The reason will vary from store to store.

For us:
1. It is to keep out the "hot lap" drivers that will purely come in to beat up on the cars. We see a lot of customers that will come from other dealers to test-drive our car and buy the car at the other store.

2. To keep low miles on the vehicles. Most Suby buyers don't like to buy the cars with miles on the clock.

3. To gauge commitment. If a buyer is willing to sit with me to fill out all of the paperwork and be run through Finance, I am willing to take them for a test-drive. Many new Suby customers aren't "sold" on the car enough to give me a solid commitment.

I have yet to have a customer return a car or say that it wasn't the car that they were expecting.

If this situation did arise, I'm sure that Mgt would have no problem taking the car back after say a day or so.

This is an alien process to many people. If you don't get it, then you probably will end up not getting the car.

On that first bold point; shouldn't you be asking why they go buy SOMEWHERE ELSE? I would too if I feel you don't take me seriously as a customer. Thanks for the drive they must think, but seems their business would be appreciated at another dealer

On the second bold point; no, if YOU don't get it, the sale just goes somewhere else. See my first point above.

Are you pulling a credit check on people because they want to do a test drive.

I really hope not..

i test drove at 2 different dealerships. bought the car at the second one. i don't see why they wouldn't let you do it, unless they had a bad experience. someone driving it like an asshole during a test drive etc.

my salesman did mention limited production on the car though.

Competition will determine what dealers do.

For now, there's a large fanbase who have already decided they want it without even seeing or sitting in it. No need really then to offer test drives to the normal cross-shoppers who are trying to compare similar cars.

It is possible that there is a Firestorm red car at Dealer A, but Dealer A won't allow test drives. So they go to Dealer B, which will allow test drives but doesn't have the right color (Firestorm). After the test drive at Dealer B, they go back to Dealer A to purchase the Firestorm car.

waylonrobert: where are you in SoCal? I ask b/c San Diego has a dedicated demo car (MT) at Kearny Mesa location.

A local Subura dealership had a BRZ Limited in stock, but the dealership decided it "wasn't for sale" and didn't want to me drive it yesterday. I had placed a deposit for an FR-S at another dealership that morning, and would've bought the BRZ on the spot. Too bad for them.

I don't know what the hell this dealer is on about. At one dealer I took a drive with the salesman and at another dealer the guy just handed me the keys and told me not to wreck it.

Do you remember how many miles it had on it?

Just curious, as I had the same experience, but the car had 100+ miles on it, so I'm guessing it was being used as a "demo" car.

Yeah, if they are worried about miles just ride along and have a set test drive route like my dealer did. They let anyone test drive the FR-S they got (the ONE and only, not THREE like this dealer) and in fact said they weren't allowing anyone to buy it for two weeks so people could test drive. This was June 1st, the day after they got it. They are getting a second one in about a week... because I put my money down after test driving.

Where did you get these dates from?

The fact that the dealership only had 3 should be have been an indication that they are not going to allow a test drive. Folks here are already complaining about 30 miles on the odometer...

If they don't allow it, pack up and move on to the next.

It had like 30-something on it, I parked it back at the dealer with 40. Wish I coulda bought it but they didn't want to deal on my trade in.

The one that I drove with the salesman ride along had 120-something.