RateltAll
Rates Everything
You
may pick up some ideas of your own about purchasing
a vehicle from hearing or reading about the experiences
of others online. Consider, for example, visiting
www.rateitall.com,
where people regularly sound off about all kinds
of products — from graduate schools to their
favorite authors. And, of course, you can find
plenty of car talk on this Web site.
Click
the Cars and Vehicles link on the RateItAll home
page. You then see a list of vehicle categories.
Click SUV or whatever category of vehicle interests
you. You find ratings of up to five stars, along
with comments about the vehicles in question.
You can sort the comments by gender and age (to
determine what the people most like you think)
or sort them by rating. You can also add your
own comments or even suggest a new topic.
If You Live in Milwaukee (Or Anywhere Else)
You
can also find online ratings for dealerships in
your local area — candid opinions written
by your very own townspeople. If you live in Milwaukee,
for example, you can check out the Web site that
you find at www.dealerreview.webhostme.com.
This
is someone's personal Web site (unsupported by
lots of corporate dollars) that the owner maintains
in his spare time, but he says that he hopes to
expand it to cover all of Wisconsin.
Search
the Internet to see whether you can find a local
or state site similar to www.dealerreview.webhostme.com
in your area, where people can comment on their
experiences with dealers in your area.
This
Milwaukee site includes dealer history, a rating
for each dealership, and comments from readers.
You can add your own comments as well, Expect
sites such as this one to spring up all around
the country, because.., well, it's a really good
idea. A dealership-rating site enables you to
amplify your word-of-mouth information and recommendations
way beyond your immediate circle of friends, co-workers,
and acquaintances. Remember, however, that personal
opinions are highly subjective. But they're also
highly candid. Just as you can expect frank talk
about a dealership around the office coffee machine,
you can also expect it at such locations online.
Trying
Consumer Democracy
For
a good source of experiences and opinions from
others who've tried and tested the vehicle that
you're considering, check out the Consumer Democracy
Web site (at www.consumerdemocracy.com/cars.htrn).
Here
you find all kinds of opinions on various topics
relating to cars. (You find information about
many other consumer items as well because Consumer
Democracy doesn't focus only on cars. You can
also find opinions and experiences relating to
printers, toys, golf, and much more.) Consumer
Democracy provides stats, reviews, acclaim, criticism,
ratings, comparisons, warnings, and other kinds
of discussions and reports about nearly every
type of vehicle that you can want.
To
access Consumer Democracy's car reviews, follow
these steps:
1.
Go to www.consumerdemocracy.com
by using your browser's address feature.
2. Click the Cars link on the Consumer Democracy
home page (or choose SUV or Truck).
3. Click the Enter Consumer Democracy link.
You must agree to a User Agreement to continue.
4. Click the Lagree link to go to the registration
form.You see a form where you briefly describe
some aspects of yourself.
5. FIll In the form and click the Submit button.
You see a welcome page.
6. Click the Click here to make your contribution
link. You are asked to provide a review of
a product of your choice that you're familiar
with-to help others make their buying decisions.
7. Fill In the review form, describing why
you like, or don't like, a consumer product. It
can be a car, a computer, whatever you have an
opinion about.
8. Click the Submit button. You now see
a list of reviews of items in the same category
in which you just submitted your review. The reviews
are listed from best (five stars) to worst (one
star). At the bottom of the list you can request
to order the list by manufacturer.
TIP
You can always search a list like this one by
using the search feature in your browser. For
Internet Explorer users, just press Ctrl+F, then
fill in the search term you're interested in.
To see all 27" televisions, for example,
type 27". Click the Find Next button and
keep on clicking it to see each match.
9. Click the Go To Consumer Democracy Home
Page link at the top of the reviews page.
You're now in the main page. On this home page
you can select the Popular Products feature, offer
more opinions, view others' opinions, or search
for a particular item.
10.
Click the Browse Categories link. You see
a list of broad categories. To view reviews for
a Lexus, for example, continue as follows.
11.
Click the Transportation link.
12.
Click the Automobile and Truck link.
13.
Click the Passenger Cars link.
14.
Click the View Reviews link. At this point
you can locate the car you're interested in by
pressing Ctrl+F and searching for the model or
make.
Live
Chat for Instant Answers
For
the woman motorist The
concept may not be totally PC, but some sites
devote their information to women only. Even if
you're not a woman, you still may find some information
of use to you at the Woman Motorist site (at www.womanmotorist.com
on the Web). The site isn't chauvinistic, however
— you do find reviews there by both men and
women.
This
site offers a complete panorama of varied topics,
including reviews, maintenance, tips on buying
a used car, safety, a glossary, Q&As, new-product
features, and, of course, a chat feature. The
chat feature also connects to the Talk City site
and is open 24 hours a day. Coordinators are online
all the time to answer questions. The Auto-General
chat room is always open for wide-ranging discussions
of topics relating to automobiles, and the Auto-Garage
chat room is for specially hosted discussions
of all things automotive.
Talk City delivers
Talk
City (at www.talkcity.com
on the Web), a famous site, offers quite a bit
of online activity. You can find chat rooms, famous
people leading discussions, polls, photo galleries,
and much more at this venerable, active site.
Click
the Autos link in the What Interests You? area
in the middle of the screen, and you access the
Auto interest page.
