I plan to include advice on how to assess your needs, determine what you can afford, and how to take the stress out of your shopping experience. I will of course also cover how to know what to pay and how to use online resources for most of the information you will need.

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.

If anyone wants specific advice, I will need specifics. For example, state something like: “I live in Ohio and I am looking to buy a new Toyota Corolla. I want an S model. I am going to finance the purchase. I know I have good credit, I am trading a car and it is paid off.” I will also try and keep up with current myths and what is in the media.

For general advice: Take your time and use the tools available for research. If you have a bank or credit union, ask them to pre-qualify you for a loan (if you plan to finance).  If you are shopping by payment, stick to a car that based on your research will be within your goal. If a cash purchase, the same thing goes. Dealers will provide free vehicle history reports for used cars. They should also show you their inspection report and their service records as far as what they did to the car to make it ready for sale. More to come…