Many used car dealers are honest and reputable business people.  However, some are simply manipulative liars.  Consequently, there are few considerations when buying a used car as important as the credibility and reputation of the dealer.

Carsala’s technology accesses millions of listings on a daily basis and our professional negotiators have negotiated hundreds of deals.   We’ve worked with some great dealers, while others have earned well-deserved spots on the Carsala blacklist.  Here are a few stories:

The “Clean” Clunker

You Never Want to See This!

Even if a dealer describes a car as “clean” and the price is right (or lower than “right”), be careful!  Carsala had looked at over 200 cars for a very kind woman in her late 40s.  In order to get her the best price possible, we called close to 20 dealers to negotiate the price.  We always ask the dealer about the condition of the car, look at the car’s vehicle history report, and then arrange a mechanic inspection (if instructed by our client).  In this case, the dealer conveniently omitted any indication that the car he was trying to unload for close to Kelley Blue Book retail value was a total clunker: salvage title, odometer rollback, etc.  Though vehicle history checks aren’t 100% foolproof, they are generally a good indicator of car quality.

On another occasion, a dealer offered Carsala a sweetheart deal (so it seemed).  The problem was he only provided a 16 digit VIN in the listing.  That just might be a red flag (read: sarcasm) given that VINs are 17 digits.  Sure enough, the car had been wrecked.  Minor oversight?  Could be.  You be the judge.

The Botox Beater

1 Owner Looks Good; but Look Deeper

There’s no fountain of youth for used cars, despite what the odometer may say.  We were looking for a Hyundai Sonata for a local school teacher.  One deal stood out – it exactly met the client’s requirements, was a great price, and even had a clean CARFAX report (with 1 owner).  Luckily, Carsala’s technology raised a flag that the CARFAX mileage was notably different than the mileage in the listing itself – 30,000 miles.  Not only was this suspect because of the large difference, but also because the listed mileage was such a round number.  Our professional negotiator asked the dealer for written evidence that the car had 30,000 miles and had not been subject to a rollback.  The dealer subsequently acknowledged that the odometer had a “discrepancy” he couldn’t explain.

The Sleezy Saleman
We were negotiating a deal for a graduate student who was willing drive a long distance “if the deal was right.” So we put Carsala’s technology to work, found a number of good opportunities, and our professional negotiators hit the phones.  The #1 deal was just a steal – perfect car, clean CARFAX, etc.  But something didn’t sit right with the negotiator.  Normally, we get the deal in writing from the dealer after the customer selects a car.  In this case, because of the negotiator’s intuition, we opted to request confirmation in writing before presenting it the customer.  When the negotiator called the dealer back, he was informed that the salesman he’d been communicating with had been fired earlier in the day and there was no way they could honor such a low price from a clearly disgruntled former employee.  Virtually anyone without such extensive experience in the auto space may very well have driven 300 miles to buy a car for an imaginary discount.

Carsala can help you lay all these concerns to rest.  Our technology is world-class; our negotiators are even better.  Or if you are a true do-it-yourselfer and don’t want to turn over the whole process to Carsala, stay tuned for product announcements!

Ah, the age old problem: You are looking for a car, but you want it to look good with the minimal amount of effort. I have seen and experienced black car ownership and it can reduce a normal person to a neurotic mess. There are actually 2 ways to go about maintaining the look of your car, and when you use them together you can be assured that your vehicle with always look it’s best.

1. Color. White is hands down the cleanest color choice. There is a reason why a vast majority of the fleet vehicles in service today are white: It is low maintenance. A white car hides dirt, grime, water spots and the like better than any other color with the exception of camouflage. 
Typically the darker the hue of paint, the harder it is to keep clean. The scale rises exponentially between gray and black simply because black acts very much like a mirror. It reflects and magnifies everything including smudges, over spray, fingerprints etc. 
If you are set on a gray color (including the popular silver paints), try to find a lighter gray as it will be less maintenance than a dark gray. Nonmetallic cars are easier to keep clean, especially in dusty conditions as they do not sparkle. A metallic car must be kept very clean to get full benefit from the metal flakes in the paint.

