New world awaits for car buyers

Vicki Butler-Henderson looks at what to expect as car dealerships start to reopen while abiding by post-lockdown rules

Many car dealerships in England opened their doors this week for the first time in months. It is hoped this will kick-start the whole UK industry as it gets 590,000 people back to work, in a sector worth around £200 billion.

So what will your local dealership look like when you next visit? Well, there will be a one-way system in and out, and more empty space around each show car than we’ve ever seen before.

In this initial week, dealerships will mainly be sorting through the backlog of orders that stacked up from March, and most will only welcome you across the threshold if you have had an invitation beforehand.

If you want to buy a new car, there is nothing stopping you. There are a few ways this can happen – the most appealing, if you’re house-bound, is online. This way, you can search for your perfect car, configure it to your ultimate specification, and even pay for it with just a few clicks on your computer keyboard.

You can even have the car delivered to your doorstep without having to step outside. And, in keeping with the current guidelines, this will happen in a sanitised fashion with all the “touch points” on the car (and the key) being freshly disinfected. This is a brilliant solution for those who want to minimise contact with others at the moment, and for those with a busy schedule. But, personally, I still love the physical action of a good old-fashioned “tyre kicking” session when choosing a car – new or secondhand. I enjoy the ritual of walking around a showroom or weaving in and out of lines of motors in a car supermarket, inspecting each machine along the way.

It’s essential for me to test drive a car before I buy it too. I need to feel how it behaves on a motorway, around bends, under acceleration and on the brakes. I can instantly tell if something isn’t quite right, and then I walk away – but I can also feel when a car handles and performs to perfection, and have readily bought it.

I even look forward to the small fuss that’s made over you when you go and pick up your latest set of wheels. It is a fun experience – and this is an area that dealers need to develop for repeat business.

But for now, it’s a welcome sight to see the doors opening, as we emerge from the lowest sales figures since 1946. Happy buying! Vicki hosts the Auto Express podcast every Wednesday. Twitter: @vb_h

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Safety first in the new-look showrooms designed to maintain social distancing