Poll shows what women want when buying a car

Peak car-buying season has officially started, and many women are dreading replacing their current vehicle with a new one, imagining the hassles they’ll have to go through to get the car they want.

CarMax, Inc. recently conducted a poll of 3,500 women nationwide, asking what things were most lacking when buying their last vehicles.

What Was Most Lacking: a quick, effortless transaction (22 percent); a fair price for my trade-in (16 percent); a salesperson I liked and trusted (16 percent); respect for/attention to what I wanted and needed (13 percent); the lowest, most fair price listed right on the car (12 percent); none of these (9 percent); a fair, reasonable finance rate (7 percent); and paperwork that had easily understandable prices and fees (5 percent).

"It’s a shame that so many women nationwide have found such shortcomings in their car-buying experiences," said Laura McTaggart, director of customer relations for CarMax, Inc., specialty retailer of used vehicles.

McTaggart offers the following three tips for women when shopping for a car:

1. To help get a fair price on your trade-in, get your current vehicle appraised.

2. To facilitate a quick, effortless transaction, be fully prepared when you go car shopping.

3. To find a salesperson you like and trust, ask friends and family for referrals. Look for openness and transparency in the transaction.

Look for a retailer that offers low, no-haggle prices and a la carte pricing on each part of the car-buying transaction—the vehicle price, the warranty, the trade-in and the financing. Also, be on the lookout for extraneous, unexplained fees.

"If you are unhappy with how your car shopping experience is going, walk away from it," said McTaggart. "You can choose to shop somewhere else. It can be tough to walk away. But, in the long run, it’s worth it: simply remember that you are the one who has to drive the car and make the payments—not the salesperson."