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!

While going through our list of entries to the recent “Worst Car Buying Story” contest that Carsala held, I was very interested to see that the winner was not a gearhead that I immediately recognized from either the Carsala Twitter followers, my Twitter or our FaceBook Fan Page. Being the nosey person that I am, I Googled the email address of the winner prior to contacting him and ‘lo and behold, not only did we have a gearhead winner but an award winning automotive journalist and photographer!

Our winner (and new friend) is Jan Wagner of San Diego, California, author of AutoMatters.net and he is just the nicest person. Originally from Alberta, Canada, Jan has had automotive columns in multiple newspapers and just loves what he does. He has enjoyed racing autocross for years and has some truly wonderful photos on his website of events. One of the most amusing things that Jan covered was his series about his cross country drive from California to the New York Auto Show in a Smart Car for ZAP!

Jan and I were both headed to the Orange County Auto Show in Anaheim for the “sneak peak” for the press and so we agreed to meet, have a chat “in real life” and grab a photo.

At the OC Auto Show

This photo is one I took with my measly point-and-shoot which I was a bit embarrassed to pull out in front of Jan because he has a Nikon D3. He is serious about his cameras: so serious that he was immediately telling me his plans to upgrade to the Nikon 3Ds. But if you look at Jan’s photographs you immediately see how much he enjoys capturing cars in action and at rest.

His winning entry, Used Lotus Super 7 Nearly Ended My Marriage Before it Began, is a really funny story and I can tell you now that Jan still has a penchant for tiny cars to take to autocross (he has a Miata for that now) but he is still single (with 2 kids in college) and hits as many automotive events as he possibly can whether they are track races, off road, auto shows, car shows or OEM sponsored insider presentations.

Carsala and I are very happy to have met Jan and hopefully he will be sharing some of his own stories soon right here!

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?

There was a study that I came across recently that was done on consumer behavior and how touching an item physically dramatically increases their chance of buying that item regardless of price. Now you know why dealers want to get you on the car lot!

There are a bazillion tools for doing online research when you want to buy a used car. Professional reviews, consumer ratings, industry value reports and referrals to car lots that might have a car that you are considering are all pretty easy to come across while surfing the web. As much as you like to think that you are prepared when you arrive on a lot there is always that moment when you see a car that you weren’t considering; it could be a newer model, have less miles, be a different trim or be completely different than anything you had every considered and now you are second guessing yourself and all of that armor of research you did.

Carsala now has a free tool that you can use on your iPhone while you are standing in front of the car that is making your mind race and help you answer some questions quickly. By going to http://www.carsala.com/pricecheck/ on you iPhone you simply enter the 17 digit VIN number found on the driver’s side of the dashboard, your ZIP code and the sticker price.

What next?

• Carsala will tell you if this car’s make/model/trim/mileage is common in dealership inventories
• The dealer’s asking is price is rated out of 4 possible stars & if the price can be had better elsewhere or be negotiated better by Carsala, it will tell you
• Carsla’s Self Service or Full Service tools for finding and negotiating similar cars of the same year, make, model, and color (if selected), with equal or fewer miles, and the same number of doors within 200 miles of your ZIP are offered as a next step.

Just to show you in more detail how the site will work, I put a VIN for a 2005 Honda Civic in my area in the Price Checker and when I followed the link to the self service tools, the Carfigurator showed me that there were 639 cars in my area that matched that search. Maybe the one in front of me isn’t such a good deal at $13,995.00 because it indicates that 3 Killer Deals can be provided to me to go see for $9.99 on my own.

What if you had just gone with that car in front of you? Now you know that armed with an iPhone, BlackBerry, Google Android or any other phone that has browser capabilities, you can know for sure that you have choices and are paying the best possible price for a car in your area.

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)?

Aronado from www.startuplucky.com featured and interviewed Tyler Elliston, CEO of Carsala this week about how Carsala started, personal experiences of his venture into the start-up world and where Carsala is headed. They have titled the interview:

#Startup focused on a saving money, Carsala.com. We like!

Yep! All of that in under 15 minutes! Tyler got to speak a little via Skype Video about the official launch that began with a contest last week and Aronado and Oz Sultan enjoyed beverages at their location du jour, the Roger Smith Hotel.

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!

The reasons for buying a used car keep piling on top of each other as if they’re trying to protect us from whatever is at the bottom of pile.  Well, something came out of the pile and it could make you sick… literally.  The highly coveted new car smell turns out to be an unpleasant concoction of chemicals such as arsenic, toluene, and formaldehyde that comes from the outgassing of materials used to make cars  - things you would never use at home to freshen up the smell of your bathroom.

Europe seems to be more progressive in this area, but Europe is working on an entirely different aspect - allergies to common materials.  Removing materials such as latex, chrome, and nickel is great for the allergy sensitive people, but why isn’t arsenic in this list?  Probably because we don’t talk about “arsenic allergies.”  After all, it’s a poison so I guess were all technically allergic to it. Right?

What about Toyota?  They are a progressive car manufacturer and have their environmentally friendly image to preserve.  Bill Kwong, Toyota’s Product Communications Manager, says they “strive” to meet Japans voluntary vehicle volatile organic chemical (VOC) standards set by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association by 2011.  It feels like lip service to me, but I will dedicate a blog to praising Toyota if they prove me wrong.

Max Gates, Chrysler’s Safety and Regulatory Communications Spokesperson, says the organizations that independently test cars are using, “scare tactics,” and making claims with, “no data to support any claims of risk.” Wow.  Where do I start?  First, it’s widely acknowledges by the car industry that chemicals gasses such as arsenic, toluene, and formaldehyde are in new cars.  Second, science has shown that these chemicals are harmful to our health.  Third, places like the Ecology Center have found new cars to be the, “most universally contaminated environment that we spend (our time) in.”  Does Chrysler want somebody sit in a car until they get sick to prove that it’s harmful?  Better yet, why doesn’t Chrysler spend $100K on an independent study and put this to rest ?  Lip service, lip service, lip service.

Used cars end up being a great way to reduce your exposure to the harmful chemicals in new cars.  Outgassing, a process where materials release toxic gas, is highest when the materials are new and go down significantly over time.  Buying a two year told car could be a very smart decision if you’re as concerned about these gasses as me.

Don’t be too pessimistic here.  Car manufacturers are really trying to remove these harmful gasses from new cars.  However, with car manufacturers across the globe having a hard time surviving, I’m betting that returning to profitability and developing new fuel efficient cars is a much, much, higher priority than removing chemicals from cars - especially since that most people don’t realize the smell is harmful.  Until I start seeing “Chemical Free” labels on new cars, I’ll stick to buying used cars and get my great deal through Carsala.

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!