[lauren01]

Speaking of awful transmissions…Worst car: 2008 Smart for Two. It lunged like a bucking bronco when its auto transmission was shifting—a hot mess. No thanks! Absolute garbage.

Next worst: 2021 Subaru BRZ 6MT. Loud engibe, louder wind noise, crappy shifting, awful clutch feel, cheap interior, huge markup on sticker really made me hate it. Looks like a cartoon. Not my cuppa tea.

 

[john.com]

Fifteen years ago, when I was selling in the internet department in Toyotaworld, I had an Asian couple that I had been communicating with fly into town to meet for their afternoon appointment for a test drive of a new Yaris sedan. I had the car they wanted cleaned and staged for their arrival. I picked the guests up at the airport and drove them to the dealership and dropped their luggage behind the sales desk. After a brief walk around due to language difficulties, we headed out on a test drive with me safely ensconced in the backseat. As we're finishing the test drive we are approaching a roundabout. Rather than going to the right, my guest driver goes left! I immediately scream NO!!! from the backseat and yell and point for the driver to take evasive action turning left down another street entering the traffic circle. After my heart rate slowed, we made our way back to the dealership unscathed and made the deal on the Yaris. I discovered that my new friends were in fact from Japan, where they drive on the left. Plans were made for them to return the next day with auto insurance for the Yaris arranged to take delivery of their new car. I offered to drop them off at their hotel as they had had a long day of travel, etc. Instead they wanted me to take them to the downtown country bar so they could go line dancing.

 

[DaveInBK]

Best test drive ever was a Lexus IS300 in 2002...this was the first generation IS, that was very fun to drive. I was about to graduate from college and my school was in a ritzy town in FL. I went in with my best friend and we pretended like I had gotten a really good job offer and was shopping BMW and Lexus as a reward to self. The sales person was a young lady from Spain, and from the backseat of the car, she encouraged me to do donuts in a parking lot lol.

Worst test drive was just recently, in NYC, test driving a new '22 Civic. The sales lady was rude, nasty and condescending, acting like she was doing me a favor. She explained to me that Honda discontinued the lighter color leather interior that I wanted, and when I said if that's the case, they should take it down from their website, she told me why I was wrong. On the actual test drive, when I got on the gas a little heavy, she yelled at me that we were in a neighborhood...to which I pointed out that I was going under the speed limit. At the end of the test drive, we pulled up to the dealer and there was someone smoking weed on the sidewalk, and she made a comment about 'trashy stoners.' She was so rude, I wouldn't buy any car from her if it was $5k under invoice.