CarWoo Blog

When I was buying a new car a few months ago, I found these guys to be invaluable: http://carwoo.com/

For new cars, there's always YC-backed CarWoo, a no-hassle car buying website: http://carwoo.com/ I haven't tried it, but heard good things. For a lot of brands (especially non-luxury Japanese) new cars are cost-effective right now.

Carwoo http://carwoo.com does something similar where the buyer submits what kind of car they're looking for, and local dealerships will submit bids, after which you can send them a counteroffer. The last time I used it was 2 years ago so wouldn't know if they've changed features since then.

There's YC-backed Carwoo - http://carwoo.com. I believe they are quite experienced guys and have built relationships with lots of US dealers. Even though any individual won't use such a service often, each sale is quite big in absolute terms (compared to other verticals I'm considering) and a lot of people buy cars. So, it is a big market but not one I'm currently thinking of, mainly because I'm only looking at stuff you'd actually order online.

http://carwoo.com/ ?

That's exactly what we do (http://carwoo.com) and it's free to shop one car. Acting as a buyer's agent is tough as you are considered an autobroker and there is a ton of state level laws around this kind of business. Some of them are extremely archaic, but are kept in places by an extremely powerful lobby organization. If you are interested look up the battle TrueCar became embroiled in recently because of some decisions they made in their business model. The end result was they lost over half their paying dealer network and half their revenue in a matter of a couple of weeks. They were disallowed from operating in a dozen or more states over night. They have recently had to completely change their product to come into compliance. Their aint no lobby like an auto industry lobby! :) It's a very complicated industry to move into successfully. We have done a good job (IMO) of navigating the mine field while offering a compelling service to Consumers and Dealers.

http://carwoo.com/ - YC company. I invested too. Yay!

How is it different from eBay Motors? Most of the cars have free carfax, they have cheaper pricing to get the car history and I am covered by eBay buyer protection [1]. eBay Motors: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Honda-Accord-EX-2008-honda-accord-ex-sedan-onl… Carwoo: http://carwoo.com/new-car-prices/T85363842-2014-mazda-mx-5-miata-2-doo… [1]: http://pages.ebay.com/motors/buy/purchase-protection/index.html

Neat stuff. Some of the data seems "off", for example: https://carwoo.com/new-car-prices/M80025559-2013-mercedes-benz-s-class 4 Door Sedan S550 RWD AVG MSRP $102,604 AVG PRICE $421,414 AVG DISCOUNT -290.0% How are you getting an average price of 421k?

What's the advantage of CarWoo over Edmunds? As a comparison I looked at the 2014 version of my current car: http://carwoo.com/new-car-prices/T85363842-2014-mazda-mx-5-miata-2-doo… Versus http://www.edmunds.com/mazda/mx-5-miata/2014/?style=200484585&sub=… Edmunds tells me what invoice is, what MSRP is, and what most people end up paying for each of the trim levels. I don't see much information on CarWoo, other than for the base model.

I came across http://carwoo.com/blog/design-tips/ the other day, I think on a post from here but not sure. I think it speaks directly to these specific questions.

http://carwoo.com/guarantee We give people their money back for any reason if they aren't happy.

CarWoo! is also in need of an awesome RoR systems engineer: http://carwoo.com/jobs

Unfortunately, you'd also: - get spammed by those dealers in a heartbeat, for 2-12 months after submitting the lead, even if you end up buying a car! - have to manage the negotiations over email, with at least 3 dealers if you want to be sure you're getting a good price (clearly possible, but not easy) - have to compare non-standardized "quotes", some of which are nothing more than a one-liner to the effect of "I'll sell you a 2011 Honda Accord for $22,390" with no mention of options - convince each dealer that another dealer gave you a better offer - go through a lot more back-and-forth than is necessary (to give each dealer the same feedback, to get them to lower their prices, etc.) If you've never used the lead system for buying a car, I encourage you to try it with a fake email address and phone number so you can see how bad it is. Some sites will sell your information not just to car dealers, but to mortgage companies, insurance companies, etc. It's not a pleasant experience. At the end of the day, though, some people prefer not to pay for convenience and that's totally fine. However, if you're hesitant because you think you might not get what you want, I encourage you to check out our 100% Happiness Guarantee: http://carwoo.com/guarantee We're very serious about making sure each customer is happy at the end of the day and if they're not, they get their money back. No questions asked. It's only fair.