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Comment by TheSpiceIsLife | Hacker News Reader

I wonder about this.

I've never bought a car from a used car yard or new car dealership, so I can't talk from experience.

In Australia, residential real estate sales contract have a mandatory 28 day minimum cooling off period. I don't know anything about commercial real estate, so can't comment on that.

In a way it makes some sense that the other large purchase(s) in life should have a somewhat protracted sales experience. If you could walk in to a car sales yard and just buy a car chip and pin style, I suspect things could go downhill quite rapidly.

I haven't really thought this through very much, so I'm wide open to head different perspectives.

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I ordered my last two cars online. The more recent one was delivered to my house. I spent a few minutes signing paperwork and we were done. There’s no reason the experience has to be anything more than that.

That's fair.

I'm just wondering whether there's scope for a cooling off period for vehicle purchases?

I have at least one friend who might have benefited from such a thing.

That seems like a separate issue. Even with hours at a dealer, at the end you make a decision, sign, and that’s it. (Unless the dealer is kind enough to have a refund policy, anyway.)

Ordering online, I had a period where I could cancel the order with no penalty.

That’s not really the nature of the problem with purchasing a car.

let me guess, a Tesla?

Good guess. I’m not sure if anyone else does home deliveries.

I've heard that a lot of dealerships are willing to do it if they think that you won't actually buy it in person (i.e. deliver the car or lose the sale). I'm not sure there's a set formula for convincing them of that, though.

enjoy it. car's a beast (all 3 models)

Oh yes, they’re great. The home delivery was a 3, and the one before that was an S. To quote Mr. Bueller, “If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”

The car purchase I referred is deeply confrontational. They want to force you to buy a car at the worst possible terms.

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