2. Upkeep. Every six months have the exterior of your car detailed. You will be surprised at how much less effort you will have to put into your car’s appearance when you have a pro apply a high quality wax and buff it to a shine. Even if it rains it is not uncommon to not have any water spots on a black car provided it was properly cleaned, waxed and polished prior to the rains. Detailing is expensive but worth the expense if you can afford it.

There are a few products available that will help you keep your car looking factory fresh. 3M makes a clear adhesive coating that is applied over clean paint to guard against rock chips and the like. It must be applied by a professional but it is a lot cheaper to replace than getting the car repainted. American Racing offers wheels that have Teflon baked onto the surface of them which almost eliminates brake dust (which is why the front wheels on some cars are much darker than the rear). Meguiars makes a clear plastic polish that helps take small scratches and light oxidation out of clear plastic (i.e. headlamp lenses)

Naturally, all of these products and services cost money and/or time so it is up to you to decide how clean you want your car to be, once you decide on a color, that is.

I just bought my first new car (my dream car!) from a dealer and there are some things that I guess I just didn’t ask in advance. I was wondering what the difference between sticker price and final out of pocket cost is? How do you estimate how much you will really pay? Now I am wondering if I really got a good deal?

Susie G, Colorado Springs, CO

Welcome to the table post negotiation and signing on many, many dotted lines. Don’t beat yourself up! You may have still done yourself proud without even realizing it!

MSRP: Called the Monroney or window sticker is required by law and indicates the manufacturers suggested price including the base price with factory warranty, standard equipment, transportation costs, engine specifications, estimated fuel economy and can only be removed by the purchaser. Sometimes erroneously referred to as Mostly Suckers Really Pay, it is not always the case that you shouldn’t pay full sticker price. There are exceptions!

In the case of recent “hot” cars such as the first released new Camaro, demand will keep sticker price right on the money, if not above sticker. Cars are emotional purchases and demand from drivers needing to have the latest and greatest can temporarily maintain MSRP as the going rate for many months. Waiting until a car isn’t as “hot” can save quite a chunk of change. A new, not “hot” car can generally be had for 7-22% below MSRP.

When financing, it is important that you never negotiate according to what you would like your monthly payments to be. In fact, don’t even mention that you will be financing until you negotiate to a price that you feel comfortable with based on research done prior to walking onto a car lot.

Your final out of pocket pain will be the final price plus sales tax, title transfer fees and the interest on your loan spread over the number of months that you chose. All of them are unavoidable and part of the process.

Don’t stress! Enjoy your new ride and keep in mind that research is always key!

Confidently,

M

With the world at our fingertips now courtesy of the internet it really is quite easy to educate yourself about just about anything. But, just as reading every opinion on real estate can make you quite educated about neighborhoods’ square footage and school districts, signing a deal on the perfect house at the right price is not so easy. In fact, it can be extremely intimidating whether you have done it before or not.

In the online world of cars it is easy to trip over experts on everything from tuning to collecting, from buying to selling and from torque to trunk space but what seems to bind them all together besides their love of things with wheels and engines is an unabashed insistence that they can bring a salesman to his knees, begging for mercy when negotiating for cars. What all of these people often forget, myself included, is that buying a car is a very personal process and asking for help getting the best price on a car is not so simple. Sometimes folks like to pick their own car and figure out how to deal with negotiations on their own.

A recent third party study for Carsala has revealed that in reality, car geeks aside, 73% of used car buyers dislike the negotiating process and a majority of them rate themselves as being poor negotiators. What is shocking is that almost 20% indicated that they had not attempted to negotiate the price of the car that they most recently purchased.

That last sentence just makes me shudder but friends and family are constantly buying cars around me and never ask for my help despite knowing what I do in the car world. At first I would take it personally but then I realized that they were taking their investment in a car personally and wanted to do it themselves. I can tell someone over dinner or the phone which car I think they want because maybe they really do like the Malibu or an X5 and I would try to get them to consider something else comparable or better. They might listen. But what about when they really want help with the act of buying the car and the dreaded negotiation game at the dealership? Unless I have a good several months to help them search the car lots and an entire day to spend at the dealership while the sales guys play their game, I have my own house to clean and job to do so they don’t want to bother me. Fair enough!

