Recommendation needed: Honda dealer & sales contact

[Wolfshoon]

True_car used to be a great deal, as they were an independent service with access to actual dealer invoice pricing. They gave real info on MSRP, dealer cost and hold back infomation and passed it onto you the consumer in an understandable way. It was very popular and dealerships had to pay Truecar to get on their referral list and dealership profits were being cut fairly significantly as a large portion of customers were using the service.

Of course the car dealerships didn't like all this good info being put out there for everyone to see, so they banded together and sued TrueCar. Something along the lines of "operating as a dealer without a license" or some similar BS back in circa 2015 IIRC. bottom line is the dealerships lawyers won and TrueCar was effectively gutted and part of the settlement was the dealerships now own TrueCar. So now it has essentially become an advertising venue for the dealerships.

That's too bad, I remember using Truecar back in 2013 and that made for a pretty good deal for me with all the info they provided. I made the mistake of using them again last year in 2017 and the info was maybe a 1/5th of what I got in 2013 and of no bargaining use and I got barraged with calls and emails from dealers. Not a good experience at all. I negotiated a much better deal by over a $1200 better than what Trucar said I should expect to pay.

[mousegun87]

True_car used to be a great deal, as they were an independent service with access to actual dealer invoice pricing. They gave real info on MSRP, dealer cost and hold back infomation and passed it onto you the consumer in an understandable way. It was very popular and dealerships had to pay Truecar to get on their referral list and dealership profits were being cut fairly significantly as a large portion of customers were using the service.

Of course the car dealerships didn't like all this good info being put out there for everyone to see, so they banded together and sued TrueCar. Something along the lines of "operating as a dealer without a license" or some similar BS back in circa 2015 IIRC. bottom line is the dealerships lawyers won and TrueCar was effectively gutted and part of the settlement was the dealerships now own TrueCar. So now it has essentially become an advertising venue for the dealerships.

That's too bad, I remember using Truecar back in 2013 and that made for a pretty good deal for me with all the info they provided. I made the mistake of using them again last year in 2017 and the info was maybe a 1/5th of what I got in 2013 and of no bargaining use and I got barraged with calls and emails from dealers. Not a good experience at all. I negotiated a much better deal by over a $1200 better than what Trucar said I should expect to pay.

This is my experience too with TrueCar. Used it in 2013 to buy my Camry. Got good data on pricing. I recalled how I was able to get dealer pricing from TrueCar and other data without being bormbarded with emails, phone calls, and txt messages from various dealerships in the area. I did not know about the lawsuit in 2015. So I used TrueCar again this year as I did in 2013. OMG. within hours of putting in my "Request for price", I got tons of email, txt, and phone calls from 3 dealerships (TrueCar only listed the nearest 3 dealerships). One of them was so aggressive that I had 4-5 people trying to contact me at the same time! I contacted their sales manager and told him that I would not be buying a car from them simply because of their overly aggressive marketing tactics even before I set foot on their lot. He tried to lower the offered price after I told him that. I still declined. I don't want to deal with people or organization who are that aggressive to the point they made my life uncomfortable.

Thanks for the tip. No more TrueCar for me.