Greg Demetrick

Several people in our office are buying new cars this year. Of course that means the discussion/recommendations of cars has been a constant topic. On the way into work today I got thinking about how we make that decision. The main thought being that we make a major purchase decision based on very little actual data and a large emotional choice.

A quick survey of my office mates showed that on average they test drive 3 cars before making the decision. Of course they do a lot of research to eliminate obvious choices before test driving. However, I feel that sometimes the logical part of the process eliminates valid contenders for the decision.

For example, I have only owned Hondas. This is primarily because of the recommendations of friends, a former girlfriend’s father who only works on Hondas, and my reliability with the two I have owned. (Yes, I have owned my own car for 16 years and have only owned 2) During the decision phase for a new vehicle I will gravitate to Honda and import vehicles because of this. However, I have no basis for not testing other vehicles like Ford or Chrysler which may have equivalent solutions.

I also know luxury vehicles only by name. I have ridden in very few of them and do not know how they perform versus other vehicles. I like the idea of owning a Range Rover but truth is I have never driven or ridden in one. Which leads me to the ultimate idea.

Could someone in their spare time drive EVERY vehicle in a calendar year of a single model year just to have a wide enough data pool of experience to be able to make a purchase decision? There obviously would be caveats to this. Ideally the person doesn’t already do this for their job (writer, reviewer, car tester, etc). Also you could eliminate a couple of classes just based on use. i.e. I don’t have a “need” for a truck so I could eliminate that class of vehicle and any commercial vehicles. The end result would be a document that detailed what it was like to drive every vehicle across multiple classes, brands, prices with the goal being to discover how they “feel”. Remove the emotional decision and back it up with practical experience.

Does this seem possible? Even if you only have weekends to do it and the potential 200 cars available for sale in the US?

Author: Greg Demetrick