Now if only real estate agents representing you actually were like Carsala, we would be moving in the right direction!

How do you feel about the car buying process?

At a time when I have become a bit “meh” about the automotive industry, Carsala has come up with some tools that appeal to the how and why I started writing about said industry. Okay, I say appeal but what I really mean to say is inspire! Yeh, that does sound really like some silly PR statement but I am serious. These tools, and by tools I mean applications that can actually help buyers in the used car market, haven’t existed before. I know we are all a lot more than “meh” about words like “appeal”, “inspire” and “unique” being thrown around a world where every car is going to do all of those things and get you to work and protect you children and change your life and help you find the love of your life and express exactly who you are AND not make you feel like you are the one being owned when you realize you are expecting a hunk of metal to do all of those things and you can’t even get your garbage disposal to work like you would like!

Follow me here for a few minutes and you tell me if you have seen anything like this before.

• Which car can you afford? I don’t mean one of those many calculators that asks you about expenses and APR and how many months you will slave before you see the title in your name and uses a little Java to pop up numbers that are not the crystal ball to your next car! Let’s start simple! Carsala Budget Search allows you to start with the simple idea that you want to know which car you can afford. Your parents want you to buy a safe sedan but, gosh darn it, you saved the money, have your job to pay for the car and you want to know if you really can afford a convertible or a crossover that reflects you and your lifestyle? How much do you want to spend, what is the oldest year of used car are you willing to consider and what is your ZIP code? Et, VOILA! Look at all of those cars that will make your dad squirm! See a sample result where I searched for $16,000 SUVs in my city. Pretty amazing, huh? Now click on one of the models and see how much Carsala says they can save me by negotiating for dealers in my area. Are you with me here?

• What about THIS car I found? You are standing on a car lot OR you found your dream car online through one of the many sites like eBay Motors, AutoTrader, Cars.com or another dealer classified site. Is it a good deal? Can you do better? With Carsala Price Checker you will know more easily than walking in and asking a random salesman, calling the salesman listed on the site or emailing and waiting for a response. By simply entering the VIN, ZIP and dealer’s asking price you can have a realistic price immediately. Believe me: I entered a VIN in my area for a 2008 BMW 3-Series that I know to be quite rare here and Carsala’s Price Checker told me the truth: “There are not many cars with this trim, engine, transmission, and color in your area. If this is exactly what you are looking for, you should probably buy this car. If you are flexible, request a detailed quote.” When I entered a VIN for a pretty standard Honda Civic Si for sale in my city, the results gave the dealer’s pricing 2 out of 4 stars and gave me the option of Carsala’s Full Service (where they will negotiate for me) or Self Service which showed me, “We searched through 6 million cars, analyzed 819 Honda Civics in your area,
  and found these 3 killer deals” and that Carsala can show me 3 “Killer Dealers” in my area up to 44% of the price I entered. See a PDF of a sample Killer Deals report here.

Anyone else know of a site out there that can do those two things (and, oh, so much more)?

From a Lotus slamming into a herd of cows to a sad story of a dream car purchase turning out to be a lemon, the Carsala Contest is underway and will be giving away prizes to the entry with the highest votes!

Last  Monday, Carsala launched a contest inviting consumers to describe their worst used car buying experiences.  Contestants should go to www.carsala.com/contest to enter the competition.

To celebrate its official launch, Carsala is offering  a SIRIUS - Sportster 5 Dock & Play Satellite Radio Receiver with Vehicle Kit + 1yr SIRIUS Everything Subscription for the contestant who receives the most votes for telling his or her worst true used car buying experience. 2nd and 3rd prize winners will receive a 125 GPS Portable Navigation System from TomTom but the goodies don’t stop there! The first additional 25 contestants to reach one hundred votes will receive a Carsala zip hoodie. The next additional 25 contestants to first reach 25 votes will get a Carsala t-shirt.

