[cynicalkane]

For new cars, there's always YC-backed CarWoo, a no-hassle car buying website: http://carwoo.com/

I haven't tried it, but heard good things. For a lot of brands (especially non-luxury Japanese) new cars are cost-effective right now.

[astral303]

Dealers generally hate sites like CarWoo and TrueCar:

http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f46/carwoo-anyone-2746.html

Search that forum for lots of lovely language from the dealers about those two. TrueCar is particularly despised.

There is some positive feedback from dealers about CarWoo though, more so than TrueCar, so perhaps they figured out a thing or two better.

[dwj]

I think it's only the small-time dealers that hate carwoo. Have a look at the comment by Scott Salzman on that forum, which fits with my own experience. I bought my car through carcostcanada.com, and my local dealer couldn't even match the no-haggle quote I got through the site (their best offer was 1k more).

The dealer I went with was a high-volume dealership in the city. Not only was their price low, but they also were very friendly and helpful. It makes sense to use sites such as this - it's a huge time saving for both the customer and the dealer.

[nradov]

I used CarWoo a couple months ago to buy a new Subaru. It worked fine. Since I wanted an unusual combination of color, trim, and options it was helpful that I could leave my request open for a while and let the offers roll in from multiple dealers until I found one that matched my requirements. Personally I cared more about getting exactly what I wanted than paying the lowest possible price.

They could do better in filtering our junk offers. I clearly stated that I wanted a silver car without a sunroof but still had dealers spamming me with offers for a red one with a sunroof or whatever.