Click
the View a list of Auto chats link. You see a
list of the currently active discussions for this
category and the number of participants in each.
As you can see in this page, 18 people are talking
about classic cars, 6 about autos in general,
13 about motorcycles, and a few others about various
other topics. (But what's going on in the Auto-Audio
room, where only one person is talking?)
If
you choose to enter a chat, click the appropriate
link.
Registered
members get some nice "prizes" at the
Talk City site: free e-mail and a free home page.
You can still chat, however, even if you don't
want to register at this time. Choose a user name,
and you see a message asking whether you want
to download the Talk City chat software. Agree.
The download only takes a few seconds, and you
then find yourself right there in the chat.
Another
interesting feature of the Talk City chats is
that you can create a chat room (topic) of your
own. Just click the Create A Room button in the
lower-right corner of the chat page, and you're
off and running. You can then sit around in your
new chat room and hope that others join you in
your new discussion topic.
Locating
other popular chat centers
Many
competing chat centers and message boards reside
out there in cyberspace. You can give any of them
a try to see whether any particular one is currently
a hotbed of car talk. The following list offers
a brief rundown of some of the most highly rated
gab sites on the Web:
-
www.rernarq.com
includes an active auto message board.
-www.powwow.com
offers both chat and instant messaging (including
voice messages).
-
www.topica.com
focuses on e-mail lists of people with various
special interests, including — you guessed
it — vehicles. As TopicA puts it, "TopicA's
service helps you easily find people, discussions,
and information on virtually any topic."
-
www.askme.com
boasts more than a million visitors a month who
pose — and answer — nearly every question
under the sun. You can also browse through its
archives of more than 125,000 past questions and
answers.
AOL,
the popular choice
You
can find one of the biggest and oldest chat centers
around within America Online. You find a lot of
chatting going on there. And, just as you can
at Talk City, you can start your own chat room
to discuss the topic of your choice (such as a
room that you design specifically for Honda owners)
to solicit opinions on that particular make of
vehicle you're eyeing.
And
while you're on AOL, don't forget to visit its
Auto Center. Click the Keyword button (at the
top right of the main AOL screen), type Auto in
the Keyword dialog box that appears, and then
click the Go button.
Understanding
Lifestyle Factors
How
you live, what you enjoy, who you are in your
own eyes — these factors can prove significant
in choosing something as important (and with as
many variables) as your personal automobile.
To
increase your odds of forging a happy marriage
between your personality and the car that you
buy, I suggest the following course: After you
ask others in chat rooms how they feel about their
cars, ask yourself some questions. Your answers
can help you assess the views that others express
and, therefore, determine whether what others
like about a car corresponds to your own values
in a vehicle. To help you in asking the right
questions, I recommend that you try the AOL Decision
Guide.
Click
the Decision Guide link on the AOL Auto Center
screen. A profiling feature then appears to help
you decide what car is best for your lifestyle
and personality type.
A list of lifestyle types appears at the bottom
of the Decision Guide screen: Commuter, College
Freshman, Executive, Soccer Mom, Sport Driver,
Weekend Warrior, and Jealous Nerd. Well, Jealous
Nerd doesn't really appear in the list, so if
that description fits you, you can't just click
one of those predefined lifestyle types to see
the car that fits your type. If, however, you're
a soccer mom, you can go ahead and click that
link. (If you do click the Soccer Mom — or
any other of these preset options — and then
decide to set up your own custom profile instead,
you can click the Return to Start button to get
back to the beginning of the profiling feature.)
To
fill in your personal profile, follow these steps:
1.
From the Decision Guide start page, click the
Q&A button. The process of creating your
custom lifestyle profile begins with the Car Type
page.
2. Select the check boxes describing the model
year and car type that interest you.
3. Click the next button (at the top-right
corner of the screen). The Price page appears.
4. Move the money slider in the middle of the
screen by clicking and dragging it with the mouse
until it indicates the maximum amount of money
you're willing to pay and then click the Next
button. You now go to the Size page.
5. Define the size options that matter to you
and then click Next. You now see the Features
page, where you can decide which options are essential,
desirable, or relatively unimportant to you.
6. Select the appropriate radio buttons for
each feature and then click the Next button. You're
now at the Safety/Ratings page.
7. Select the appropriate radio buttons for
how much each safety feature matters to you and
then click Next. The Technical page appears.
8. Indicate any specific technical requirements
that you have by clicking the check boxes for
those features you require and then click Next.
Must you have four-wheel drive? An automatic
transmission? Click the check boxes wherever something
in the list is essential to you. If a feature
doesn't matter to you, leave its check box clear.
If you need additional information, click the
blue links (Engine Type, Transmission, Drive Train,
and Brakes) for definitions of these technical
features. You next access the Manufacturer page.
9. Click radio buttons on the Manufacturer
page to indicate how much you favor (or to eliminate
from consideration) the various auto makes and
then click Next. The Overall Opinion page
appears.
10. Click the appropriate radio buttons to
spell out how much weight you give to each of
the major categories on this page and then click
Next. You now see a list of cars that match
your criteria. Vehicles that survive your paring-down
process appear on the Decision Guide's Results
page in order of how well they match your needs
and wants. In my case, I have 139 cars left after
my own exercise with the AOL Decision Guide. Two
BMWs match my lifestyle 100 percent. (The 139th
car on the list, however, gets a compatibility
score of only 64 percent.)
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