A test drive that actually uses the N2
A loop around Vincent and back down Oxford Street tells you the engine starts and the radio works. This is the sequence we drive instead, and what each part of it is designed to expose.
A driver and a passenger on a structured test drive, windows down, radio off.
01
Before you turn the key
Sit in the car and do nothing for a minute. Can you see the bonnet edge, or are you guessing where the nose is at a robot in Southernwood traffic? Does the seat drop far enough, and does the cushion support the back of your thigh or leave it hanging? Reach the handbrake, the boot release, the indicator stalk. If a car is uncomfortable while stationary, no amount of driving will fix it, and people buy cars they cannot sit in because the advert was persuasive.
Then check the cold start properly. Key on, listen for the fuel pump priming, watch the glow-plug light on a diesel, and start it with the window open and the radio off. Diesel knock that fades in a minute is normal. A rattle for the first two seconds on a chain-driven engine is a tensioner that is tired. Blue smoke on start is oil; white smoke that hangs around is coolant, and that is the end of the appointment.
02
Town first: Oxford Street, Fleet Street, the bridge
Low-speed town work is where automatics confess. Pull away from four or five robots and feel for a flare between first and second, a thump on the downshift, or a shudder at light throttle around 40 km/h. On a manual, feel for a clutch that bites high and a gearchange that baulks into second when cold. On a dual-clutch box, crawling traffic on the way up from the harbour is the harshest test you can give it.
Use this stage for the aircon too. Set it to the coldest setting and the lowest fan and let it run for ten minutes in stop-start traffic, then put your hand on the vent. Coastal cars often cool well at speed and poorly in a queue, which points at a tired condenser, a weak fan or a clutched compressor on its way out.
03
Out onto the N2 and up the long pulls
Join the N2 and hold a steady 100 to 120 km/h for at least fifteen minutes. This is where you feel vibration through the wheel at a particular speed, hear a wheel bearing change note when you sway gently between lanes, and find out whether the car tracks straight with your hands loose. Then find a long uphill pull and take it in a high gear without kicking down. A turbo that is losing its seals will show blue in the mirror under that load, and an overheating problem that hid in town will nudge the temperature needle up.
On the way back, let the car coast down a long descent with your foot off everything, then brake firmly once from 100 km/h on a clear stretch. Judder through the pedal means warped discs, a pull to one side means a sticking caliper, and a soft pedal that sinks means fluid or a master cylinder. None of this appears in a seven-minute drive.
04
Broken tar, gravel and the pothole test
Take the car somewhere honestly bad: a stretch of patched tar towards Berlin, a farm approach, a gravel verge. You are listening for knocks from the front at low speed, which are usually anti-roll-bar bushes or top mounts, and for a clonk from the rear over a single bump, which is often a worn trailing-arm bush. On a bakkie or a seven-seater, do this part with weight in the back, because an empty leaf spring hides a lot.
Gravel also tells you about the car's manners. Does it stay settled when one wheel drops into a rut, or does the rear step out and need catching? If you drive to Haga-Haga or Morgan Bay regularly, that answer matters more than the 0 to 100 figure anybody quoted at you.
05
The last ten minutes, and what you do with them
Park on a slope, leave the car idling in drive with your foot on the brake for a minute, then switch off and look underneath for drips. Open the bonnet while it is hot and smell for coolant and burnt oil. Check the oil level again now that it has been worked. Restart it hot; a hot engine that cranks lazily is a starter or a battery, and a hot engine that hesitates is often a coil or an injector.
Write your notes before you speak to the seller, not after. Every buyer we have driven with has softened their own findings during the conversation that follows. If you cannot do this sequence because the seller is in a hurry, that is information too, and it is the kind that saves you R200 000.
Fifteen minutes at 100 to 120 km/h on the N2 finds bearings, vibration and tracking that town driving hides.
Test the aircon in stopped traffic, not at speed, if the car has lived near the sea.
Drive broken tar and gravel with weight in the back, then write your notes before you talk money.
Tell us about the car you are looking at
Send the kilometres, the asking price, the body style and where the car has lived, and we will tell you on the phone whether it is worth an inspection. That conversation is free, and it has talked people out of appointments more than once.