New Prius prices

[zed04]

I recently started a public database project on new car prices, and I thought members here might find it useful (happily Danny agreed.) It’s called wikiworth, and it’s a free database that lets drivers anonymously share what they paid for their vehicles. It’s designed to help answer the old question - What’s a good price for this car? - and to help people negotiate better. It’s sort of along the lines of wikipedia, but for new car prices.

The site is all free and anonymous, and the info is searchable by make and model. It also allows drivers to rate the deals in the database on a scale of 1-10, so users can understand what are good prices on specific models, option packages, etc. Wikiworth is not a forum and has no message board features – Priuschat is already a great place for pricing discussions, and we hope the info on wikiworth can help feed some of them.

Yours is one of the first groups to know about the database, and since it’s in pre-beta, there’s not a lot of data in it yet. I’d like to ask anyone who is interested to take a look, and if you’d like, to anonymously add your own new car info. I’m still tweaking the site and adding new features, so I’d also be interested to hear any thoughts you might have.
The site is at www.wikiworth.com.
Thanks,
Drew

[sl7vk]

Just added mine. Pretty painless. Don't but a , in your price or it won't take it though! Took me a second to figure that one out.

[zed04]

sl7vk, thanks for pointing that out, and for adding your vehicle. You're definitely right, the system won't take anything but numbers in the price field - I'm going to look at making that a little more obvious to avoid any confusion/difficulty.
Thanks again,
Drew

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(sl7vk @ Jul 6 2006, 01:39 PM) [snapback]282108[/snapback]</div>

Just added mine. Pretty painless. Don't but a , in your price or it won't take it though! Took me a second to figure that one out.
[/b]

[EricGo]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(zed04 @ Jul 6 2006, 11:39 AM) [snapback]282022[/snapback]</div>

I recently started a public database
[/b]

Call me lazy, but having to register stopped me from putting in my car.

Nice idea, though, and nice design. When the db is large enough, being able to filter by state/city would be helpful. Also, New car prices are confounded by trade-ins. Perhaps people can be asked the KBB of their trade-in, so that can be taken into account.

[zed04]

Thanks very much for the feedback EricGo.. we plan to add filtering by state/city as the database gets bigger - there isn't really enough data yet for it to make sense, although there are now several Priuses ;) You can find them by searching on the homepage. Thanks to those of you who added your vehicles!

Also, I tweaked the vehicle form to make it more clear that prices submitted not include any trade-in allowance - you're right, it would definitely screw up the data if these were included...

As for registration, we looked at not having it, but it seemed like a simple step that might help keep the database a bit cleaner - it's a wiki-site after all. Do you see this step as a big problem? (laziness aside...)

Also, the 'Forums' page now includes PriusChat!

Thanks again for your comments and entries - please keep them coming. Hopefully this will be another tool to help people answer the old 'How much should I pay?' question...
Drew



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Jul 6 2006, 06:54 PM) [snapback]282249[/snapback]</div>

Call me lazy, but having to register stopped me from putting in my car.

Nice idea, though, and nice design. When the db is large enough, being able to filter by state/city would be helpful. Also, New car prices are confounded by trade-ins. Perhaps people can be asked the KBB of their trade-in, so that can be taken into account.
[/b]

[unruhly]

Hey Zed,
I would have preffered to not register but wanted to check you out completely. It looks like it will be a good tool for those about to buy. Good Job!
But, I think you should provide the option to remove and delete your own database record.

[PriusRos]

I added my car. Thanks for this tool.

One suggestion -- the "Legit" flag is kind of the opposite from what you are asking. You are asking to to flag it if you DON'T feel it's legitimate. So why not name the flag Not Legit?

[EricGo]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(zed04 @ Jul 7 2006, 12:19 PM) [snapback]282556[/snapback]</div>

Also, I tweaked the vehicle form to make it more clear that prices submitted not include any trade-in allowance - you're right, it would definitely screw up the data if these were included...[/b]

This is a difficult problem to correct for, because dealers play the trade-in allowance off the new car price. I'm not sure what the best approach is.

BTW, a website called fatwallet has a long thread of people posting their new car prices.. Unfortunately as you'll see, trade-ins were not accounted for though ..

[j24816]

Good idea. Nice overall design, Some issues/suggestions. I realize this is a beta and the below comments are meant to be helpful as you move to v1.0.....

After entering full page of data I chose to read the terms before checking the "I agree with terms" box. In addition to clearing the model entry it cleared the model pull down menu. This prevented entry of "Prius". Only way I could figure to reset the menu was to refresh the screen, wiping out all entered data. Also occured when reading privacy policy. A percentage of users will give up at this point.

On search results page add "Home" button to enable return. Look at the Priuschat.com top of screen. Whatever page you are on the key navigation buttons, logo, and ability to return to home page "PriusChat.com" are always displayed, in same format. Provides a real solid anchor when moving through the site.

Minor point, the search results were not aligned.

When Using IE back button to return to home page, the model pull down was cleared. At this point, selecting search (Toyota was still entered), no results were returned. Again, refreshing cleared out the problem.

Consider adding ability to sort on any column by clicking column title.

If you enter the make of the car without entering a model, the search is allowed but no results are returned. Same if only year is entered. Suggest having default make/model set to 'all'.

Agree with suggestion to change "legit" to "not legit".

Clicking "Help us grow" from Forums page goes to the WMD page (Cannot be found)

Another minor point, I would standardize on a font size for text.

Good job, I'm looking forward to seeing the final version.

[PriusRos]

I'm a little confused ...

I had entered ratings about the dealer when I added my car, but I don't see any of that info displayed. Who rates the deals -- the buyer or the people that access the database? What is the Wikiworth rating?