av_audi

Since there was an earlier thread on break in procedures, how many of you have witnessed salesmen beating the crap out of a spanking new car to make a sale?

case 1: Nissan Maxima SE with a SOLD sign(!!!). Salesman makes me drive it for a test. I drive it fairly gently. He then takes over for a full throttle red-line acceleration, followed by a very hard turn and braking. This was a sold car!

case 2: VW Passat 1.8T. I drive it with reasonable acceleration, but not even close to full throttle. I am also gentle on the brakes. After I am done, the salesman wants to demo the engine power with full throttle acceleration and wheel chirping on the 1-2 shift (close call with a car getting out of a parking spot). Then he wants to show how the ABS makes the car stops straight. He stomps on the breaks and the ABS kicks in like crazy, the car wiggles a little, the tires screech a little, and the cars stops. We go back to the lot and get out for a nice whiff of burnt brake/clutch smell. Oh yeah, I am buying that car...NOT

It makes you wonder. When you get that brand new car with 10-30 miles on it, who knows the kind of abuse it has been subjected to. I am sure most customers do the same thing, then they want to buy a different car, which I am sure another customer abused :-)

Silver Streakin'

my sales jacka$$ did the same kind of stunt you described with a dead cold engine. I wasn't impressed.

Deerslayer

buy a new car and break it in properly, then wonder why it has problems later.

That's one reason I ordered my car. It had 12 miles on it when I picked it up, and somebody may have abused it... but at least it hadn't been taken on half a dozen test drives.

If I was the owner of that Maxima and saw him do that, I'd go postal on the guy, then demand my deposit back. There's no excuse for abusing someone else's property like that.

Pelican18TQA4

parking lot and the saleswoman told me to floor it so that I could see how great the power delivery was. The car had a little over 400 miles on it at the time, and I feel really bad for the unknowing person that will by that highly abused car.

FourRings

Yep, I firmly believe that once a car has a "sold" sign in it, it should be locked up until delivery

av_audi

Decent dealers won't even let you sit in it when it's sold. But there are many indecent ones.

marcellus

i guess the car wasnt selling or something. but when i drove it the lady said,"you pay the ticket" kewl

D.Ross

my car was a demo, I bought it with 2300 miles, probably most of them abusive. But, after 30k miles in the past year, the brakes are still there, and so is my clutch. Yea!

Monkeyboy

So far it is performing flawlessly (mechanically). I currently have @8,000 miles on it.

I think that many times it is just luck of the draw.

You've got to be decreasing your chances of future problems by doing a proper break-in.

ArchAudi

I will not buy a car with more than a few miles.