This past week, just days before THE STORM began (and, yes, THE STORM has to be all caps. It has been that epic) I ventured to downtown Washington DC, where I met up with a few dozen of my local DC-area blogging friends to explore the Washington Auto Show. Although I was asked to attend the auto show as a paid ambassador with Chevrolet as part of the Chevy-SheBuysCars Women’s Influencer Event, all thoughts, opinions, and photos are my own.
For several weeks leading up to the Washington Auto Show, the kids and I heard radio commercials advertising the auto show every morning on the way to school. The main message? You can’t buy a car until you’ve SMELLED it. The kids laughed every time they heard it, and I totally understood where the commercial was coming from, but I had a different approach. Sure, I do love the smell of a new car, but that’s not my first priority.
You can’t buy a car until you have seen felt, handled, and compared several cars, and the BEST way to do that – without spending every single weekend at ALL of the local dealerships (which I’m SURE you guys don’t want to do) – is to attend the auto show and see all of your options before making a decision.
It was at the Washington Auto Show this past week that I was given the BEST CAR BUYING ADVICE EVER.
Someone Told Me The Best Car Buying Advice Ever….
Ready for it?
This is actually several tidbits of advice compiled together into one glorious piece of advice…
When you are in the market for a new car, decide what options and features you are looking for. Do your initial research at home. Then look at each car that fits your criteria (yes, from ALL of the different car makers) and test them out one by one. But DO NOT buy the first car you test drive, because that first car will ALWAYS feel amazing and wonderful and you’ll want to say LET’S BUY IT RIGHT NOW because it feels and looks and drives so much better than the old piece of junk I WAS driving. Now, that may be the car you end up buying, but don’t plop money down quite yet. Go to a few more stops and handle a few more cars and then go back to that first car to test it out again. That second experience with the first car will undoubtedly be different.
I am reminded of something that used to happen to me all the time when I was running a photography business (before my blog became too busy for me to handle both jobs). People used to ask me all the time which camera they should buy. At the time, the 2 main options that 99% of the people asking me were looking at were Canon and Nikon. I would tell them what my sister (the Nikon girl) had told me (a Canon girl): “Both cameras are amazing, but sometimes it comes down to how it fits in your hand. Go to a store. Hold both cameras. And then you’ll know which one is right for you.”
I’ve test driven a lot of cars. I have driven cars that were SO MUCH FUN, but only a handful of them felt right – something that felt like it was made for me.
I might not love to go around the Washington Auto Show smelling the car interiors, like the commercial suggests, but I LOVE sitting inside the cars, touching and inspecting and handling the cars. I love that I can look and touch (and click all of the buttons just to see what they do) with NO PRESSURE to buy.
I love that Chevy trucks have added this handy step to make it easier to get into or see into the back of the bed of the truck!
The Coolest Thing I Learned at the Washington Auto Show
I’m a paper and pencil kind of note-taker, and when I was looking back at the notes I took during our auto show tour, it was this piece of information that stuck out to me the most:
Luxury cars benefit ALL consumers. Because luxury car makers put a lot of money and resources into having the best, the latest, and the most cutting edge innovations, ALL cars can eventually benefit from those same innovations. So those luxury cars might be ahead of the game when they come up with cool tech and innovations, but those same innovations that the luxury cars specialize in will show up in the everyday person cars shortly, too.
My Favorite Feature From the Washington Auto Show
I saw a lot of cars with a lot of cool features (like cars that are a wifi hotspot) but the features that were SO COOL to me, especially as a mom to a daughter who will be getting her driver’s license within a month or so, were the teen driver safety features in the Chevy Malibu. Did you know that you can log on to see how your teen is driving – not just where but HOW? I love that the radio doesn’t turn on until the seat belt is fastened. I can’t wait to see this feature move to more vehicles!
The Washington Auto Show is open now thru January 31. Check the website for details on hours, what’s happening each day and to purchase tickets (you can get tickets at the show as well).
Have you ever been to an Auto Show? What was your favorite part?
© 2016, Food Fun Family. All rights reserved.
Leave a Reply