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Used car buying off Craigslist helps research car quickly

Author(s):

tech4computer

I was shopping for a used car on Craigslist and got tired of going to different websites for car research. So to make my task of browsing and researching the cars easier, I wrote couple of firefox addons which sort of evolved with time and use.

CNET news : Make car shopping on Craigslist less cumbersome
That's why browser extension Craigslist Car Research is so useful. It adds an entire layer of data on top of each listing to make it easier to both find out more about the car, and others like it for sale on Craigslist; all without having to leave Craigslist.

Lifehacker.com : Craigslist Car Research Extension Makes Used-Car Shopping Easier
"...provides all of that available information at the top of each page so you can quickly determine whether sifting through the posted ad is worth your time."

Features:

Works on Craigslist, eBay, Kijiji, cars.com, freebo, AutoTrader, AOL autos, Vehix, pickuptrucks.com and Yahoo Autos.
Gives estimated price from multiple sources. Also provides links for further research.
Factory car recalls for the car model.
Consumer reviews, this is the real gem.
Car reliability information. It shows the msn autos page focused at reliability section. This shows what kinda engine problems occur in that particular car. Other info is also there but reliability info is most useful on that page. Takes like 2 sec to get idea of how reliable that car model is.
Scans the posting and shows a highlighted message on top informing about:- accident car, rebuilt car, moving sale, one owner, suggests buyer to ask if the car was involved in an accident.
Lists similar (year/make/model) ads from Craigslist, Oodle and Yahoo Autos (cars.com). This gives the idea of going price and availability (supply/demand) of car. Car aggregator.
If there is a phone number in the post then it makes it easy to do a search of the phone number on Craigslist to find out if the ad poster has posted any other ads. This sometimes help in determining if its moving sale or a ad by a reseller etc.
Shows thumbnails from Flickr (Gives idea of what the vehicle looks like and the appeal factor)
Works well with my other add-on : craigslist car listing filter which filters the car listing.

T i p s :

Keep some of the features off for faster speed. Have all features on when looking at a potential buy.
For best results, use it with Craigslist Peek addon.

== I S S U E S -- & -- N E W - F E A T U R E S ==
* If having issues than use Google Chrome port of Craigslist Car Research until the issue is fixed.
* New Features first come in Google Chrome version of this extension and then in Firefox after couple months.

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