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Carcostcanada: Better Prices For New Cars?

By Emma Kelly, 15 years ago

CarCostCanada looks like a handy service if you are thinking of buying a new car. It is an "invoice price service," which helps you find the best prices on new cars. Here is the actual line from their FAQ:

CarCostCanada.com is a new vehicle pricing information service that will help you buy a new car at a lower price.

Membership to CarCostCanada is $39.95+ GST or HST. That is a one off fee, and it appears to be lifetime membership.

For that fee, you get 5 price reports on models in unlimited option combinations (e.g. you're only charged for 1 report on many styles of the same car model). Here is what they give you in each report:

Each report includes the MSRP, the wholesale price and manufacturer incentive information. Depending on your location the report may also include a referral to one of our trusted dealers.

Now, I haven't used this service yet myself, I'm just blogging about it so you guys can find out more, and perhaps use Carcostcanada if you are interested. I had a bit of a search on Google to see what people were saying about it, and here are a few interesting comments:

CCC is a great option if you are buying a high ticket car.. BMW, Mercedes etc. Jeff-TheBiz

I don’t recommend car Canada, personally I thinks it’s a waste of $30+ bucks. Basically car Canada will contact most dealers in Ontario and find which dealer is willing to give you the best price “Big Deal, I can do that”. Your better off sitting with a salesman and negotiate the markup price of eight percent. jimgoose

To my knowledge, Carcostcanada also provides you with pricing info, but doesn't direct you to any dealers and it's up to you to haggle for the desired price after finding out the invoice cost. gheart008

Myself and my husband were in the market for a new car (our 2001 compact car had 180K and was on it's way out) and while we did some research on-line, the most helpful information was from Car Cost Canada, which we discovered through reading this blog. And based on the information, we saved about $1200 on our car purchase - on a car that our salesperson said "never gets discounted." Lisa

There are tons of sites in the U.S. that help car buyers get good deals, but this is the only decent one i found in Canada that actually gave me the info I needed to feel confident when buying my new car. Nat

So a mixed bag there. Some people saved a lot, but some people think you could have done the legwork yourself, and saved yourself the $40+. What do you think of the service, and have you used it? Let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for the pics Michelle Brea.

Comments

Joy
We have used this and found it very beneficial. We were in the market for 2 vehicles so it worked well for us. We didn't need to show the dealership the info since the dealership provided us with all the rebates on their own and also my husband got further discounts from his employer. But it was nice knowing in advance what we could expect and also make sure we were given all discounts available. If you have reports you don't use you can share them with friends (or sell them to them). I think I have a few reports left if anyone wants one! I believe they offer a discount off their fee if you have CAA.
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Mary J.
We used this service 8 years ago when shopping for our Infiniti QX4. I was 9 months pregnant and we were working with a dealer. The salesman would not move on price at all. He insisted on list. So we walked out, two weeks later after my daughter was born my husband sent out a request for quotes to dealers in the GTA using CCC. The ones interested called us. We got a call from Willowdale and saved 4K to 5K (can't remember exactly) from what the other salesman insisted the price was to be. I would recommend CCC to anyone and have told my story many times. It has been 8 years so the service might have changed over the years, but at the beginning it was excellent.
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Kari
We have also used this site and found it very useful. It tells you all the current rebates that the dealership is eligible for from the company (GM, Chrysler etc) that they may not tell you about that may enable you to get a better deal on the vehicle. They will also recommend dealerships that have been recommended by other members. We have used 3 reports of the 5 and each time they were accurate. On one occasion the offer the dealer made initially was $3000 over invoice cost to the dollar. The last time we bought a vehicle the dealer volunteered the invoice cost and it matched what car cost Canada had said on the report. I hate buying new vehicles as before we never knew if we were getting taken and these reports let you know how good a deal you are really getting.
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Anna
Thanks to all 3 of you for sharing your experiences!
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John
Big waste of money, find a dealer you feel comfortable and negotiate.
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