If i was looking to try out cars for fun, dont you think i'd have done it in the £5k BMW 530 he had on his lot? Or maybe the Nissan Skyline kept under lock and key and viewed by appointment only? Or the Mondeo ST24? And not in the cheap Mondeo 1.8 LX? I guess that proves not everything can be learned in the Glasses guide (the car dealers bible).

Perhaps i didnt go into enough detail earlier, the dealership was in a back road in a town, all i wanted to do was the basic things to test a car, such as get out onto a bypass, get it up into 5th and see how it does at speed, easier to find out if it pulls to one side etc and always a good idea to give it a good run as you have no idea how long its been sat there not moving, on top of this i wanted to go down an empty deserted piece of road somewhere to see if it brakes in a straight line when braking suddenly, basic stuff which when buying a cheap used car with no history everybody should be doing. I could of course of failed to do this, bought the car, you know, to save being rude, and later on ended up having to break suddenly and veer off into a lake, but hey ho, at least the dealer wouldnt think i was being rude.

But he wanted me to sit in town traffic with it and to be done as soon as possible, considering he had 4 members of staff on the lot and zero customers when i arrived and the car had half a tank of petrol, i couldnt see why he was in such a rush.

I therefore concluded there was something he didnt want me to know about it, and tossed him his keys.

If you think i was being unfair by not wanting to buy a ten year old tin box on wheels, something im going to be going 70mph in, with no history and no idea what its done on the basis of a 5 minute park up at traffic lights and actually wanting to resarch it then i have to say thats unreasonable. I think iwas being perfectly fair. You say the dealer didnt know me from Adam, well the same could be said from my point of view about the car.

My own experience of buying new cars on the whole is appalling. Some of the high end dealerships are really bad if you walk in, in jeans and T shirt !

Audi, BMW & Merc I have found the worst. When I bought a Carlton GSI 24v new the dealer wouldnt even show me the cars and insisted we went through all teh finance first ! ( that i didnt want as was paying cash ) I rang and wrote to the dealership and they defended the actions of the dealership saying they were overwhelmed with time wasters ! I had a dealer 29 miles away who drove one to my house, i test drove and ordered and they delivered it week later.

I had the same experince buying a new X type sport Jag and had to drive 120 miles to a dealer that would take me seriously ! Interestingly at the time couldnt do the deal on a sunday ( some law) ordered on the Monday and collected on the thursday and went back to the dealer that told me the brouchures cost £2.50 each and wouldnt give me a test drive! ( i had advised him i was serious and was ready to order there and then !). When i turned up it really peed them off , i wnet in and saw the sales manager and got a free 12,000 service.

I dont know what gets into some of these dealers ! they dont deserve the business.