Letting Someone Test Drive Your Car: 4 Tips to Stay Safe

Posted on October 26, 2022

If you were going out to buy a car then most definitely you’d want a test drive of the car before you buy it. So you can be sure that when you’re trying to sell a car, any potential buyers will want the same. But how do you prepare to give a test drive? How do you make sure it's safe, secure, and everything will go smoothly when letting someone test drive your car? This article will explain.

Screening Buyers

While the vast majority of people wouldn’t be so bold as to steal a car during a test drive, that doesn’t mean you should let your guard down. The best way to make sure no trouble happens during the selling process is to weed out the potential troublemakers before they get there.

While it may feel very old fashioned these days, a phone call is still one of the best ways to gauge peoples seriousness. It’s much harder to hide tone over the phone than via text so you can have an easier time determining if they’re serious about buying the car, or if they’re just wasting your time.

Clean The Interior

Often when people are cleaning their car they get a bit lazy when it comes to doing the interior but if you're letting someone test drive your car then any dirt on the inside is going to be very obvious to a potential buyer and possibly dissuade them from buying the car. You want that interior to be as spotless as can be before anyone else sits in it.

Public Meeting

You should always arrange to meet a potential buyer somewhere public and during the day, even if the buyer seems really trustworthy there's no good reason to invite them round to your house, and a public place has the added benefit of dissuading any would be thieves from trying anything as the risk of being caught is much much higher.

On that note it’s also a good idea to bring along a friend to any potential sale and the test drive itself, even if they never say a word having someone else there will dissuade any bad ideas someone might have.

Tag Along

Naturally you shouldn’t let a stranger drive your car without you in it, not only will this prevent the car being stolen, it also gives you the opportunity to talk about the car while on the move. Any serious buyer will have lots of comments and questions while taking the test drive and you can be there prepared to answer if you’re on the test drive as well.

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