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I'm in the process of buying a used car and wrote a note to my business partner about how I wish a service like this existed. There's often a ton of communicat
by kareemm 13y ago
I'm in the process of buying a used car and wrote a note to my business partner about how I wish a service like this existed.
There's often a ton of communication between me and sellers to determine things like:
- mileage
- automatic / manual transmission
- whether car has been in any serious accidents
- whether there's any major upcoming maintenance
- whether the driver smoked
- whether the title is Clean
Then I need to get the VIN and run a CarProof (Canadian equiv. of CarFax).
Then, assuming it checks out, schedule a test drive.
Then, assuming the drive is good, get a mechanic's inspection done.
Then, pay and sign papers.
It's a royal pain, compounded by the fact that CL and Autotrader individual sellers seem to be a generally sketchy or uncommunicative lot: no email replies, missed appointments, lying about the title, etc. are all common.
Car buying won't be done like it currently is in 10 years from now; glad to see you're doing something to improve the experience.
- ValG 13y agoThanks Kareemm. We agree, too many things have happened in the tech and communication world for people to still be buying cars the same way they've been buying car. Thanks for the note.
- joe_the_user 13y agoYou know, I'm looking on craiglist in the Bay Area. It is pretty frustrating, I'll admit. All those things you describe would be nice but any service like that would inherently restrict you to those seller savvy enough to put all that stuff down. Most people don't seem like and so you'd be only scanning a small subset of available cars. Is having them presented in an orderly fashion worth having few listings - of course not. Yeah, the sellers and buyers are a real mixed lot. But an organized website can't conjure a whole new pool of buyers and sellers into existence.