Good point - that happens to me with almost everything I buy from gadgets, clothes, meals to cars. I start off with..."must be sensible and set budget at £X" and end up spending at least half as much again
Same here. I always end up spending over what I had planned.
Was thinking about test drives last night, and I remember back in 2000 riding by a BMW garage on my ZXR750 and spotting an M3 Evolution up on the forecourt for nearly £30k. I popped in and asked there & then for a test drive and they had no problems at all in letting me straight out in the car (with the sales person sitting next to me of course).
A week or so later I saw a nearly new Lotus Elise at a Mazda garage and so I phoned up and arranged a test drive. I turned up again on a motorbike (albeit a brand new Ducati 748SPS which was around £12k), the sales bloke gave me the keys to the Elise and off I went. On my own. I took it back about 20mins later, gave him the keys back and left. He gave me no high pressure sales talk at all. In fact I dont think they even asked to see my driving license!
When I test drove a 350z at West Way Stockport they didn't ask for any sort of ID or drivers licence, and I'd turned up in a '97 Fiesta