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| HOME | US | CAR COMPARISON TOOLS |

US Car Comparison Tools

Okay, you've narrowed it down to two, three, four cars. Use these sites to compare them.

Some car comparison tools allow you to compare older cars to each other (rather than just being able to compare this year's models to each other). Bolded text saying "This car comparison tool allows you to compare used cars" at the beginning of the review indicates that the car comparison tool on the site has the capability of comparing older cars.

Compare Cars on Yahoo! Autos
http://autos.yahoo.com/newcars/comparison/select.html?

A very good tool that has several nifty features and information offerings that move it to the top of the category. If you're wanting to compare vehicles this is where you should start.

Pros:
You can compare up to four vehicles with the Yahoo! tool. If you have a Yahoo! account (who doesn't these days?) you can compare cars that you have saved in the My Autos section. The comparison report is very thorough and I especially like the links to reviews in the User Reviews section of the chart. You can save the comparison report, IM it or print it. Although it is rather blatant it may be useful to some people to have a direct link to receive quotes on a vehicle from a nearby dealer.

Cons:
You are not shown the price when you select the vehicle trim level but you are shown vehicles to the right that are directly competing models. You can only compare new cars.

Edmunds.com - Comparator - Getting Started
http://www.edmunds.com/apps/nvc/edmunds/VehicleComparison

One of the best of the bunch with only a couple of minor flaws.

Pros:
With the Edmunds' tool you can compare up to FIVE cars at once. Comparisons are quite detailed and list a variety of stats on vehicles as well as a short anecdotal section on the pros and cons of each vehicle.

Cons:
You are not shown the price when you select the vehicle trim level so it is difficult to ensure you are getting cars of comparable value. You can only compare cars back to 2007 (and even in 2007 only a limited number of brands are available for comparison).

MSN Autos Side By Side Compare
http://autos.msn.com/research/compare/default.aspx?src=LeftNav

Another tool that is not great in terms of the information you see but is mentioned because you can compare vehicles back to the 80s

Pros:
With the MSN tool you can compare up to three vehicles at once, and, as mentioned above, access used vehicle information back to the 1980s. You can easily search used inventory from within the comparison report. You can save individual vehicles to your msn account (with your Windows Live ID) so that they are quickly accessible for future comparisons.

Cons:
You are not shown the price when you select the vehicle trim level so it is difficult to ensure you are getting cars of comparable value. The report can not be printed, saved or emailed (the email link shown in the top right only emails the basic comparison tool page URL).

CarsDirect.com - America's #1 way to buy cars online!
http://www.carsdirect.com/

To access the research center click on the 'Research' tab on the main page. Then click on the Compare Cars link in the left-hand column.

This tool doesn't offer that much functionality over the other tools in this section of our site but it DOES allow you to compare vehicles all the way back to the 90s (for some manufacturers). This is a very useful feature.

Pros:
I'm not sure how many vehicles you can compare at once but I would say 3 or 4 is the limit in terms of what fits nicely on the page. The comparison report is not extensive but adequate. The real plus of this tool is the ability to compare older cars although this is not standard across different manufacturers (ie Audi you can go back to 1996, BMW only to 2001).

Cons:
You are not shown the price when you select the vehicle trim level so it is difficult to ensure you are getting cars of comparable value. You can not print, save or email the comparison report. If you opt to see all the data at once you have a long screen to read over - it would be helpful if advantages were shown in bold type so you could keep it straight which car is better than the other.

Autosite Research - New Car Comparison
http://www.autosite.com/

This is an okay tool although the information is only a page in length and is nowhere near as full featured as Edmunds or Yahoo!

Pros:
I'm not sure how many cars you can compare with this tool - I stopped at 3 because the page was getting too squished.

Cons:
You can only compare cars back to 2008 (so basically only new cars). Price is not indicated when you select vehicles so it is hard to know if you are comparing cars of equivalent cost until you get them up on the comparison page.

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