TRUECAR: How to find prices actually paid for a given new car make/model...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

They advertise that they’ll show you actual prices paid in your area. But when I go to the website, I can’t figure out how to get this information. Instead, there’s a button to click which gives my info out to dealers who will then contact me with deals. I don’t want that (yet). I want to see what actual people are paying.

Anyone know how to get this data?

Thank you in advance!

F

2

While I remember using the site a few years ago in the way you are interested in, more recently I have not–so I don’t know if the information is buried somewhere or that advertising is now just a scam [their interest is to get commissions from car dealers].

3

In the State of Confusion, I mean California, if you go to a dealership and ask to see the invoice for a new vehicle, the dealership MUST show it to you.

Granted, you may need to wear hip boots to wade through the bullshit first, but press onward, for the law says you get to see the invoice, of what the dealership paid.
~VOW

4

You don’t pay the retail sticker price and the dealer doesn’t pay the wholesale invoice price. The invoice is just the suggested wholesale price. There are holdbacks, quota bonuses, etc.

5

I’m talking about the invoice from when the dealership purchased the car (not the sticker on the window). If you ask, the dealership MUST, by law, show it to you.

The holdbacks, bonusesm quotas, blah blah blah get placed on top of the dealer invoice price.
~VOW

6

TRUECAR is bullshit. Every new vehicle I’ve purchased in the past 15 years has been a helluva lot cheaper than what they suggested I pay. If you know what you’re doing you don’t need nonsense like them.

7

Edmunds True Market Value tool claims to use real sales data. I’ve also found anecdotal sales info on car forums where there’s sometimes a discussion topic about price paid. And while it’s designed with leasing in mind, a lot of people post about negotiating car prices on Lease Hackr.

8

TruCar IS bullshit. Customers shouldn’t rely on it and dealers that aren’t “a certified TrueCar Dealer” just ignore it. It’s fading as a service anyway. I hear a lot less about it now than I did two years ago either from customers or on radio advertising.

9

Thanks all. Yeah I kind of figured it was BS.