TrueCar, Inc. Reviews 

I highly recommend using Trucar. I searched other websites and the prices were higher as much as $2000 or more for the same vehicle with more miles. I found a Ford Focus for my daughter. It’s a 2018 and TruCar had the best price. The dealership did offer and extended warranty and Theft patrol and I just negotiated the price. I am very happy with the purchase and the price was reasonable compared to other websites.

I was interested in an 06 CR-V 2 owners, 1 accident, 181,000 mi., their offer $3990. Best resale value maybe $2200. Made an appointment for next day, but overnight they raised the price $500. I opted out for that reason. Sounds like bait and switch.

Total waste of time. Got a great offer and made an appointment to look at the car and it wasn't the car they quoted me!

I wish that this offer applied to leading a brand new vehicle as well.

I have used TrueCar twice. Once to purchase and this week to sell. I did not complete either. The dealer increased the price on the purchase by $1895 from the TrueCar guaranteed price even though I confirmed the price and no add-ons before traveling to the dealer. Sales Manager explanation "TrueCar doesn't set our prices and we have to advertise the lowest price to get customers in." On the sale - TrueCar claims 4 offers on the vehicle and a "certified price". But they do not identify the dealers. The one dealer who contacted me - after an hour of providing to him the same information - presented an offer $1500 lower and well below KBB lowest value without even inspecting the car. TrueCar is a scam designed to driver unsuspecting consumers into dealers so the dealers can do their abusive tricks. I suppose when/if it works, it is very convenient - that's why I tried it twice! But it's a frustrating, time consuming mess if it doesn't. It is not worth starting with at all.

Great experience; unfortunately, I was unable to find the car I wanted. Highly recommend to anyone looking to purchase a vehicle. They offer great prices and a variety of dealerships.

After signing up with Truecar I received prices from 2 different dealers on a dozen cars. I traveled to the dealer with the best offer, selected and test drove a car. The dealer refused to sell the car at the Truecar price, arguing they would lose money. The dealer offer was substantially more. A wasted trip and my time.

We found a vehicle on True car site being advertised as certified pre-owned located at Curry Honda in Yorktown, NY. It seem like a bait and switch...Initially received a call from one representative who said the my offer price was in line, when we arrived at the dealership we were handed off to another sales representative who said the price of the car would not be discounted in any way and blamed Truecar for the misrepresented advertisement. I am not sure who is at fault and felt the price of the car should have been reduced to reflect it not being a certified preowned vehicle and to honor the price initially discussed on the phone with the first representative.

Truecar is trash. I found a car I fell in love with and they quoted me a price and down payment. I had 5 times more then the down payment and I was so excited. Well I call the dealer because they never call me. Well they are a cash lot. Theres no financing or down payment. It's all lies. It's just another way to waste your time. I'm not sure what the site actually does besides show you cars at various lots that you can do nothing with.

Johnson my sales rep made the entire process very pleasant. Not your typical high pressure sales person. He and the sales manger/finance listened to what I was looking for in price and made it happen. Unlike other dealers I looked at.they did not high ball first then come down in price. There first offer was within a few dollars of what I felt I should be for the car.
I highly recommended this dealership and Johnson as your sales rep.

Great value and dealers honored pricing along with extra savings.

They honored my purchase offer and what I wanted to purchase.

Misleading with misrepresentation, what a bunch of phonies. They give you an offer in writing and then don't even honor it, save your time and stick with legitimate dealers not these wannabes.

Huge waste of time. Got a truecar offer of over 30k and the dealership they said to call sent me a text saying they could only do 26k and they didn’t even take a look at the car. All information I provided was legit. What a scam! Run!!!! Don’t waste your time. The dealership is premium Autos inc. in Norco, CA. Such a waste of time.

The Truecar website was a breeze to use and I got immediate results. It met my expectations with sending my feedback from the dealerships that would be willing to make me an offer. I even got a call from World Car Hyundai Dealership, but I got scammed. They dealership kept my car for 7 days and refused to pay me. I thought the dealerships were respectable places that make offers and keep there promises. Truecar should should ensure that the dealerships using their site are honoring their offers.

Information harvester. Requested information on my trade and got the lowest bottom offer I could have expected. Then gave my info to a dealer who called me and offered 4k over book value if I would come in. Got there and their offer was lower than truecars! (I already had a cash offer from carmax for 3k more than true cars offer) I ended up with the worst deal of my life with this dealer they sold my info to. Take my advice and don't put your information into this shark tank of information gathering website. You'll regret it!

This is a service solely working for car dealerships. There is a big schism between how True Car markets itself to consumers and what really transpires at auto dealerships. The "truth" of the matter True Car (TC) works for the auto dealers. They gain unsuspecting prospective consumers by gaining your data and contact and turn it right over to the dealerships which then begins the bombardment of e-mails and calls from dealerships. After going to a couple of dealerships in my city, this is where truth and reality split. The dealerships play all their usual games of playing with your trade-in offer, don't offer dealership discounts they advertised. Dealerships just prey on your ignorance by playing with manufactures incentives, taking away their discounts, low-balling you on trade-in or directing you to their preferred finance sources and adding unasked for aftermarket overpriced crap all sold to you like they are really being your buddy helping you. The concept of franchise dealerships needs to die and True Car smells deathly rotten. Go do your own work. You're better off.

