1. Testing cars you can't afford is awesome. Knowing the full range of experience in a good can be very enlightening. How much better is a $10,000 camera from a $1,000 camera, or $400 wine from $4? I used to run a tasting group which is basically a way to pool money and try liquors that are vastly out of our individual price range and I highly recommend it. You can try expensive cars and mattresses for free, that's even better!
2. What's wrong with thinking "Well it is great, but its not $2000 great." You aren't beholden to the thoughts you had about how worth-it it might be before you tried it.
>What's wrong with thinking "Well it is great, but its not $2000 great." You aren't beholden to the thoughts you had about how worth-it it might be before you tried it.
Nothing. But I read the GP comment more along the lines of "It was as great as I imagined it would be but it was still too much money"
Sure, if you can, if something expensive is good but not as great as you hoped it would be for the money, return it. But it's a bit hard for me to see buying (not test driving) something that, however great it is you're not keeping it.
I can see the value in test driving a car a class above your level so you can see what you're missing. When I was looking for a car, I tried out a low-end Acura in addition to a high-end Honda, but those are $35K and $45K cars.
I could probably justify the $10K jump in price if the Acura was spectacular, but no matter how much I love an $80K car, I could never justify buying one.
I doubt it would be any different. I have an SUV which I use for sport transportation stuff. I got rid of my old 2-seater. I like sports cars. But I'm not really willing to pay for them given that I'd drive them a few thousand miles a year--mostly in conditions where I wouldn't really enjoy them.
Yes, but the parent commenter explicitly said the plan was to keep it if they loved it, and they loved it, but they didn't keep it because it was too expensive.
2. What's wrong with thinking "Well it is great, but its not $2000 great." You aren't beholden to the thoughts you had about how worth-it it might be before you tried it.