The AutoTrader Online Service is a great site to find new and used cars online
Written: Feb 18 '06
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Searching for a new car has evolved a lot from having to search through the want-ads, or by waiting for advertisements to come in the mail. The nickel advertisements are still a nice and quick way to find cars on sale out there, but the internet has really taken it to the next level. When you are doing car research, there is a site called Edmunds.com that will provide you basically anything you would want to know about a car. You can find out how much you should feel comfortable paying, miles to the gallon, and just about anything else that is important when buying a car. They are a great information source on the net, and are simply packed with great consumer information. When you have an idea of what you are looking for, that is when the AutoTrader Online Service comes into play for you. It should be noted that they are a partner site of Edmunds, so when you decide to start tuning in your search for a vehicle on Edmunds, you will most likely be linked over to this site.
The AutoTrader site is pretty basic when you start out your searches, but the biggest benefit is that they pack a ton of information into those search engines. Going to the main page you can choose to Research & Compare, Find Your Car, Sell Your Car, Look at New Cars, Check out Car Loans, or look through Insurance options. They lay out the site in a way that makes it quite easy to start out a search for basically anything in their database. I had used the site before when I was doing research on my Subaru Justy, but most recently I have been looking through it in order to find out everything I can about a potential vehicle. That vehicle that I have been looking for comparison pricing is an almost new 2005 Ford Explorer XLT. Basically I have been looking for one that doesn't have a lot of miles on it, and that I can purchase for a reasonable price. So, heading over to the AutoTrader site, I had an idea of what I was looking for already.
Getting there, I entered in the search information that I was looking for and I was off and running. They have a quick search method under "Find Your Car" which makes it really easy to fine tune the results that you want to see. First you selected what you are searching for, whether it be a used vehicle, certified pre-owned vehicles, new ones, or all of the above. Then you select the make and model of what you are looking for, the year range you want your results to be from, and then a price range that you are looking for. If you don't select specific values, you will get a ton of results, so they are just giving you these options to help clean up the huge list that you are going to end up with. Finally you choose the distance from your location (the zip code that you enter) that you want the search to go out to. So if you are looking for something within 10 miles you can select that, or widen the search to something like 300 miles from your area. This gives you many more results that you will be able to work with.
Clicking through the search engine (and really the only part where you will have to put in much thought) you are given the list of cars that fall into your search criteria. For my 2005 Ford Explorer, I gave it a 300 mile distance from my zip code, no specifications on price range, and it came back with 74 matches in my area. This includes dealers as well as personal owners, and it popped up one of the vehicles that I had recently been test-driving right over in Moscow, Idaho. For each result, you are given a photo (sometimes many photos) the make and model of the car, the current mileage, the price they are asking fro, and the number of miles from your zip code. That database is very interactive, and you can organize it by closest location, or by number of miles, or even how much they are asking for the vehicle. There is also an information sheet provided about what the vehicle has to offer and whether it has been "tricked" out with all of the great options.
The search engine gives you all of those results, but it takes it even further if you are looking at specific vehicles. Most of the results will give you phone numbers and web sites that you can call to work out a test-drive or see if you can haggle the price out a little. But by far the best things you can see are the Quality Checks for Certified vehicles, and the free full report of the vehicle history. These certifications and histories show exactly what the vehicle has been through, whether it has been in any accidents, how the car was acquired, and how it showed in all of the tests that it was put through. For instance the vehicle I was looking at had been purchased and brought to the dealer 3 months prior to me test-driving, it had been a rental on a Ford Dealer lot, and showed how many miles had been put on it since getting to its current dealer location. The information that you can find here will go a long ways toward satisfying anything you could possibly want to know about your car. A purchase like this is all about information, and AutoTrader really gives you anything you could possibly want to find.
Really, I had come across the AutoTrader Online Service by accident while using Edmunds one day. I noted that I found the site very informative, and when I went back to look at specific vehicles, I found it so useful that I just had to write about it, and spread the news about how valuable I have found it. Doing brief searches for other types of vehicles (including the new Ford Excort) I was able to find out valuable information about other options I had in my area. Having all of the options in front of you, and knowing that more than one dealer has the car that you are looking for is great information to have in your hands when you are going to talk to the dealer about making a new "deal." By showing that you have information that you could go to another dealer and get the car at the same place, people are way more willing to talk about different options on the purchase. With that in mind, there is no limit to the value you can put on using the AutoTrader Online Service. The site is very easy to use, the results seem limitless, and the site has an almost instant response to all searches. With the ease of use, and the quality results that you will get from using them, I highly recommend using the AutoTrader Online Service to figure out where you too would want to purchase your next new or used vehicle.
Recommended:
Yes
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