Session 5: Test Driving Tips

Yay, today's the big day. You've done your homework and you're ready to go test drive the machines, how fun. But don't walk out the door with just your keys and your purse. I want you to bring some other items too. First of all, don't forget your questions for the dealer. I also want you to bring an assortment of your own fabrics and your interfacing and stabilizers. The reason is your dealer is going to have a variety of demo cloth. Demo cloth is a special fabric, it's usually highly, shall we say starched, or has sizing in it which makes it act as an integrated stabilizer. It's very very stiff, you can see literally how stiff it is here, it holds a crease and it almost stands, yeah, there, it stands up on its own. Typically fabric won't do that. It's very very stiff. The reason they do this is it comes on a roll, and the technicians use it to test your stitches when you bring in the machine for service to make sure that everything is sewing correctly. If you sew on regular fabric and you don't have an interfacing or a stabilizer in there, the stitches tend to pucker and distort. So when you come in for your demo, you then wanna make sure that you're seeing an absolutely beautiful stitch. When I bought that embroidery machine I was telling you about, I was so excited, I took it home and my husband says okay, let's see what this thing does that you spent all my hard earned money on. No, it was my hard earned money, but that's beside the point. The fact was I went to sew on it, I put my piece of fabric under it, and it all crunched when I was trying to do this large little dinosaur. Oh my goodness, it was awful, I was almost in tears. So I went back to the dealer and they said oh no, you need to put a stabilizer under it. This was when embroidery was first coming out, and a stabilizer was a new trend. I knew about interfacing, but I didn't know about stabilizer. So take what you sew on so that you can simulate what you do at home when you get to the dealer. They will also typically have a very stiff jeans fabric there, and they will probably, if you have integrated dual feed, do the little demo that I showed you before. And so they will have some shear. There's nothing wrong with these fabrics, just keep in mind that it is designed to give the optimum stitch quality, and I want you to see what you need to do with your regular soft fabrics with the machine. If you wanna test a button hole, make sure you put a little piece of interfacing in there just like you would when you're doing your garment at home. You put interfacing in the placket for the buttons and the button holes to make sure it's crisp. Do the same thing at the dealer so you can truly see what your button holes are gonna look like. Don't forget your glasses if you wear glasses, because there's nothing worse than not being able to see the buttons or being able to see to thread the needle if you need to. I have a comparison worksheet on a PDF that you can download. I think you'll find it to be very comprehensive and I highly recommend that you take that with you along with paper and pen. At the dealership when you get there, pay attention to your initial impression. Not only of the dealership but of the machine when you sit down to it. Literally I have looked at some machines and because of the color or the initial layout, I'm just like, that is awful, I cannot sit there and look at that. There's no way, no matter how nice the machine is that I could work on that and feel comfortable. It would always drive me crazy. So pay attention to your initial impression. Your dealer should be there to educate you, not to sell. They know you're coming in to buy a machine. I want you to listen and learn before you do anything, before you ask question one, listen and learn, listen to their pitch, answer their questions. They should be showing you and telling you about features and benefits and how those will apply to the type of sewing you do, not just telling you what a great wonderful machine it is and that it has a gamillion stitches. That's selling. They need to be educating. After they do their demo, ask some key questions. What sets this machine apart? What sets it apart from other models within the line by the same manufacturer? What sets it apart from your competitors? How frequently does it come in for repairs, and what's the number one problem that you see? How does this compare with other models, again within the same line or of your competitors? And the best thing to do if you can is talk to the technician. They're the ones that really see the issues with the machines. Some other questions I want you to ask are how do I adjust the tension, how do I adjust the foot pressure, how do I change the feet, that's a big one. How easy is it to swap out those accessory feet? Ask about specific tasks you do and would they demonstrate them, such as if you do a lot of garment sewing, how do you do the blind hem on this? What accessory foot do I need to put on? And then ask about oiling. Some machines need oiling, others don't. If it's a machine, one of the newer ones that has the parts that don't require the consumer to oil it, you're gonna need to be sure that goes in every one to two years for a tune-up because the technicians have to take it apart and do the oiling. If it's a machine that does require oiling, you need to know where those oil spots are and how frequently. Usually it's only a drop or two of oil and it's not that often, but you need to ask. You also need to ask about the automatic needle threader if it has one, because they are all a little different to operate and you wanna see how easy it is to use and how responsive. Those are some beginning questions and demos that I would certainly ask for. Next, after the dealer's done his or her thing, now I want you to go sew on different machines. Use your fabric, use your interfacing, use your stabilizer, and simulate how you sew at home. Compare the stitch quality. You don't need to sew every stitch on the machine, but especially the straight stitch, really look at the quality of the straight stitch, look at the quality of the zigzag. Look at the machine, look at the lighting. How many lights are on there, is it LED, is it regular, does it seem bright, do you find you're fighting to see under the machine? How comfortable are the ergonomics of the machine. What's the size of the display, is it a little teeny tiny monitor or is it a great big monitor? I specifically paid more money and moved up to a machine with more capability than I needed specifically for the larger screen display because it was much easier for me to see what was going on and to get to the stitches that I needed. The ease of use was just incredible and very intuitively obvious. And to me it was worth the money to pay more to save time and frustration when I got it home and was using it. Look at the location of the controls, look at how easy it is to use the controls. Listen to the sound and the noise level. That was another reason I moved up to the particular machine I had, because I found that that computerized machine, for whatever reason, was a little quieter, a little smoother than the midline electronic that I was looking at. It wasn't a lot of difference, but considering I do it for a business, it did make a difference to me, and contributed to my decision. Scrutinize the accessories. What comes with each machine? When I bought my Janome Jem, my travel machine, I didn't realize, didn't even think about the accessories so much, I figured the standard ones would be there. It didn't come with a zipper foot. Janome doesn't include the zipper foot on that machine. And of course, when I'm sewing late at night and needed to put in a zipper, I didn't have what I needed and I had to go find a dealer the next day and buy a zipper foot. So look at the accessories and ask them what does come with it. Also get a list of what can be added, because there will be some accessories that work with some machines and not with others. So find out what your options are. Try several different brands of machines and within that different level, within the brands, because you just never know what's gonna be in the machine that you go wow, that's the one, and it may be one you hadn't really considered before. Some other questions to ask the dealer include what about price matching, will you match prices with other dealers? This is important because you may actually love the dealer, but his prices may be a little bit more than what you were expecting, and if he or she is willing to match that price, it could make the difference. Dealer support is critical, and I'll talk about that in just a second. But the price matching may make a difference with which dealer you go with. Ask about trade-ins, do they accept them? And if you have a trade, get a quote. See what they'll say, get that estimate. And then go home. Oh, they wanna close that sale right then and there and they're gonna put some pressure on you, but walk away. Even if you just say, I wanna go have lunch and think about it, walk away, because I want you to have time to really reflect. There's always gonna be another sale, I promise. There's always gonna be another sale. When you walk away, I want you to reflect on the dealer. What was your comfort level in there, did you feel a lot of pressure, or did you feel comfortable with them? Was the staff knowledgeable, was the staff helpful? Did they answer all your questions, did they answer them completely? How did they interact with the other customers bringing their machines in for repair. Then when you're at home, compare your checklist, compare your notes, look at the brochures again, take your time, and go back as often as you need and keep asking the questions and sewing on machines until you're ready to buy. And when you're ready, I'm gonna show you how to close the deal.