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Comment by mrfusion | Hacker News Reader

I was totally going to use them to buy a car next month! Are there any good alternatives? I can't handle anymore haggling and tricks.

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Well as the article said, try http://www.truecar.com/ I guess. Being in Canada, I was hoping that CarWoo would do well and eventually move up north. The car purchasing experience is terrible, and is very ready for a disruption.

I may be wrong but truecar doesn't remove the need to haggle?

Their website says "Negotiation Free"

I used truecar (through overstock.com, I don't think overstock uses them anymore though) 2 years ago to buy a sonata. It was a great experience, and quite a lot off sticker.

Zero negotiation, walked in with the paper, that's the price of the car.

I don't think you will get the deal of the century through them, but you'll at least not get screwed. Just don't let the dealership nickel & dime you on protectants & floormats, etc. If they can't honor the exact price, just go somewhere else.

I bought a car a couple months ago, and as soon as the sales manager saw a TrueCar page open on my phone, the negotiation ended and I paid the price on the phone. Pretty amazing how easy it was.

On the flip side of the other comments, I used the TrueCar service about 4 months ago. For the specific trim that I wanted (standard trim, not crazy options), several dealership websites had prices on them that were several thousand dollars lower than the TrueCar price, and that was before any negotiations happened at all. So I would use the TrueCar service again for doing research, but I am not confident of their ability to deliver a good "no haggle" price.

there is the "APA" car buying service in a couple major cities, if you pay them <100$ they'll get some firm quotes for whatever you're looking at. I've never used it personally but I've heard 2nd hand that it makes it easier.

http://www.apa.ca/purchasing.asp

Try http://unhaggle.com in Canada. I used them to buy my car and was very satisfied.

You can use a service like Costco:

http://www.costcoauto.com

In order to get the best deal, however, you will probably still need to haggle. You can use it as a starting point though.

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.

The service is still up and running. It is also run by truecar.

If you're planning to finance, TrueCar's whitelabel through PenFed Credit Union offers 0% financing for cars bought through them https://www.penfed.org/PenFed-Car-Buying-Service/?WT.ac=1242

I've used carbargains in the past and it worked very well. The service is almost identical to CarWoo's but they have been around longer. http://www.checkbook.org/auto/carbarg.cfm

Things like this have been around from at least the late '90s, I've used them twice, in both cases it was my credit union that recommended a company. I'd ask some credit unions.

Many credit unions that have a relationship with such a car-buying service typically advertise as such on their website.

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