The longer someone "Test Drives" a guitar, are they less likely to buy it?

bluesypicky

bluesypicky

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adorshki said:
Speaking of test drives, particularly longer test drives:
"A customer walked in to Midnight Racing Auto in Pennsylvania last Saturday and asked for a test drive of a 2009 Mercedes-Benz C-Class, CBS Pittsburg reports. General manager Jennifer Butler acquiesced, using the man's Lexus as collateral when she handed over the keys. She also got a copy of his license, as is standard procedure. Test drives normally last about 15 minutes, she told the man, who played the part by asking where potential customers usually go for these things. Well, after 30 minutes Butler was worried, and after an hour she called the police. Sure enough, the information left in the Lexus was not the man's, but that of the owner of the Lexus, which was also stolen."

Read more: http://autoweek.com/article/car-new...e-collateral-steals-another-car#ixzz44W6kUupN
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One detail is bothering me: If Butler made a copy of the license, couldn't she see the man on it wasn't the customer? Or was he dumb enough to hand over his own license?.....
 
davismanLV

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Bikerdoc said:
The longer I sit "testing" a guitar the more obvious it becomes that I don't know what I'm doing.
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Oh HOLY CRAP, Doc!! This is ME!!! LMFAO!!! Oh jeeze......

Then I blame the guitar and then when I go home, I play better (still $hitty) and I am amazed at how AMAZING my guitars are. When you have some really great guitars at home.... it really tempers your judgement. Right?
 
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adorshki

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bluesypicky said:
One detail is bothering me: If Butler made a copy of the license, couldn't she see the man on it wasn't the customer? Or was he dumb enough to hand over his own license?.....
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I'm suspecting it's a "poor wording" thing, that the guy probably did hand over a fake id with his pic on it, but it didn't match what was found in the Lexus when they finally checked it out.
I'm gonna remember to take my fake id the next time I shop for a guitar.
As a former car salesman I never did get why a dealership would let a car off the lot "unescorted" for any reason at all.
At the very least I think there'd be an insurance problem for the dealer if something happened to the car.
Then again, with a name like "Midnight Racing Auto", one wonders just how scrupulously that dealer vets their customers in the first place.
Oh, some of the stories I could tell ya.
 
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davismanLV

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adorshki said:
Sometimes you test the guitar, sometimes the guitar tests you.
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Al, like I said in another post (one of Woody's) with my Mary Chapin Carpenter line... "Sometime you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug."

"Sometimes it all comes together and ... sometimes you're just a FOOL in love...."

Gotta love that woman!! :encouragement:
 
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adorshki

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bluesypicky said:
Agreed.... and hoping it doesn't end as it did, for this poor Carmax salesman:
http://ktla.com/2016/02/23/car-sale...test-drive-at-ontario-carmax-driver-arrested/
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I remember that one.
Not to hijack the thread, but here's "one of those stories":
One night at closing time, when I was selling Dodge at one of their top California stores, the sales manager asked me to accompany him while he went to an address a couple of blocks from the dealership to try to locate the driver who'd had a brand new Stealth (clone of your Mitsubishi 3000GT, if you recall) out for a "test drive" for about 12 hours, with the explicit permission of the owner of the dealership for a couple of hour drive...
We got to the apartment, it took several knocks on the door for the person to answer, and it wasn't "our man".
It only took me about 5 seconds to suspect the guy was on the nod probably from heroin and the sight of a cigarette burned all the way to the filter with its entire ash completely undisturbed in ashtray behind him pretty much confirmed it. I'd seen it before.
While my manager was trying to edge his way in and look around to confirm the guy really wasn't there, I was on full alert and trying to get him to back off, which he picked up on, so with a request to the occupant have our guy call my boss as soon as he got in we got out of there.
Of course I told my boss what I knew from experience and he knew something wasn't right as well, dropped me off at dealership (for my car) and I went home to bed.
When I came in next morning: CHP car out front, with the officer and a couple of plainclothes guys talking to my boss.
Missing Stealth had been found totalled at about 1Am, literally pancaked against a tree with 2 occupants, one male, one female inside, after it left the twisty 2-lane mountain road it was on at an estimated 100+ miles per hour, judged by the distance the tree was from the road and down the steep creek bank it bordered.
Drugs found in vehicle, the Miami Vice type stuff, although toxicology on the bodies hadn't been performed yet.
Within a year the dealership was shut down after Chrysler brought in the FBI to try to find out where the owner was keeping all these new cars he hadn't paid for yet.
I mean, there's only so much room on a lot and you must not be selling anything because you're not paying for last quarter's cars and there's only so much room for storage on a lot so where are you keeping all these new shipments?
Big embezzlement scandal.
A couple of years after that, the owner had still somehow managed to retain his dealer's license (although not his Dodge franchise) and sold a used Caravan to a guy who took it to a mechanic after the driver's side window stopped operating.
Mechanic found a couple of kilos of cocaine behind the door panel.
Apparently that was the one that wasn't supposed to be "ready for sale yet" when it got sold.....
But hey, some guys just keep getting bad breaks.
 
tjmangum

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tjmangum said:
Recently had a R. Taylor sell on Reverb that a number of local guys came and played and the average session was like an hour each. Everyone loved it and were going to be right back to me. LOL
I usually know within about 5 minutes whether an instrument will work for me and would never think of wasting my time or someone elses if I wasn't serious.
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Well, the R. Taylor is headed back to me. The buyer says, "Not the sound I'm looking for." I offered a window for return. $130-40 (shipping both ways) is pricey for a sound test, although much cheaper than keeping it.
 
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adorshki

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tjmangum said:
Well, the R. Taylor is headed back to me. The buyer says, "Not the sound I'm looking for." I offered a window for return. $130-40 (shipping both ways) is pricey for a sound test, although much cheaper than keeping it.
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Might wanna double check the case for surprises when it comes back.
 
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