Did You Pay Too Much For Your Used Car?
According to TrueCar’s newly-launched Clearbook site, I did… a little. If you want to make sure you don’t overpay for your next car, you should consider making Clearbook one of the stops on your pre-purchase web-research tour. The site analyzes over 3.6m nation-wide listings and shows, by model and location, what the car you’re looking for sells for on average… a valuable tool, provided you already know what car you’re looking for. If you don’t know what you want the next addition to your garage to be, TTAC recommends you contact our own car-buying gurus Sajeev Mehta and Steve Lang, who lend their expertise to our readers every Tuesday and Thursday in their advice column “New or Used?” Whatever you do, do not just crack open a beer and start surfing Craigslist… you will definitely regret it. Remember, information is power!
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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I researched my 2007 Miata that we bought last May, and we still paid less than what it researches for now, so yeah, their prices are too high, but I'm sure, according to the comment above, that will be rectified in the coming months. Just another tool to enable you to do the very best you can in buying and selling cars.
Nifty little app. The price I paid for my car is near the high end ($6k), but I keep in mind the car in question 1998 and I bought it in 2006, when it was only eight years old. Buying an eight-year-old car today would mean buying a 2003 ~ the average list price nearly doubles. Craigslist can become an addiction. So many interesting vehicles for sale in the Delaware Valley...so much sketch...
That 5 minute flash intro is kind of annoying. I think I did alright on my purchase. It's saying that the low on my 1996 Subaru Legacy is $2900 and high is $3700, even with 172k miles on it. I paid a grand for it and rebuilt the engine and put some new brakes and struts on it. I could probably flip it and make a few hundred bucks on the deal, but I really like the car a lot, so I think I'll keep it.