How to Refine a Car Search to Help Me Find a Car for My Specific Needs
Several Internet tools can help you refine a search for your specific vehicle needs. The Edmunds and Car websites both offer a limited search feature to help you narrow down specific cars within your requirements. While you may ultimately fare better by searching a manufacturer's website to find out more about a car's features and options, the tools should offer you a start to finding out which cars do meet your needs. Learn which Internet tools you can access and how to confirm the information you find.
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Instructions
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Searching by Options
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Go to the Edmunds website to access the "Find a Car" tool or to the Cars website to access the "Vehicle Recommender" tool. See the Resources section. The Cars website searches as far back as 1997 while the Edmunds tool searches back to 2007.
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Choose the year of the vehicle you want to search. If you are interested in more than one year, you'll have to go back and search again. Use the drop down menus for either tool to choose your specified body style, seating capacity, fuel efficency, transmission or engine preferences and price range.
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Click on any optional features that you want in your car, such as leather, navigation or safety features. The Cars website also allows you to choose your towing capacity, transmission speeds and payload capacity. Once you're finished choosing your options, click the search button to view results.
Confirming Information
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Go to the manufacturer's webpage of any of the vehicles that you want to know more about from your search results. Manufacturer vwebsites offer information on new vehicles, but not usually on used vehicles.
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Click on the vehicle that you want, which should either be listed on the main webpage or under the "Vehicle" menu of the website.
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Read through the vehicle information menus to determine which options are available and how much you can expect to pay. You can also find out about different levels and review the specifications of each.
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Tips & Warnings
For used cars, go the Edmunds website to read the model review of a vehicle that matches your needs. At the bottom of the page, you can see a list of comparable vehicles that may not have shown up in your search results.
For new cars, use the manufacturer's website to research the model you want. When you enter this model on the comparison websites, you will see a list of common competitors who may also offer a similar vehicle.
Either search tool may not offer all of your possibilites.
Resources
- Photo Credit laptop image by Du...¡an Zidar from Fotolia.com
