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If you're shopping for a new car, you need to do our homework. Learning all you can and comparing different vehicles isn't easy, which is why there are tons of sites out there to help. This week we're looking at five of the best car comparison sites, based on your nominations and suggestions.
Earlier in the week we asked you where you go when you need to compare different vehicles against one another for everything from mileage to cost of ownership to average new and used purchase price. You responded with tons of nominees and specific tools on different sites that get the job done. We don't have room to feature them all, but here are the five that earned the most nominations, in no particular order:
Edmunds
Edmunds has been around for a long time. It started in the 60s with the company's printed books packed with information on various vehicles designed to help car buyers make educated shopping decisions. In the 90s, Edmunds started publishing more books, and distributed tons of car comparison and buying information via CD. They hopped on the web, and has been there ever since. These days most of the fuss is around Edmunds.com, which allows visitors to compare and contrast various vehicle models, see estimates of what real-world customers are paying for new and used vehicles, and overall give you a good idea of what your actual cost of purchase and ownership would be if you were to select a given vehicle.
Edmunds' car comparison tool is easy to use and direct, and allows you to do side-by-side comparisons of vehicles rather than research one vehicle and then have to go look at the site's stats on another. You can compare up to four at once time, and while the comparison tool isn't terribly robust, it's enough to give you a good amount of data to inform your shopping. In the nominations thread we mentioned those ups and downs, and many of you rallied behind it. Some of you highlighted the site's shortcomings, noting that you had issues with their pricing and impartiality, but others of you went out of your way to say the site had never failed you, and always been a great source of information that you may not find on other sites. You can read the conversation in its nomination thread.
CarComplaints.com
CarComplaints.com is a little less of a comparison site, since it doesn't have tools to directly compare one vehicle against another, but it does offer a ton of information on virtually any make and model of vehicle, including common owner complaints and issues, recalls, crash tests, active investigations, and any vehicle Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) the site can get their hands on. The site is well worth a look even if you're looking at the vehicle you already own to make sure you haven't missed anything, but it's also great if you're looking for the complaints and experiences of people who already own and have had experiences with the vehicle you're thinking about buying. Plus, you can add your own complaints and experiences to the site to give a little back, or search complaints on the site to see if anyone's having the same issues you are.
In its nomination thread, many of you supported the site by pointing out that its database of complaints is huge, informative, and often funny to read, even if you own a vehicle that someone has an epic failure or repair story about. You also pointed out that the site is particularly useful for showing you that even so-called "solid" vehicle models can have off-years, since the number of complaints is broken down by model, then by model year. You can easily see that, for example, if you purchased a used Nissan Altima, if you got a year other than the 2002, you dodged a bullet—and if you're looking at buying a used 02 Altima, you may want to think twice—the site has it listed as the overall worst model year for the otherwise well-regarded sedan. You can read more in its nomination thread here.
CarGurus
CarGurus has tons of new and used car listings for vehicles around the country, and while the site's primary focus is on helping you find a vehicle to buy, the site's research section also includes tons of information on virtually any make or model of vehicle you may be interested in. Just choose the vehicle you're looking at to read a comprehensive review, complete with scores, of the vehicle, based on test drive experiences, performance, look and feel, technology, and other factors. Current vehicle owners can submit their own review and photos as well and add to the overall wealth of the site. You can even check and compare how much the vehicle itself would be worth on the market with available listings to see if you can find a deal near you, or just use it as reference information for your other shopping.
In its nomination thread, those of you who highlighted the site pointed out that CarGurus is exceptionally easy to use, easy to search, and easy to get around. If you create an account you can save things like reviews and vehicles for future reference, not to mention post your own. A few of you noted that you've used the site to shop for vehicles before and it's been a useful resource. You can read more in its nomination thread here.
Kelley Blue Book
Kelley Blue Book is another mainstay in the vehicle research department. KBB arose in the 60s out of a much older vehicle dealership thanks to its well-known "blue books," which contained pricing information and deprecation information for vehicles on sale at the time, along with other useful buying and selling information for both vehicle owners and shoppers looking for the right vehicle to buy. In the 90s, KBB started its site. It was purchased in 2010 by AutoTrader.com and earlier this year Cox (yes, the cable and media company), the parent company of both AutoTrader and KBB, rolled them all under Cox Automotive. Through it all though KBB has offered a ton of useful information to buyers, estimated values to sellers, pricing guides for people looking to buy a car that are based on real-world purchase prices, and of course a comprehensive vehicle comparison tool that lets you put up to four cars side by side to see which one is the right one for you.
The comparison tool itself is fairly basic, but it does allow you to choose your make, model, year, and trim, and once you have a few cars in the comparison list you'll be able to see everything you want to know about each one. The comparison tool will show you how much you'll likely pay for a vehicle, mileage, warranty information, and more—and while it's definitely basic and geared to lay shoppers than enthusiasts, it's still a useful place to start your research. You can read more in its nomination thread here.
TrueDelta
TrueDelta is part car research site and part car comparison site, packed with real-world, owner-submitted information on tons of vehicles. The site has a massive database on everything from vehicle reliability, mileage, real-world cost of repairs, new and used car prices, and more. You can start with the site's search tool to find the make and model of vehicle you're interested in, or you can browse by category, sifting through vehicles with great mileage, notorious repair issues, or restrict your search to vehicles known to be reliable. The sheer volume of information is overwhelming, but that also makes it an invaluable resource when you're doing your car shopping, or researching specific models to see which one might be right for you, or what you might encounter with it if you drive it off the lot.
Those of you who nominated and praised TrueDelta highlighted those specific points as well. You called out its massive community of over 96,000 vehicle owners, all supplying real information about their own vehicles to contribute to the overall wealth of knowledge. Others of you highlighted that the sheer granularity of information available on the site—even to specific and minute problems and issues—is unparalleled. You can read more in its nomination thread here.
Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to put them to an all out vote to determine the community favorite:
There's no way we could possibly examine this category without giving a nod to our colleagues and sister site Jalopnik . They were definitely nominated, and had it been appropriate to include them in the top five, they would have made it easily. They should definitely be one of your shortlist destinations if you're interested in researching a new or used vehicle purchase, and you want the opinions of qualified enthusiasts, both in the form of the writers there and the community that makes it so great. Speaking of community, we should also give a shoutout to Oppositelock , Jalopnik's reader-run blog that's also packed with good information and tons of super-informed car enthusiasts (and general hilarity) willing to—as one reader put it—tell you all the details and things you need to know about every make and model of vehicle you could possibly be interested in and then tell you to buy a Miata anyway.
Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn't included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread earlier in the week . Don't just complain about the top five, let us know what your preferred alternative is—and make your case for it—in the discussions below.
The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at tips+hivefive@lifehacker.com!
Title photo by Dave S.
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