How we work
How we work through a show, step by step
This is the order we use ourselves, and it is the order we use when somebody has booked a walkthrough. It is deliberately boring. The boring part is what stops a hall from making the decision for you.
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01
We start with your week, not with cars
The first conversation has almost nothing to do with vehicles. How many kilometres in a normal month, what the longest regular drive is, who sits in the back and how easily they get in and out, how much gravel there is between the tar and your gate, what has to fit in the boot on the worst day of the year. Ten minutes of that eliminates more cars than an hour of browsing.
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02
Then a route on a printed floor plan
We mark the plan the evening before: the stands that match your week, the stands worth a glance, a one-direction loop and the two places you can sit down. Printed on paper, because a hall is a bad place to be depending on a phone battery and the venue signal is usually poor in the middle of the floor.
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03
The back row before the driving position
At each car, the rear seat gets tested first, behind a driver's seat set the way you would actually have it. Then ingress, then the boot with our own hard case in it, then the spare wheel, then the controls. Only after all of that does anybody sit behind the wheel and enjoy themselves.
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04
Questions with numbers in the answers
We ask the same set on every stand: service interval in kilometres and months, cost of a minor and a major service outside the plan, nearest approved workshop to wherever you actually live, spare wheel type, what the insurer requires, and the warranty position on gravel and towing. The answers get written on the comparison page while we are standing there.
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05
A quiet lap, then nothing for a week
At the end we walk the hall once more, slowly, with no notebook, and see which two cars you keep drifting back towards. Then we stop. No deposit, no signature, no decision in the building. A week later we talk again, and by then the flattering lighting has worn off and you usually already know the answer.
Six jobs, three bundles, prices in rand
We are two private motorists, not a dealership and not a broker, and nobody pays us a commission. What follows is what people ask us for most often, with indicative rand figures so you can decide before you phone. If what you need is not on the list, say so and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right people.
Show halls and long roads
Phone us before the show, not after it
A forty-five minute call the week before an expo changes the whole day, and it costs less than the parking and the tickets together. Phone the Bree Street number during the hours on the contact page, or send a note through the form and tell us which show you are going to and what the car has to do for you.