As always nothing replaces your own leg work.

Truecar pricing shown on dealer stock is higher than the posted net/web price shown on the dealer's actual website.

Not a scam per se, just preys on those who aren't willing to do their own research.

TrueCar, I had such high hopes.

I was very eager to use USAA to shop for a new used car. I used the USAA site and ultimately found out that USAA is subcontracting this duty out to TrueCar. Hey, no big deal. If it's from USAA it has to be good! Well, it's not.

I found the car. Submitted my data. I received the email with the TrueCar listed price. The email with the offer states "Total Dealer Fees and Accessories." Then a price is quoted. I then went to the dealership and purchased the car. The dealer added on a glass etching fee for "theft security." I've never had a car stolen in my life. I don't need that so-called service.

I called True Car to speak to them about their email and to request their help in rolling back the dealership fee added to the supposed True Car price. I spoke with two very polite and kind first line customer service employees. They promised I'd receive a call in 24-48 hours. I did. From Michael. Michael was less than helpful. He stated that the True Car price sent via email, the same email that said "Total Dealer Fees and Accessories", did not include total dealer fees and accessories. I stated to him the verbiage in the email and he told me that verbiage was not in the email. Customer service at it's best! True Car, showing it's True colors. Michael then proceeded to speak over me and interrupt me to tell me that I was on my own and that True Car would not intercede or enforce it's agreement with the dealership.

Needless to say, I won't use USAA or True Car to purchase my next car. Stick to Carmax if you want a truly speedy and no haggle car buying experience. Ultimately the price was the same for me while the aggravation of using TrueCar via USAA was much greater.

It’s a bait’n’switch scam to get used car sellers to settle for less or nothing once a True Cash Offer email entices you into a dealership, who knows nothing about it once you arrive with your vehicle, which is inspected and downgraded or finally dismissed with no interest, despite you already having loaded all of its specs into True Car’s website.

My bank has a car section on its website run with TrueCar. I was told by bank employees that the TrueCar salespeople were specially trained to provide optimum service for the bank’s customers.
So I logged onto my bank account and went to its TrueCar site. There were explanations saying that selling my car would be a snap: just fill out the online form, get a price estimate, have the car inspected by TrueCar salespeople, and then sell or trade-in the car. So easy. So I filled out the form which asked for car details like year, make, color, mileage, condition of tires, etc.
One question on the form asked if there was an outstanding loan on the car, and if so, how much? (an estimate would do). I listed $18,000, which was close to the actual car value. The car, a 2015 model, had been purchased in January of 2019. NOTE: the bank told me they would not release the title to the car until the entire loan was paid off.
The Bluebook value for the car was also $18,000, but after submitting the form there was a message that the sale range would be between $10,000-$12,000. The final "True Cash Offer" that flashed on the screen was $10,000, which was too low. But I hadn't gone to the site with any expectations.
To my surprise, within a few short hours, I got a set of emails, text messages and voicemails from two separate TrueCar salespeople. What amazed me was their sales pitch, acting as if I had consented to the sale when in fact I hadn't. But there was something else that was glaringly wrong, as shown in the last voicemail from them: a cheerful-sounding woman who identified herself as the "Internet Sales Manager" at a local dealership. She listed facts about my car such as year, make, mileage. Then she said: "the next step with your True Cash Offer is to bring it [the car] by the dealership so we can confirm the condition of the vehicle. I'd love to set up a time so that you can stop by so we can complete the transaction!" So simple! Nothing about whether I had decided to sell the car. But also, if I had sold the car at their "True Cash Offer" I would have still needed to cough-up an extra $8,000 to release the title. None of the salespeople made ANY MENTION WHATSOEVER of the outstanding loan balance. NOTHING. Given that $8,000 would still need to be accounted for, I would have expected a more honest sales pitch like: "If you decide to accept our offer, please arrange to have the $8,000 outstanding loan balance paid-off before you come to the dealership for the vehicle inspection…."
What would have happened if I had made the appointment? How could TrueCar ignore the $8,000 especially since their online form asked about outstanding loan balances? Did they really think they could get me to sell the car for a low value while I would somehow magically cough-up the extra $8,000? What was going on in their heads? And, assuming that I had shown up and been confronted about the $8,000, leading to a collapse in the sale, wouldn't the charade have been a waste of everyone's effort and time?
I called the bank and asked them what TrueCar would have done about the $8,000. Was there some procedural check that would have kicked-in BEFORE the trip to the dealership? Nobody at the bank had a clue. In fact, they seemed to know little about TrueCar except the myth about the specially trained salespeople.
I then called the national TrueCar number and left a voicemail describing what had happened. At what point in the sale process would the detail about the $8,000 have come up? No call back.