Everyone is eligible and individuals are invited to register by email on the Carsala web site at www.carsala.com and submit either a text story of up to 300 words, or a YouTube video to which visitors can link from the voting page.

Carsala will screen the stories and post or link them to the web site, where anyone can see them and vote, for their favorite submission. Voters can vote for more than one story, but cannot vote for each story more than once. Contestants are encouraged to promote their entries on Facebook, Twitter and via other social or traditional media, and to ask their family, friends and acquaintances to sign up and vote for their particular entry.

Carsala will blog and Twitter (#carsala) throughout the contest and add regular updates to the Carsala Fan Page on Facebook. The winners and their stories will also be featured on the Carsala web site and in a You Tube video about the competition.

The contest began Monday, July 27th, and will last eight weeks, through Sunday evening, September 27, 2009, at 11:59 pm pacific time.

So, c’mon! I know there are some funny stories out there! Share them and win a prize!

Buying a used GM car right now is a good idea even in the middle of what sometimes seems like a catastrophic series of events for the car company. It is important to keep some keys facts in mind and be aware of some of the myths being thrown around.

1. FACT: Sales for GM’s new cars set a high in May (up 18% from April 2009 by core brands: Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac) while GM Certified Used Vehicles, the industry’s top-selling certified brand May sales down 28 percent from May 2008.

What this means: As buyers rush to grab new GM cars, the used (but manufacturer certified) models are getting less love and dealers always love sales so negotiating a sweet deal on a 2008 or prior under their Certified program is in season.

2. FACT: Warranties on GM’s Certified Pre-Owned will still be supported by certified dealers and service centers.

What this means: According to Mark LaNeve, VP of GM North America Sales & Service, ” We will honor our warranty commitment given at the time of purchase to owners of current and future General Motors Certified Used and Pre-Owned Vehicles, such as the 12-month/12,000 bumper-to-bumper warranty for Certified Used and Pre-Owned vehicles, and focus on the customers’ needs from their sales to service experience.” Extended warranties are not always backed by the manufacturer and are sold on behalf of third party companies so those companies are responsible for claims.

3. MYTH: Leftover 2008 and previous years models have been sitting on the dealer lots and could suffer from “Lot Rot”.

What this means: Pretty much nothing because it is a bit of an extreme urban myth based on an interesting article about cars decomposing in landfills which states that metal head gaskets can begin to rot after 1 to 3 years. What they really mean is that rot can be accelerated if exposed “…to high moisture content, acidity and dissolved salts in the soil”. In other words, buried in the ground. Moving on.

4. MYTH: Your local GM dealer is closing as part of GM’s restructuring plan (or “reinvention” as GM likes to call it) so you will not be able to get your Certified Pre-Owned car serviced once they close.

What this means: GM vehicles will receive service and warranty work at closing dealers until they shut down. The remaining dealers will continue to provide service and warranty work and so you may have to drive a little further but there will still be twice as many GM service centers as Toyota centers.

5. MYTH: Hummer is going away but you can finally get the biggest vehicle of your dreams for little to no money.

What this means: Hummer is being tentatively being sold to a Chinese company who is expected to maintain Hummer service and sales after the contracts are completed for the brand’s ownership transition and although the perception is that Hummers are rotting on the lots, May sales for Certified Pre-Owned Hummers were the only GM Certified Pre-Owned brand saw an upswing in May (up 16%) Mind you, that was only 222 total vehicles across the country because those suckers still have a dollar sign as big as their carbon footprint.

Which car from GM’s Certified Pre-Owned inventory would I want? Well, I certainly wouldn’t say no to a Cadillac CTS.

This is a little quiz because Someone asked me (challenged me) what they should do about the side mirror on their 2005 Mustang that had a passenger side window that got knocked off (I am not asking how) but they are thinking of selling this car to get another car.

As a buyer AND as seller- this question made sense to me. Does anyone really care of the car is getting them to their destination? Or, as this car owner tends to want to believe, can you just Instant Double Epoxy the broken mirror back on because no one really cares.

