CarGraph Blog

CarGraph Premium Features are Free (for now).

by Dan Rathbone, September 12, 2016

CarGraph has been operating for 5 years - hooray!

On a personal note, I'll share that I've recently completed a large consulting contract (which pays the bills) and I can once again turn my attention to CarGraph. CarGraph has always been a one-man show - it's my dream to turn the site into a successful small business that I can work on full-time.

I expect that over the next few weeks and months I'll experiment with new features to improve CarGraph. One experiment is that show all the "premium" information (temporarily) for free.

I'd feel bad if I charged money for a membership for the same features that show non-members for free. To prevent this dilemma, I've canceled all memberships. Previous members will see no further membership fees on their credit card.

I do expect to add a membership option again in the future. I don't know what it will look like or what it will cost - but if you find it helpful, please vote with your dollars. Until then, please enjoy all the CarGraph features for free.

This is a great time to share CarGraph with friends. Thanks again for supporting CarGraph!

New Graph: Compare Vehicle Price vs. Mileage

by Dan Rathbone

May 10, 2014

example price vs mileage graph

We've got a new Graph! We now show a graph of Vehicle Price vs. Mileage for all brands and models.

The new graph is a compliment to our existing graph of Vehicle Price vs. Model Year and the histogram of prices that we show any single car Model-Year. We show these graphs for data covering over 700 different car models in over 400 cities across the USA. We hope visitors will use CarGraph's new Price vs. Mileage graph as another helpful tool for finding a good deal on a used car.

To see the new Price vs. Mileage graph, simply go to CarGraph.com and select any car model in any city. You'll instantly see our new, redesigned graph page. Click the button that says "Graph of Price vs. Mileage" to see the new graph.

Do you like the new graph? Please let us know! Leave a comment below or send us a message.

CarGraph Redesigned: We've got a New Look

by Dan Rathbone, April 23, 2014

new design narrowgraph on a phone screen

We often show details on hundreds of cars on a single page. Our pages are rich with graphs and tables - it's important to display this information in a way that's easy to read and understand. We've recently completed a comprehensive visual redesign of CarGraph. Here are the details on the biggest changes.

Graphs to Fit Any Screen Size

The first goal in our redesign was to make our graphs look great on screens of any size or shape. Over 60% of our visitors view the price graphs from a smartphone or tablet. We've changed our graphs to dynamically resize and fit the full width of each device, whatever size it may be. Similarly, the data table below each graph adjusts to each device to be as easy to read as possible. On a wide screen, the details for a car will show across a single line. On a narrow screen, these details wrap under each other while still maintaining their vertical alignment.

new design widescreengraph on a widescreen display

Easy to Find the Premium Reports

Some of the most helpful and interesting information on CarGraph is the vehicle sales prices that are available in our premium reports. For any brand and model, if we know recent sales prices for those cars, we'll show a bright red button that links to the premium report. We hope you find our premium reports helpful, especially if you're about to negotiate the price of a car.

Multi-Level Sorting in the Data Table

By popular request, we've improved our data table to allow sorting on multiple columns. Simply click on a column header to sort the vehicles according to that column , and click it again if you'd like to reverse the sort order. If you click any number of different column headers, the vehicles will be sorted in the order of the columns you clicked.

Filtering Outliers

Every once in a while, we notice an impossibly high price for a car. Typically, we guess that the car seller accidentally added an extra zero when typing in the price. It's a simple mistake, but unfortunately the high price could throw off the scale of our price graphs. To eliminate this problem, we've added a feature to filter out the impossibly high prices. Above each graph you will see a checkbox that allows you to "filter outliers" and discard the incorrect prices.

CarGraph: Making the Market for Used Cars More Efficient

by Dan Rathbone, March 26, 2014

Jeeps in USA example used car price graph

If you need a vehicle, buying a used car is a great way to save money.A new car is expensive. Also, it's widely known that a new car will lose value as soon as you drive it off the car dealer's parking lot. It's entirely possible to find a high-quality used car for thousands of dollars less than a new one.

Unfortunately, buying a used car is a difficult process for many people.Every car has a different condition, mileage, and maintenance record. All these details add up the market value for any single car - but if you don't know how a detail affects the price, you could pay too much sell for too little. Further, the typical process of negotiation for a car can lower the price - but you don't know how much until you start negotiating. The price for any single car is not easy to determine, so prices across the used car market are not transparent.

CarGraph Makes Used Car Prices Transparent

We collect millions of prices of used cars across hundreds of cities.If you're buying or selling a particular car, we can show you hundreds of prices for similar vehicles. Of course, every vehicle is different - but by showing similar vehicles together, they are easy to compare. You can look at each one and see the information the owner has listed, such as mileage, maintenance, and pictures to indicate condition. These comparisons give you the information you need to determine the fair price for any single car. Negotiation may still change the price, but if you understand the market value for a few cars, you're in a better position to pick the right one. You can start the negotiation with confidence and evaluate the final price accurately.

To be clear, CarGraph is not in the business of buying or selling cars like a dealership. Our business is simply collecting and sharing information. We want to collect data about all the cars and share it with all the buyers and all sellers. We show this information on a graph to make it easy to visually compare the prices. Below each graph we show links to the details of each car (on other websites) where you can find more details. Providing this data, on millions of cars across hundreds of cities, makes price comparison easy for individual cars, and makes prices transparent across the whole used car market.

2005 Jeep Wrangler example used car price distribution

Transparent Prices Make it Easy to Find a Fair Deal

CarGraph is a new website. We're small and we're growing, many people still don't know about us. In a market as big as the one for used cars, many people will still make mistakes when they pick a price to buy or sell a car.

By showing our car data on a graph, CarGraph makes it easy to spot these mistakes.You can avoid prices that are too high and perhaps even benefit from a price that's below the market average. Ultimately, we want to help all buyers and sellers find a fair price for their car, quickly, easily, and accurately. We think that when more people know the fair price for a car, it's easier to agree on that price. In other words, it's easier to find a fair deal. This is how we save you time and money, and this is how we make the market for used cars more efficient.

What do you think? Do you agree with our efforts? We'd love to know what you think. Please leave a comment.