Here's one for the home team: Our sister site Edmunds.com has just released a new iPhone app that lets you do your car shopping anytime and anywhere from the screen of the ubiquitous mobile device. The app, which is free and available on the iTunes App store, combines Edmunds.com's proprietary pricing, research and new car inventory data to provide shoppers with a powerful portable tool for getting the best price possible on a new car.
As with the full Edmunds site, the app allows users to research new-car pricing, configure a vehicle and find local True Market Value pricing. Then you can locate cars at nearby dealers, contact them to get price quotes and have all the info in the palm of your hand when you walk onto the car lot. And the app has other exclusive Edmunds.com features.
These include configuring a car to your specs and being able to email the Edmunds Window Sticker with detailed info to yourself or to others, and saving car research and inventory and dealer searches to a Favorites screen. Using an iPhone's built-in GPS capability, the app also allow you to search for dealers near you, obtain their addresses and phone numbers and call and map them from within the app. You can also check out dealer reviews and their current car inventories.
The app uses the iPhone's easy touch and swipe controls to input info and search for cars. For example, in the New Car Research Screen you can wheel through 14 different choices under the Vehicle Type tab, while the Feature allows choosing everything from 4-wheel drive to transmission type. Touch the Location tab and you can use a slider to select a search from between 0-500 miles.
Download and the use the Edmunds for iPhone app the next time you're shopping for a new ride. Or else you can spend hours driving around wasting gas and doing the legwork yourself.
