Reverse Ebay?

October 16, 2009 6:21 PM

Used Car Buying Time! Is there a website that allows a user to enter the model car they want to buy with the amount they want to pay that dealers can look at and make an offer?
posted by meeshell to travel & transportation (3 comments total)

Not quite, but Auto Trader will at least find you used cars in your area with a fair amount of specificity (model, price range, etc.). But you still have to go out anddo the work. If you don't want to negotiate, CarMax will do that, but you pay a premium.
posted by rtimmel at 8:00 PM on October 16

Priceline used to do this before they scaled back to primarily travel.

Probably the closest you're going to get today is the various free quote services out there, such as on Autobytel.
posted by dhartung at 8:05 PM on October 16

No, it's not that easy. But you can use something like a combination of Cars.Com and Edmunds online to (a) find out what cars are for sale in your area and (b) figure out what an appropriate price is based on Edmunds True Market Value system, which logs prices actually paid for similar cars in your region.

Using that information you can email offers to used car dealers. YOu have to be really specific, and remember, if you need them to negotiate your financing, you're not quite in the driver's seat that you need to be in to make a hard and fast offer.
posted by Miko at 8:37 PM on October 16