Drivers Should Take More Care Over The Selection Of Options
Thursday, 25. August 2016
A few years back a very good friend of mine asked me to help him with his night club which was still making money but over a period of 2 years had dropped away in popularity and income had suffered as a result. So with my vast knowledge of night clubs and my business expertise I started to investigate the reasons why it was less popular.
A few years previous they consistently had queues of over 100 people outside, waiting to get into the club, but at the time of my investigation it was rare to see a queue at all. We addressed many of the problems, changed the DJ, improved the sound system, re-organised the bar and increased the staff and other things that started to get the club buzzing again but one thing caused a serious fallout between us. Air conditioning.
He, like many bar and club owners, felt that if you kept the customers hot they would drink more and increase bar takings so he preferred to retain the ceiling fans planted around the place. How wrong can you be? The club was open till 2.30am but by 11.30pm punters started to leave and when asked why they were leaving they said it was simply too hot and uncomfortable.
Sadly, about 2 years later, the place closed. Brought about, in my opinion, by the fact that he refused to install air conditioning because of his assumption that when people get hot in a club they drink more. So what has this ramble got to do with cars? Well it’s to do with wheels. Let me explain. We now have a huge raft of options available on new cars, all aimed at making more money out of the customer.
One of the options frequently taken up by customers is wheels. Different styles and sizes can be added at an additional cost but very few clients actually see the chosen wheels on the car before it is delivered or drive it with the bigger wheels fitted. What may have looked pleasing to the eye online may make your new 4WD look like it is perched on stilts in real life.
And as many have found in the past, having larger chunkier wheels fitted to your new car may look tough but they can often make the ride much more uncomfortable, make handling harder and affect adversely the CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. So whilst the assumptions are generally the opposite, better road holding, more comfortable ride etc. you will not know unless you can test drive the car fitted with the upgraded wheels.
And make sure you see the wheels actually fitted on the car in real life, they may look great on line but in the cold light of day they could also look terrible. Just because you are paying more doesn’t mean the car will look or drive better and as with the air conditioning, base your decision on fact, not perception. By Graham Hill
