MAG test drive
Just came back from a test drive at MAG, a saffron yellow car without LSS or touring.
The test drive was a dispiriting event, actually, though not through any fault of the car. Here's what happened-
The salesman pulled the car out of the showroom and told me to hop in on the passenger side. He drove out for toward highway 33 and cornered hard through the on ramp. As he accelerated to merge, he comments that it's still in it's break-in period. He accelerates moderately hard anyway. As I'm looking around the cabin, we slow down. As quickly as we got on the highway, we're off of it, the next exit up. He pulls around to the on-ramp going back to the dealership and stops there(!) for me to take over.
I do, and yeah, it was nice. The driving position was fantastic, it fits like a glove. The acceleration, while strong, wasn't outrageous, but since I wasn't able to go above 4000rpm due to traffic I guess that's to be expected. Merging into the lunch-hour congestion was a bit of an ordeal with the limited rear visibility.
Right now, I'd like to tell you about how amazing the handling was, how precise the steering, how powerful the brakes were. But, taking the expected route back to the dealership in very heavy traffic, I had no chance to get any feel for how the car does in what it's supposed to do well. My test drive was over in less than 5 minutes.
I mentioned this to the salesman, and his response was, "well, that's our test drive. We don't want people sliding our cars off of the road." I had no intentions of goint 9/10ths, but I didn't get the opportunity to even go beyond 3/10ths!
While pleading my case, he cut me off and said, "we have 66 people who have ordered these cars 'sight unseen'. If you're not 67, someone else will be." With that, he walked away. He clearly couldn't care less whether or not I put a deposit down.
So my conundrum is this: I love the car but have serious reservations about the dealer. Lotus is grouped w/MAGs 'High-Line' cars (ie Ferrari, Maserati, Bentley, Rolls-Royce). A $40,000 car is not what they're used to selling, and I feel fairly certain that this (along with the waiting list) is why I was treated so poorly. Even if the service experience proves to be acceptable, I have hard time thinking about spending my money with these guys on principle alone.
Anyone else had similar experiences or thoughts?