As a few of you may have noticed, we've just launched a new sub-blog dedicated to helping people in the market for a new or used car. We have cleverly titled it CarBuying. The mission is simple: Give car buying advice that doesn't suck.
What do I mean?
Most of the sites on the web that help guide people to buy a new car make their money off of dealer referrals, which means if you request a price quote via their website that dealership will pay a referral fee to the website.
This gives websites an incentive to get you to buy a car and, it seems, to get you to buy the dullest car in any category. The beigeist common denominator.
I don't want to do that. I want to give real people looking for real cars (whether used or new) real advice from real car people. No, we won't recommend everyone go out and buy a Scion FR-S, but we might tell them why a Mazda3 is a much better buy than, say, the Toyota Corolla.
There will also be fun Craigslist or eBay finds, guides to buying used cars, tricks to saving money at a dealership, and open Q&A sessions to help guide you through your own car buying experience.
It's why we hired two people to run the site who don't know how to give boring advice:
Tavarish
Tavarish is the founder of APiDA Online and writes about buying and selling cool cars on the internet. He owns the world's cheapest Mercedes S-Class, a graffiti-bombed Lexus, and he's the only Jalopnik author that has never driven a Miata. He also has a real name that he didn't feel was journalist-y enough so he used a pen name and this was the best he could do.
Tom McParland
Tom McParland, a.k.a Automatch Tom, started out like many of you, he was the go-to guy for family and friends when they wanted to get some advice on purchasing their next ride. After brokering several deals, a friend said, "You should make a business out of this." In 2012, Automatch Consulting was born. Since then, Tom has been dedicated to working on behalf of consumers to find them the best deals and take the stress out of car-buying. In 2013 he began writing on Jalopnik's Oppositelock sub-blog where he published car-buying tips and other articles related to the industry. Tom has a slight obsession with wagons, and has been known to tell strangers they need new tires.
This is still an experiment and we have a lot to do to prove we can be of value and we'll need your help and feedback. Maybe people prefer dullness. Let's find out!
Photo: Shutterstock