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CarWoo is shutting down

carwoo.com

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Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#71

Post by ams6110 »

uptown wrote: post #10

Am I the only one that doesn't mind the car-buying process? All it takes is the fortitude to sit through a litany of maneuvers trying to convince you to agree on a price - when you've got zero obligation to consent. Sure - it takes time, which is a scare commodity for many - but for the amount of money generally being spent, I've got no problem pushing a salesperson to get the price to where I want it.

I don't like the time it takes to get to their bottom line price. I only buy cars from private parties now. There's usually a little bit of negotiation but it typically takes about 5 minutes to get to an agreement... no mystery departures to a back room to talk to the "manager" etc.

I don't think buying a new car makes any sense anymore. At one time, when cars started to fall apart after 50,000 miles, it may have made more sense. Today, when with routine maintenance almost all new cars will go 200,000 miles or more with few major problems, it isn't a good deal. Let someone else take the depreciation hit.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#72

Post by MBCook »

grandalf wrote: post #30
MBCook wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a USAA member, I know they have a car buying service to make things easy.

I believe this may have been discontinued.

It's still there. Actually, I think I saw they've launched some kind of car selling service.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#73

Post by zequel »

lwhalen wrote: post #50
uptown wrote: post #10

Am I the only one that doesn't mind the car-buying process? All it takes is the fortitude to sit through a litany of maneuvers trying to convince you to agree on a price - when you've got zero obligation to consent. Sure - it takes time, which is a scare commodity for many - but for the amount of money generally being spent, I've got no problem pushing a salesperson to get the price to where I want it.

I personally love the car-buying process. I've bought all my cars (both new and used) the exact same way: * pre-select make, model, color, options, etc (this way I'm comparing apples to apples) * find various examples meeting my criteria on the market from different dealers/private sellers * get initial offers from all the dealers * get financing in-place - either cash or an approved car loan from your bank * Whichev…

Oh yeah, I hate the "what do you want your monthly payment to be" line. I hate being treated like an idiot also hate canned sales line, talk to me like a person not a mark.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#74

Post by sokoloff »

adventured wrote: post #34
stefan_kendall wrote: post #25

Cars are commodities, and should not be sold by salesman on commission. I'm not buying another car until mine falls apart.

This. All dealerships should be converted to car delivery and ordering centers (with one of each model for test driving). The middle man cost should be wiped out, and the business should move to an order > build > x days to deliver approach. Save buyers $3,500 on a $30,000 car, let them further and easier customize, and they will wait for delivery. Simply put, replace build car > sell car, with sell car > build car.…

I predict that in that world, the buy it today, drive it home tonight makes would capture market share. Honda already does a great job of building just one or two configs (very limited option space, other than color) and sells a lot of cars that way.

In an "Amazon Prime" world, few people want to wait 21 days for their new car is my hunch.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#75

Post by sokoloff »

__pThrow wrote: post #39
stefan_kendall wrote: post #25

Cars are commodities, and should not be sold by salesman on commission. I'm not buying another car until mine falls apart.

Depending on your preference for engaging in negotiation and buying and selling, there is a pretty reasonable model to show you should buy a typical 3 year old used car and then sell it around year 5 or so thus buying a car when it is still reliable has past the fastest part of its depreciation curve and selling it when it's about to fall down the reliability curve and still worth close to what you paid for it.

You save even more by buying at 3-4 years and keeping until 10 years or 150K miles. Cars today are remarkably reliable well past a 5 year mark. You'll have an occassional several hundred dollar repair. That's less than what most people pay every single month for their crazy car habit.

Plus, you only go through the aggravation of buying and dealing with your DMV 1/3 as often this way...

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#76

Post by jack-r-abbit »

ovulator wrote: post #70
jack-r-abbit wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a fond memory of going with my roommate when he was buying a new car. He had a decent amount to give as a down payment. Armed with the knowledge of how much the dealer pays, he basically walked in, said he'd buy a certain car for a certain amount and not more and handed them his down payment check. The salesman took the offer to his manager. He returned with a counter offer. My roommate didn't budge. After thr…

"Armed with the knowledge of how much the dealer pays" That is key, most of us don't have that.

I don't have a URL to give you but I know several sites have this info available. It is not a secret. You just need to locate it. So most people could have it.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#77

Post by tptacek »

vinhboy wrote: post #24

The TrueCar homepage ( http://www.truecar.com/ ) looks like one of those generic 404/squatter page.

I'm super confused by this (you're one of a few people to say it), because that page doesn't look spammy to me at all. A little corporate, maybe. The list of car links on the front page is workable as a UX.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#78

Post by staunch »

tptacek wrote: post #44

Anyone have any experiences with Truecar?

I started working at TrueCar last year on the SRE team, after my own startup failed to hit the moon. I'll be working with some former CarWoo employees I believe. TrueCar is good. I'd be very proud if I grew a startup to ~350 employees with $X revenue and it operated this well. The work environment is nice, the hiring bar is high, the product is the best available on the market, growth is essentially uncapped, and the CEO seems to actually know what he's doing. It most decidedly does not suck that our offices are right on the ocean, with a view of the Pacific.

Disclaimer: I do not speak on behalf of my employer or anyone else.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#79

Post by psyklic »

I used CarWoo for my first dealership purchase. I was not even considering buying a new car, so I just signed up on CarWoo on a whim. However, I was shocked at how low one of the offers was, only about $1-2K more than I was willing to spend for a used car. (I was also having major problems at the time finding a decent non-shady "newer" used car.)

I ended up buying new rather than used, and with only minimal hassle at the dealership. That said, if I had done a lot of legwork I could have found the deal independently, since it was advertised in the dealership's flier.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#80

Post by heelhook »

buss wrote: post #41
vinhboy wrote: post #24

The TrueCar homepage ( http://www.truecar.com/ ) looks like one of those generic 404/squatter page.

Oh wow, I wonder when and why they started using this design? If I saw this without already knowing about TrueCar I would have immediately closed the tab.

And the "trusted brands" links just before the fold looks a lot like the end of a page (probably because of the small font and gray colors).

On the first visit I didn't even realize I could scroll down, until someone mentioned there was more genuine-looking content further down.

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