The Auto Writer

I’ve been taking a look at this past month’s U.S. automotive sales and the news for most makes isn’t good. Almost across the board the car manufacturers lost 20% or more, demonstrating that $4 per gallon fuel is a bit hard to swallow.

While the news is particularly grim for the automakers, it is a buyers’ market for consumers. True, discounts on the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic would be hard to come by, but incentives for midsize and larger vehicles must be quite good.

Though I’m not in the market for new wheels I know of a few people who are. Some will go the standard way of shopping by visiting their local dealer for their next ride. One person mentioned that he has been searching on the internet for help, but he didn’t turn up anything special, until I pointed him to Carseek.com, a site that helps buyers find cars by allowing local dealers to submit their prices directly to them.

My friend was a bit hesitant to try this approach, so I decided that I would help him out by giving Carseek.com a whirl myself. What I learned from this experience was eye-opening; my findings I will share with you here.

So, how does Carseek.com work? Well, if you are familiar with obtaining mortgage quotes online, then Carseek.com operates much in the same way. Only thing is you don’t share as much information up front, just enough details to tell Carseek.com what make/model you want, when you plan on buying, plus share your name and contact information. I was glad that I didn’t have to give my social security number or credit card information either — the service is free and not all that intrusive.

Well, I decided I would tell Carseek.com that I wanted a 2008 Mazda6 knowing that this was the last year for that style as the 2009 Mazda6 would be all-new. Figuring that I would find a spectacular deal, I submitted my information and waited for Carseek.com to find four Raleigh, NC dealers who’d be interested in supplying their bids.

Ten minutes later my phone rang, but I assumed it was a telemarketer, so I decided not to answer it. Turns out that it was the first of four dealerships in my area who had quotes at the ready. The others contacted me by email as did the person who originally attempted to contact me by phone.

Within one hour after hitting Carseek.com’s submit button, all four dealer had contacted me. Though I wasn’t always given a price in the emails, I did get detailed information about product availability and the contact names and numbers of the person who could help me out. One dealer thought I wanted a Mazda6 with a manual transmission but said the only one he could find in the US was located in Minnesota! Turns out that I wanted the automatic, but I thanked him for checking this out for me.

The best deal I did find was for a base model retailing for just over $19,000, but that was before the manufacturer’s rebate of $2750. I didn’t pursue it further (remember, I wasn’t actually buying a car), but I figured that I could get an even lower price by bargaining.

So, what’s my take on using a service like Carseek.com? First of all, make sure that you want to be contacted by dealers with quotes. I was fine with that, finding it probably is the easiest way to research local prices. Instead of trying to find three or four Mazda dealerships in my area, then visiting each website, making contacts, etc., Carseek.com did all of the legwork for me.

Second of all, the service was free. At first, I wasn’t sure that it was, but then I spent some time on the site to read the “Car Quote” page and realized it was like the mortgage generator service I had used (and liked) in the past.

Lastly, Carseek.com gave me enough information to help compile what I needed to make a purchase if that is what I wanted. Each dealer was no further away than a half hour driving distance which was good — I was concerned that I’d get quotes from dealers in Greensboro or Fayetteville, which would have been useless to me.

Researching your purchases online makes a lot of sense, a great way to save time and money, and come away with a nice deal. I’m still about a year away from my next car purchase, but I’ll be returning to Carseek.com to help me find my next set of wheels.

Stock photo courtesy of Wikipedia.