In the US, cars follow only housing as the most expensive purchase consumers make. So it makes a lot of sense that, according to recent buyer surveys, very few of them want an Amazon-style, one-click approach to getting a new set of wheels.

“People want to see, feel, and touch the car,” says Erin Lomax, the vice president of consumer marketing at Cox Automotive, a research firm that also makes digital auto sales products that allow dealers to initiate transactions online. (This gives Cox a lot of insight into buying patterns, but it also has a stake here.)

Not to mention test-driving the expensive thing they’ll probably use every day. Data released by Cox this month shows that while 28 percent of car buyers go into the transaction thinking they want to do the whole thing online, just 7 percent end up pulling it off. More than half of buyers conduct their purchases entirely in person.

Another consumer survey, published in the fall, found that just over half of car buyers wanted to physically sign paper copies of important documents. In yet another, released in December, 86 percent of surveyed buyers said ​​they wanted to see a car in person before finalizing their purchase.

That’s despite what looks like a full-scale industry push to bring car-buying online, one that began out of n...