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Review: Should You Get Price
Quotes From TrueCar.com?
How does TrueCar.com fit into the lowest cost buying system?
Well, I think it can fill a hugely important role. In fact, I recommend it be included to my "Best Way To Buy A New Car" strategy when helping friends and family members nail down the best possible new car deals, and pretty much stress-free as well.
Two Things I Really Like About TrueCar:
In my opinion, the best thing about TrueCar, and what really makes it an essential piece of getting the lowest out-the-door price, is that the first thing they do is actually show you a fairly nifty graph of what other buyers have already paid for the same vehicle! This is extremely valuable leverage to compare against when you are getting your quotes.
It's simply a huge advantage to be able to see the lowest prices others have already paid. This is because when you get your quotes, you'll know a great price when you see one ... indeed, knowledge is power. And you can also use these numbers when comparing your CarWoo quotes as described at the above link.
(Pleae Note: Unfortunately, CarWoo has just closed its doors and is no longer providing this service.)
Secondly, you get instantaneous specific price guarantees upfront before even finishing to signup (signup is free, of course). For example, I recently did this for a Cadillac CTS Sedan. The MSRP was $39,990 and the invoice price was $38,662.
What TrueCar does is have their "Certified Dealers" guarantee you a significant discount upfront, with no haggling necessary. In this case, for example, they immediately guaranteed me two dealer prices: one was $37,332 and the other was $36,622. What! One was already $2,000 below invoice cost without lifting a finger to haggle! This sure beats going to a dealership for the typical nightmare buying experience.
And then you can negotiate further if you like. These prices would already be a great deal (and you can accept one of them and just go to the dealer to pick up your car), but you can do still better as well. Once your signup is complete (just takes a minute or two), these dealerships will be identified for you along with their contact information. It's then an easy thing to simply email them and say something like:
"Based on your offer, I'm not prepared to purchase this vehicle at this price. If you'd like to submit another offer, I'd certainly consider it. It's up to you."
And believe me, you'll get lower offers. You can then continue doing this, pitting one dealer against another just by using email, until the offers stop. When that happens, you're at the lowest possible price. You can then accept it or walk away from the whole thing since you're never under any obligation at all.
What I Don't Like About TrueCar:
You're not anonymous like you were able to be at CarWoo. When your signup is complete, you'll see the dealer info and they'll also see yours, although they're not allowed to contact you until you are ready.
That said, most dealers will contact you appropriately via email, but if one doesn't and phones you instead, you are certainly free to say you are only looking at email quotes at this time. This has proven to be very effective because they don't want to lose your sale to a competitor who is honoring your preferences.
They also don't yet have the massive dealer participation available at Edmunds.com. I would strongly suggest getting quotes there as well because the more dealers you have competing for your business, the more leverage you have and the lower the price you are likely to end up with.
How To Do It:
The signup process at TrueCar is quite simple and only takes a minute or two ... it's all pretty straight forward.
You just head on over to TrueCar.com and select your make and model to see the actual low prices already available. Then just click the orange "Next" button to get your email quotes.
They call their dealer quotes "certificates", which guarantee their quoted prices. Each dealer emails a certificate and you then compare and negotiate from there.
The great thing about this overall process, in addition to getting simply outstanding prices, is that it is you who is in total control throughout. You can do this from home, your office, wherever and whenever suits you. And you don't have to sit there on a dealer's turf hour after hour under their control. Instead, you're the one calling every shot. How's that for a switch, huh?
So, head on over to TrueCar.com and have fun with this.
And let me know how you do.
(And don't forget to get quotes at Edmunds.com as well to maximize your dealer participation and bargaining leverage.)
All the best - Josh
(Our old CarWoo review can be found here.)
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