Tried and true
TrueCar.com is a great place to find out the real story behind your next used vehicle
By Jen Hadley 03/25/2010
I’m not exactly a coupon clipper. Nor did I inherit the sensible genes of my father when it comes to making large purchases (he actually does “research” prior to purchasing expensive items — whatever that means). By contrast, when I buy a computer, a television or even a car I head to the store, lot or warehouse fully devoid of any leveraging power. I don’t do price comparisons, I don’t wait for sales. Indeed, I might as well have “schmuck” tattooed squarely in the middle of my forehead.
Here’s how my last two auto purchases have gone down: I walk onto the lot, find a car I like, then tell the finance guy that if he can give me the car for $X per month, I’ll drive it off the lot then and there. In a few hours, I walk out with a new car. However, even though I have no intention of buying a new car in the foreseeable future, the next time I do, the scenario is going to play out very differently thanks to the nearly year old Web site TrueCar.com.
TrueCar.com appears to have been launched by some brainiacs in Santa Monica who understand how to do things like collect and analyze data. Then they use that data to give morons like me the opportunity to see how much other people are paying for specific cars in my area. Or, in the words of their Web site, “We are a data-driven company, processing thousands of real transactions nationwide on a daily basis to generate objective and irrefutable price reports.” The Web site, complete with all of its reports, is also free.
And reports galore this site has. In fact, I can’t even figure out exactly how to interpret all of the reports, graphs and charts TrueCar.com provides. But, even my birdbrain registers what it means when I run a TrueCar™ Price Report on a 2010 Nissan Xterra and I see that a “Great Price” and even a “Good Price” are substantially lower than what I paid for my 2005 Xterra nearly five years ago. It means I got ripped off.
But TrueCars.com doesn’t just provide pricing reports. There’s other valuable information, much of which is delivered via “The Truth,” TrueCar.com’s official blog, which provides information ranging from reviews of concept cars to monthly sales forecasts. But they also throw in some absolutely inane information, such as tracking the percentage of green cars different manufacturers make, (a timely St. Patrick’s Day blog post).
Then there’s the True Trends™ Monthly Report, which seems to be designed both for über gear-heads and marginally interested auto columnists like me who love brightly colored pie charts. This monthly analysis provides just about anything you could possibly want to know about the auto industry. They have the best discounts, the greatest price drops, the number of days that models are in inventory and, to boot, they even offer their opinion on the best and worst days of each month to buy a car.
I have to say I’m not surprised that last month the editors at Money magazine named TrueCar.com the best Web site to save money on a car. The site is pretty sick (and by that I mean user-friendly, of course). Moreover it’s not laden with advertisements or annoying pop-ups (making me pause briefly to wonder how the site is making any money).
Granted, I haven’t tried using a TrueCar™ Price Report to get a better deal on a car. But I’ll certainly give it a shot in the future. I mean, it’s free, it only takes a couple of seconds to get the report and it certainly can’t hurt my odds. And if you’re in the market for a new car, I doubt it will hurt your wallet either. Just make sure you go to buy your car on April 12, ahead of the tax deadline, as that’s supposedly the best day next month to get a smoking deal.
Contact Jennifer Hadley at jmhadley624@yahoo.com
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