a car seat that wouldn't fit in there?

Just wanted to say I brought the kiddo and tried the carseat in both cars I was looking at!!

The reason I bought a new car was so I could easily get three across. So, I absolutely took the carseats. Sometimes I took the kids (I test drove a lot of vehicles), but I always took the carseats.

codex57 said:

The Armada is so big, do they even make a car seat that wouldn't fit in there?

Click to expand...

Big vehicle does NOT equal easy installation.While I could easily get any 3-in-a-row I want (including 3 Regents) it isn't easy to actually install them correctly.

Actually, the Armada has fixed, rigid, forward of the bight seat belts in the second row outboard seats that make installation a PITA. It takes me a good 30 min to install a Regent SBP in those spots. The RN is just plain incompatible with those spots. But I'm good, and I'm persistent, and there are a lot of seating positions to choose from so I knew I would be able to make something work somewhere.

2mykids said:

We want to go test drive a Subaru Forester, can we bring two kids in car seats? Will they give me a hard time at the dealer?

Click to expand...

I don't know if they will or not...dealers vary greatly. But my SIL recently revealed how *she* car-shops. She goes and test-drives alone, several cars. Narrows it down to the ones she wants to try a bit better...and says to the dealer "I need this car for an entire day or overnight preferably, when can I do that?". ;-) Some of them refuse, some give the evil eye, all look astounded. The ones who are *serious* about selling a car let her. Sometimes it takes, for example, 2-3 Mazda dealerships before finding one that will let her do that...but she is a fiesty pushy baggage. ;-) Then she takes them home, tries out all the configurations she could possibly want and does a massive grocery shop up and a bit of highway driving with the car...she says no way is she going to buy a 20-30 grand piece of metal with only 15 minutes worth of test driving...and she has a point! ;-)

Fio

Any good dealership will let you do an overnight test drive. DH is in the car business and this is a standard practice. If they won't let you take it overnight, move on.

My husband used to sell Toyotas and he used to ASK parents if they wanted to try their carseats in the car before they committed to buy. :thumbsup: