TrueCar

I made a nationwide search for 2 specific new cars (BMW iX50 and Kia EV6) over a 2 month period. I used TrueCar to obtain pricing to avoid all the usual song and dance. In the end I purchased both cars, but had many hassles along the way.

The purchase offer does not mean anything. My purchase offer was $13775, then the dealer that they referred me to offered $7500, saying my car was not in high demand. That's the way it works, the offer has nothing to do with what a dealer will pay.

On Tuesday 11/22/22, I met with a sales associate at Shottenkirk Hyundai Granbury to test drive a 2020 Telluride EX in hopes of buying this vehicle I saw on TrueCar. The experience went just fine and I put $3500 down to hold the vehicle. Erin reviewed the Carfax report for this vehicle with me verbally and conveyed to me that the vehicle came from an owner in Arkansas. The next day I confirmed my financing with Navy Federal Credit union and went to pickup the checking funds for the vehicle. The rep proceeded to send me email with the Carfax attached. Once I reviewed this report, I could see that the vehicle was owned and driven in one of the Canadian providences for more than a year and the vehicle resided in Arkansas for less than 3 months.

Saves a lot of time spent in negotiation hassles. Also provides the inventory available within your neighborhood. No unnecessary trips just to know that the car is unavailable. It was really useful in deciding on the car. I bought my car and the dealership honored Truecar's price. Saved around 6-7 hours of negotiations.

This is useless. I've received 3 certificates and deals and no dealers honor their pricing. Need to rename this FalseCar. They just rope you in and then aggravate the crap out of you. Is there a way to have a nice buying experience? Haven't seen it yet.

It was very easy to sell my car. I just went to their website, entered my license plate, and *boom* I got a cash offer. I told them I have a higher offer from another dealer, and they quickly matched the offer. On the day of, selling the car was very quick, too. He did a quick car inspection, went to the bank with me to deposit the check, then we were done! Very fast and simple process. Liked it.

When I would like to keep my search local, 10 or 75 miles, instead it shows vehicles from other states as If I requested National search. Why would vehicles from other states come up, I don’t want to travel nor pay for delivery.

I was just checking car prices for 5 minutes, the next thing I know I’m getting texts and calls from pushy dealers - which is exactly what I was trying to avoid by going online. Won’t ever visit that website again.

With the hopeful understanding that the service that TrueCar is providing is the ability to obtain a "haggle-free" price that provides adequate profit to the car company while providing transparency to the buyer on what costs are appropriate, the price provided was minimal and did not provide any benefit. The absence of additional costs such as estimates of taxes, document fees, etc provided the benefit to the seller and not the buyer. There was no positive value to the buyer with this service.

Sorry to say that it started to be a possible good experience, however, the experience turn sour. Sour in that where there was a car with price noticed as available, there was no car available. Plus, contacted by dealers who did not have what I requested from distances that were impractical to travel to in purchasing a car. Of course, they did not have the car to begin with. That is my experience! I will try this ever again!