PoorCollegeKid

I think that the one you saw was listed in Australian dollars. AU$80,000 (~US$60,000) is the going price in Australia for an Evo. In comparison, an RX8 and a 350Z both start at ~AU$60,000 ($45,000), so cars are clearly more expensive there than they are here.

edit: looks like I deleted a sentece or two by mistake... oops :o

Thetitanium8

Well if you read what I said, My friend wanted to look at the EVO. He was interested in getting one. That is why we said I was looking cause they wouldnt give us time of day if we said he was because he owns a mirage currently but has saved up for the Evo.... Man you are so good you know me like the back of your hand. Next time read before you preach.
Oh Yeah please use better language next time!!! Not here on this forum to be called names thank you.

Ike

If your "friend" was really serious then you wouldn't need a "plan". You just wanted to see what the Evo was all about and go for a joyride, admit it.

Japan8

I dunno... a counterpoint...

When I took my Familia S-Wagon in for service (Protege5 for you Americans), the salesman who sold me my car came up and was chatting with me about the Axcela (Mazda3).... which I was checking out at the time. I then took another glance at the Atenza (Mazda6) and went to drool over the 8. He said let's take it out. So we went for a nice little drive. Simple as that. It was entirely a joyride. But from that joyride I also knew I loved this car. It's what I'm buying whenever i can get my *** back in the US (anyone want to offer me a job? :p). And that was bascially what it was about... familiarizing me with the car... make me like it so I'll think about getting one.

A demo car is a good thing.

In Japan all new cars are made to order.

Thetitanium8

If I wanted to joyride dont you think my orginal post would say" we wanted to joyride". #2 If we just wanted a joyride I would not be upset or even write a Thread about this. I would have just went home and forgot about it... So eager to judge people. Thats not good.

Icemastr

Selling cars is way different in Japan than it is in the United States. Im with Ike, obviously you don't need to be test driving the car unless you were actually there to buy it. It sucks that you were treated like that, and I know what it feels like since not too long ago I went to a Mazda dealership to purchase an MX-5; I was planning to buy it in a day or two but they wouldn't let me test drive it, finally after checking with his boss, calling to verify where I worked etc. they let me test drive it, afterwards I left and bought a different one the next day.

Japan8

"Selling cars is way different in Japan than it is in the United States. Im with Ike, obviously you don't need to be test driving the car unless you were actually there to buy it." is just an excuse if no reasons and analysis can back it up. The same is very often true for how things are done in Japan... it is simply because that's the way it's been... not because it's the best or because another way won't work.

My college friend's uncle bought his new Honda through the same experience that I went through (and this IS in the US). He went in for an oil change and tune up, they said check out the new model. He test drove it, loved and bought one.

Yet another example. All the car dealerships in the town my Univ. was in were more than happy to offer "joyrides" to kids from my Univ. Why? Because most of them are rich and may get a new car for graduation or just because they want one. I saw it happen many times. You don't know which are rich and may want to buy after a joyride and which are just out to rag the car. There is also word of mouth to consider. Better safe than sorry... let 'em ride... seems to be the philosophy.

No one wants to buy a car with 100 miles of hard test driving on it, but even if 5 or 10% of people are only joyriders, and the rest buy at some point in time (not everyone buys on the first day they go in) it's very much worth it to have a demo car.

Japan8

If it was such a stupid idea and not vaild in the US... then what the hell were my examples and moreso what the hell is Mazda doing with "Rev it up?"

Icemastr

My experience with differences between car sales in the US and car sales in Japan is from having worked at a dealership where a few of the salespeople participated in an exchange program with Nissan where some employees from an auto dealership in Japan worked with us for a few days and a few of our employees went to Japan to work at the dealership over there for a few days.

Mazda's Rev it Up is a great event, it gives people a great opportunity to try Mazdas cars out on the track and get some seat time as well as compete. It doesn't really compare at all to going to a car dealership, where the cars are owned by a private person/business and beating on cars that are going to be sold to someone else.

When people come into my car dealership, I let them test drive cars, I don't try and discriminate if they are too poor to buy a car or what not. Different dealerships are run different ways, some aren't quite so loose on letting people test drive cars, especially flagship cars that they might only have a couple of at a time.

Each dealership only gets so many new cars of each type per year based on how many they sold the year before. In the case of the Lancer Evolution 8, being how limited of a production it is a dealership can't really afford to put thousands of miles on just one because they might only get 10-20 the whole year. When the cars cost 29,000$ and they are only selling for 32,000 plus most people nowdays trying to buy cars for 500 over invoice, at invoice, or even below invoice a demo car can easily become a significant expense. I may have only worked at a few dealerships but none of them had dedicated demo cars, we let people test drive what they wanted to buy.