A friend of mine told me a story about a her mother buying a car years ago. It seems that one day in the early 1960’s, after her husband had gone out for a pack of cigarettes and never returned, she found herself a housewife with 2 small children, a house payment, no job and no car. This lady, who’s strength and polish can best be described by her parachuting at age 65 years later, picked up the phone, called every dealership in town until she found one who would meet her demands. She wasn’t trying to get a free car. All that she asked when she rang them was one simple favor:

“I have the cash to buy a car for X amount and if you will come pick me up at my house so that I can test drive a car that fits that price, I will buy the car from you.”

Believe it or not it took her about 6 dealerships before finally a nice Pontiac salesman agreed to her request. She got the car, got a job that eventually became a lifelong career and she became self sufficient enough to raise her 2 children without any assistance from her deadbeat husband.

Flash forward to 2009. At a time when the automotive industry is finding itself in a wee bit of a slump, along comes a study that reveals that car sales people may want your business but they aren’t diligent about following up with potential customers despite all of the advances made in car shopping, buying and selling (eg, the internet). Phone leads alone are considered to be the gravy of the business with high success rates and fast turn around but a lead provider and training resource for the car dealerships recently analyzed the results of 3,000 customers who placed phone calls into dealerships after seeing a car that they liked on dealership websites and found that 3/4s of all such potential calls from buyers are ignored, lost or not followed through. And email exchanges were even more likely to be lost.

Some of the findings:

• 72% of dealers did not ask for an appointment with the caller.
• 35% of dealers did not suggest alternatives if the caller’s first vehicle of interest was already sold.
• 24% of dealer voicemail systems were full or not functional, so the customer was unable leave a message.

What does this mean for buyers? Frustration. It means that after researching and finding a car that interests them, unless they walk onto the lot and do the dealership dance, they will just move along until they find a salesperson who will talk to them.

In walks Carsala.There are more fish in the sea of cars.

What most buyers forget quite quickly when they see “the car” (and they fall in love) is that cars are mass manufactured by model and trim every year and that with a good database of similar cars with similar mileage and features, so the object of their desire is obtainable. By knowing what car a buyer likes Carsala can usually find that car, negotiate a price 15% and often more off retail “value” and all a buyer has to do is sign the paperwork with the dealership. No messing around with false starts, unreturned phone calls or negotiating.

For dealers, Carsala is also good news. It means that they are being presented by solid leads who are not virtually kicking tires so the turn around from negotiation to close is fast.

I dunno but it just seems that with buyers getting frustrated with dealerships and dealers getting frustrated with buyers, Carsala is a mediator who can get every one to meet their goals.

So you’re interested in buying a fuel efficient car, but you don’t have $25 grand to throw down on a new Toyota Prius?  You probably also noticed that leasing is dead and great loans can be hard to find.  There’s good news for you.  First, buy a used car and if you’re not sure why, check out my Top 10 Reasons for Buying a Used Car.  Second, you don’t’ have to buy a hybrid to get really good gas mileage.  It’s a myth and it’s propagated by our local, state, and federal governments that do things like give out subsidies for hybrid vehicles or use taxpayer money to help car manufacturers develop hybrid technology.  What’s really important is fuel efficiency - hybrid or not.

To generate this list, Google Trends was used to figure out which high fuel efficiency cars are searched for the most frequently on the web.  Here are the results:

There are a few surprising things about this list:

• 7 out of 10 are foreign made
• Toyota snagged 3 spots on this top 10 list
• Chevrolet nabbed 2 spots on the list (who knew?)
• Chevrolet Volt would be #10, but it’s not in production until 2010
• The Geo Metro and the Geo Tracker came close to making it on this list even though they aren’t in production any longer
• Dodge, Hyundai, Isuzu, Kia, Mazda, Pontiac, Saturn, Scion, Subaru, and Volkswagen should all have something on this list, but none of their cars came even close due to either a low search volume or the complete lack of a high fuel efficiency car

Now that you’ve seen the list, go out and get the high gas mileage car of your choice and make sure you buy one that’s two years old so that you’re getting the best deal, being environmentally friendly, and saving a TON of money using Carsala!