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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

Isn't it a lot of work to order, wait, and take delivery of a car, and have £100k or whatever on your credit report, and then reversing of all of that... just to get a test drive? Do they not do test drives anyway?

£100k or whatever is a hell of a deposit for a test drive!

I just wish Tesla did a proper SUV. The Model X isn't any kind of SUV - it's just a big hatchback. Doesn't look like it'd really be capable off-road compared to something serious like a Land Rover.

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Usually it's next day .. likely you can get the car faster than booking a test drive. Also, you are not failing to pay so it doesn't affect your credit. No consequences

> Also, you are not failing to pay so it doesn't affect your credit. No consequences.

Yes not a failing to pay... but doesn't your credit report suddenly show £100k against your name? And they'll assume the car's deprecated so you'll be underwater. That's not as bad as failing to pay but I wouldn't want to be applying for a mortgage the next month.

That’s not really how credit reports work. At least in the U.S. a loan typically doesn’t report until the first statement period usually 30-60 days after loan issuance. Most likely it would just show as a paid loan after you returned the car.

Technically the act of requesting and obtaining a loan would involve a hard inquiry on your credit report. [0]

It isn't a huge ding and only lasts for about 2 years (and trails off in impact over that time period), but if you did so repeatedly, that would be a negative signal to future lenders.

https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/credit-education...

But credit reports also report the actual money against your name, which in the case of buying a Tesla is going to show tens of thousands of dollars underwater against your name immediately.

And what about the refund on your insurance, your DVLA registration, your time... etc. What an admin nightmare!

I don't know about the UK, but where I live dealers can issue a cheap temporary 10-day registration document to let you drive it off the lot and deal with the registration authorities later, and if you already have auto insurance for another car, there's a grace period to cover newly purchased cars before you have to explicitly discuss it with the company. It doesn't have to be an admin nightmare, in other words. I assume the money reported on the credit report would get reversed or marked as paid if the loan is cancelled.

That said, my experience is with an all-cash/no-financing face-to-face purchase of a used car much cheaper than any Tesla, following a test drive and inspections both by the dealer and an independent inspector I chose, so mine was not all that similar of a situation.

> if you already have auto insurance for another car, there's a grace period to cover newly purchased cars before you have to explicitly discuss it with the company

Wow what if you've insured a $k car but use the policy to drive a $100k car and then total it?

Usually this grace period for new cars only applies to the liability insurance, i.e. damages to others, not to the insurance against damages to your own car ('kasko' insurance). Meaning you are out of luck regarding your own new totalled 100k car, but the other car you rammed in the process will be paid for.

I think they limit the insurance to match what your other car is insured for, though I'd have to check my policy. As the other reply to you implied, insuring yourself for damage to your own car is not mandatory. The mandatory part is insurance for damage to other cars and property (the government here directly provides drivers with bodily injury insurance although policies often provide extra coverage).

Credit reports (in the US) only show the financing organization and the current balance, along with other details like loan length, payment history and current monthly payment amount.

They don't list what you actually bought. There's no way to know if you're underwater, and it doesn't matter because credit reports don't list your assets either.

> No consequences

You would need to do a lot of due diligence to make sure you really have no costs. Many car companies fully split their lending and you might end up with costs on not going through with lending even if you get your money back on the car.. Insurance companies, DMV registration taxes, etc, might try to hit you a little bit on rounding and can have some non-refundable charges but more significantly, will mess with you on paperwork which is all the hassle of work.

I doubt many people went through with that, though I can imagine people who started on impulse created weird situations for their sales teams and weren't worth the hassle.

A lot of these things aren't issues in the UK. You'd have to make sure you have insurance cover, and pay vehicle excise duty (low to non-existent on a Tesla because it's an electric vehicle), and that's it.

All finance has a 14-day cooling off period so no worries there either.

Still, it's not hassle free: you have to arrange insurance, then cancel it, register the vehicle, unregister it, pay the VED, cancel that. It's definitely a PITA.

Right - I can't believe people are doing this frivolously.

You're correct. This is exactly what test drives are for. They usually also check your driver license and credit score when testing higher cost vehicles to make sure you're responsible and can even afford to buy it in the first place.

There are also dealerships that offer extended test drives for trusted customers where you can keep a car for a few days, however I'm not sure if Tesla does anything like this.

I stopped thinking of SUVs as off-road vehicles. Nowadays, they are usually just big cars, for people who would normally get a sedan, but want a bit more space. Luxury SUVs like the Tesla Model X almost all fit into this model.

If you want something more serious from Tesla, I guess you'll have to wait for the Cybertruck, which may have decent off-road capabilities.

Yes, that’s why they do offer test drives (without buying the car)

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