Are you compatible with your car? A new site set to launch in a few days called CarZen aims to help you find the car that is perfect for you. The main feature of the site is a car consulting tool that asks you basic questions about the qualities you are looking for in a car (price, size, fuel economy, reliability) and then spits back a list with the best matches.
CarZen is extremely detailed. You can narrow your search by brand, options (sunroof, power seats), cargo capacity, safety, or performance characteristics. Looking for a car with a high baby-seat score or on ethat is particularly easy to park in tight city spots? No problem. Once you finish answering the questions, which at times seem more like a personality test, the site generates a list of cars that can be sorted by best match, price, miles per gallon, or brand.
If you are looking for a new car and don’t already know what you want, it is a good way to generate an initial list. You can drill down to get more details for each car. There is even a button to get a price quote, although that doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. (Nevertheless, the business model is to create a trusted research tool for car buyers and generate lead-generation fees). The site is still in private beta, but you can check it out by clicking on the “learn more” button in the widget below and then clicking through to the site.
Recently drove a Lexus hybrid. I was very surprised how well that car was moving forward. Seemed like a pretty good fit to me
I want one!
Not comparable to my Audi A4
Now, this is an impressive start-up. The interface is nice and clean, and it’s somewhat attractive. I like the name, and I could see myself using such a website myself.
Dwayne.
http://probablysucks.com
Still its not launched, you need to email subscribe and get a beta site preview
Something tells me they only care about US traffic. Better luck next time (or perhaps you could build your own copy of the site?).
@Tim-(or perhaps you could build your own copy of the site?) – We are already building at named as http://www.carrentalshome.com/ , but its not that cool looking when compared to CarZen
Wonder where they get their data sets from. Seems like pretty detail information that’s not exactly provided by the car OEM’s themselves.
I think they got it from the same place Kelly Blue Book gets their info from. Maybe they spider KBB’s site and grab the info from there for all you know.
Looks interesting. Personally like http://www.carshopsmart.com.
after playing around with it, the thing is waaay too involved and the results were crap I put quality as very important and it gave out a Hyundai as the #1 result with Honda being 40 spots down
Whats wrong with Hyundai,
May be for what you have given, Hyundai might be best suited.
We dont have to discount Hyundai.
well since no one wants to admit it, i will tag it for you.. deadpool. say after me folks deadpool.
http://www.tech...m/tag/deadpool/
i heard you have self esteem issues,,,
agreed – a web 2.0 site about buying cars is like a web 2.0 site about shooting moose. heard anything about global warming, the iraq war, gas prices, the suburban housing market, or the economy lately? did i miss any other manmade disasters that this website is encouraging?
This is a Web 2.0 gloss on exactly how the Edmunds site works. I had an idea for something like this last year when I had some constraints for the car I was purchasing and I wound up having to just go to wikipedia and get the raw data from there. Truly frustrating, and I’m surprised these guys haven’t broken out of the internal decision matrix model. At least add some wit so you can play OKCupid to Edmunds’ Match.com.
deadpool? get out of here. Do you know how much the late adopters of the web are gonna love a site like this? A majority of people will pick this over the simple fact that its easier to use, even with less options. i’m sending you to the deadpool.
I love the height thing. Too many cars do not like tall people. Too many buildings, chairs and Navy ship smoke alarms don’t like tall people. Well at least the girls do…
great time to launch a new car shopping site…. real great…
Huge boom in the automobile market, I can sees it.
I am getting sick and tired of news related to sites that are “private beta”. This is so unbelievably pointless.
carwale.com a site for indian car consumers.
Hey Guys,
If you want any information about Indian cars, you can visit Carazoo.com. Carazoo.com is India’s First Car Portal with Interactive Animations. You can check out the site for new cars, used cars and selling cars. Get free car price quotes, test drives in your city, latest auto news, articles, blogs and reviews. Its a great resource for buying and selling cars i India.
Oh, you meant “picking a car” like in “selecting the right one”… When I read the title of the post I first thought of something completely different… *g*
While it’s a rather great service, it seems, I think that it should also be a bit “judgmental” on what cars it promotes. After all, if this service catches on, it might influence what types of cars people buy. I can see it falling into a trap of being biased when it becomes popular, since car manufacturers will undoubtedly do “sponsored results” where they will pay to push certain models, independent of whether they really “fit you”. So it’s open for corruption or biased influence. At the same time, since it’s going that path anyway, it should just start early, by itself, only promoting nice-looking rides, and completely remove ugly ones from the database. Just cross-reference with http://www.fuglyrides.com to remove anything that’s on there from their database.
TechCrunch is featuring a car-shopping site? What’s Web 2.0 about that? OK, so it has a cute little twist, but Christ, you had sites like this in the 1990’s.
http://www.techcrunch50.com
Didn’t you hear? Techcrunch proclaimed the death of Web 2.0…so….
Zen isn’t about optimizing.
I thought they were both funny, in fact I thought the second was funnier than the first. And I don’t own a Mac, never have.
automobile market going down
CarWale.com has “Recommend me a car” for Indian customer since 2006.
Check it out at
http://www.carw...e/RecommendCar/
I have a feature request, will it make the purchase for me? I want the car for Christmas gift
Interesting there is no light truck option. I still see a lot of new pickups on the road.
Its a shame their only moneymaking feature is disabled on Techcrunch day.
Those car definitely needs insurance, probably collision and comprehensive http://sanfranciscoquote.com
I think drivertv.com needs to add this functionality…this is basically their UI
Cool tool… will be interesting with current timing if it goes anywhere… Would love to see it fully working…
Is this site truly ready for visitors? “Choose the size that corresponds to the vehicle that you are lorem ipsum sit dolor.”
Wow, looks nice. Too bad it was done in 1996 by Personalogic. Google it….