Show HN: CarCheck – Car Buying Checklist App

It feels a little incomplete.

There are two or three competing use cases that are currently commingled - choosing between models, choosing between offers, or choosing whether a particular unit you've gone to see is up-to-snuff.

There's a certain set of data I need when want to decide whether I want a Highlander, a RAV4, a Prius, or a Crosstrek. All of this data is available to you as the app developer, but currently manually entered. I'm considering these options from my desk, and would prefer to do it on a web page, not on a phone.

There's a completely different set of parameters when weighing the 2020 RAV4 with 60k miles at Joe's Auto in Hudsonville versus the 2018 Crosstrek with 80k sold by private party in Grandville. For this decision, I'd love if you could scrape a posting that I copied the URL for from Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Auto trader, Carvana, or a dealer listing! For this decision, I particularly like a bubble chart: Price on the Y axis, mileage on the X axis, bubble diameter by year, and colors for different models or different vehicle types. You want the biggest one in the bottom left, and these can be all over, especially with older private party sales. And there's more opportunity for you to offer value with your much greater data set, comparing these bubbles to Edmunds/KBB/recent sales values.

This is also trying to be a third thing, an app I bring along with me when I've found a particular unit that I want to test drive.

There's definitely an opportunity to follow along and help at each of these three steps in the process, but it doesn't feel like a single workflow will work best for all three.

I’d also agree Tesla is definitely weak on taking customer input.

For (3) you have to not only press the brake, but also pull the stalk down or whatever other gear shift of the month button it is, at the same time. I’ve encountered times when you have to pull (the stalk) twice in quick succession if once doesn’t do it.

We don’t have any backups. Hahaha! :)

But I don't think you should be worried about cars.

Human-mediated temperature excursions are not the problem.

In fact, we should embrace it to prepare for the larger temperature excursions that result from the planet's natural cycles.

Good practice. Hahaha! :)

If you want an example of an 'odd' case for your app, one thing I would never expect, is that my car dealer apparently recently titled my car in VA while I live in MD, although I bought the car six years ago (I discovered this when I tried renewing my MD tags and was told my car had been titled out of state). In effect, they have just stolen my car through sheer incompetence even though it's paid off and all the documentation show I owe it. Maryland MVA say there's nothing I can do until I get the dealer to sort it out. Needless to say trying to get through to anyone in their tags and title office, or getting a response from their manager has been difficult because I'm not buying a new car. So I think the app needs to call out bad dealers and those whose back office is incompetent (I'm never buying a car in Virginia again after this, no matter how cheap it is).