Visit most furniture stores today and within minutes you’ll find yourself actively encouraged to kick off your shoes, choose a sofa, chair or bed and while away the next half hour "getting used to it".

Short of offering you a newspaper or complimentary drinks and nibbles, it seems that some retailers are now keen to ensure you properly assess their products before shelling out a sizeable chunk of cash for something you will use on a daily basis. My brother swears that the last time he went to look at beds the assistant told him to try each potential purchase for a minimum of 15 minutes. It had been a long day and by the third mattress he was fast asleep, snoring like a Labrador and muttering about ‘just 5 more minutes’ when the manager tried to shake him awake, watched by a bemused crowd of Sunday morning shoppers.

So why is it when we look at cars we frequently end up spending just minutes behind the wheel before deciding if it’s the car for us. For something that is probably the biggest purchase after a house most of us will ever make, we approach the car selection business in a very haphazard manner.

How can you possibly get a proper feel for a new car when you find yourself driving around the local industrial estate with an over anxious salesman sat beside you bellowing into his mobile and indicating the next turn back to the garage? How do you know how it performs on a long run, or if the seats are still comfortable after 3 or 4 hours behind the wheel? Will the aircon lead to arguments, and do the passengers find the ride quality nausea inducing?

Granted, a lot of manufacturer’s now offer 24 and 48 hour test drives, but is this enough? How can we get a real feel for our next car before buying it?

Rental offers a very simple solution, with a lot of the main fleets offering a huge choice of vehicles. The chances are that if you have your eye on a car, your local rental agency will be able to get it for you. And hire doesn’t have to be expensive – ignore the published tariffs and do some bargaining – you might be surprised at the deals with which you could end up. For the sake of spending just a couple of hundred pounds for a week’s rental, you could save yourself thousands if you find the car isn’t for you.

Dave has a large family and is regularly upgrading his car. He found his first couple of MPVs were not quite what he wanted after only a few weeks. He’d test driven both of them, but on both occasions he had no inkling as to what would annoy him about the vehicles.

The first vehicle was found to have an uncomfortable driving position and seat, which only came to light after a long day behind the wheel. The second suffered from a poor power band in the lower gears that made driving difficult in towns. Now doubtless, these are personal choices, and both MPVs are owned and loved by thousands, but Dave and his family just couldn’t get to grips with them. He decided to upgrade, and narrowed his choice down to two. He then rented them for 5 days, both when he knew he would be experiencing as many different driving conditions as possible. Hot weather, traffic jams, rural motoring, motorway, windy roads, picnics, shopping. He threw everything he could at them and one overwhelmingly stood out as the winner.

Avis confirm that rental experiences influence new car buying decisions. On handing back the rental car 44% of UK renters said they were slightly or much more likely to add the model to their next new car shopping list. Peugeot used rental in 2007 to find out more about what drivers thought of their new 207, supplying Avis with 300 cars across the UK, with drivers being encouraged to fill in a questionnaire about their experience.

“As a manufacturer, the most important reaction for us is the one we get from the public,” Peugeot commented. “With an average of 105 potential drivers experiencing each of the Avis Peugeots over a six month period, thousands of drivers got behind the wheel of the 207 for the first time.”

“For years supplying cars to the rental industry has had a negative connotation and while it was always thought there were benefits to car makers of getting their product in front of new drivers, no one could prove it,” explained Paul Hainsworth, Avis Fleet Director. “…We understand manufacturers have to control rental volumes more carefully, but this proves they could lose out on future sales, many to drivers who have never experienced their brand, if they do not keep up a presence in the rental arena,”

“I’m convinced that through renting I’ve actually saved money in the long term”, Dave told me. “Test drives can be ok but I needed to drive the car in ‘real life’, with the family, on holiday, shopping, wherever, to see if it was the one for us. A week should give you a real feel for whatever you’ve chosen, and give you the chance to find out all its quirks. I lost money on my other two cars so I don’t begrudge the cost of the rental, and in fact I did get a very good deal.”

As manufacturers take stock of their exposure to rental volumes, the Avis findings reinforce that it is still a very powerful marketing tool for car makers.

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