autoshopping

There are many online guides to help shoppers with the vehicle purchases. Kelly Blue Book, www.kbb.com, is one of the most popular. It is important to keep in mind that they are just a guide. They have a good enough database to help you get a rough idea of your trade. Just remember, they do not buy or sell vehicles - never have, never will.

They also provide invoice information for those shopping for new vehicles. This information can be very misleading as they do not include regional advertising fees that the manufacturers charge the dealers. Here is what you find, way down at the bottom of their new vehicle pricing pages:
“Please note that Dealer Invoice is the dealer’s cost for the vehicle only and doesn’t include any of the dealer’s costs for local and regional advertising, selling, preparing, displaying or financing the vehicle. Also, our prices include holdbacks and factory-to-dealer incentives which can lower the effective dealer cost in some cases.”

I never understood their reason for misleading consumers this way. They claim to be a “trusted source” yet they provide incomplete numbers. Even used car pricing is misleading. They ask for your zip code, but they do not provide regional numbers. They appear to use several months worth of data. It is based on dealer reported numbers by the way, has nothing to do with the more reliable auction and wholesale reports that dealers use.

My point here is, use this or any other site as a guide. They are not an authority, they make mistakes. They can have an incorrect rebate, list options or colors that are not available, even list model years no longer available. This goes for all of these sites, including edmunds, cars, autotrader, vehix, even consumer reports.

There are several ways to learn your current vehicles value. There are posted price dealers that promise to provide a “offer to purchase” good for about a week. There are also independent buyers, they will come to you and provide a written offer.

As for new vehicles, use multiple resources, not just the 3rd party consumer sites. There are major fourms populated by owners of every brand, even specialty sites for specific models. For example, scionlife.com, siennaclub.org and toyotanation.com. Each has sections for members to discuss their potential purchases. Of course they also have sections where current owners are discussing their problems on top of sharing their satisfaction with their vehicles.