As Jalopnik’s resident car buying expert and a professional car shop, I get emails. Lots of emails. I have selected some of your questions and will try to help you. This week we discuss wrong offers for the new Toyota Supras and we find an old school but recent car.
First of all, why do I see that many four-cylinder Supras are listed as six-cylinder cars?
I recently looked at AutoTrader 2021 Supras and noticed many I6 Supras of $ 42-45,000. I was excited until I read the details. Many of these dealers mention the Supra as a 2.0L 6-cylinder.
I count 17 within 300 miles of Austin, TX. Is it stupidity / ignorance or a tactic?
This is not just a problem for Supras in Texas. I conducted this search nationwide and found a similar pattern of suspiciously cheap six-cylinder cars. When the options appear, you see lists that look like this –
Once you click on the list, you see the details – and this is where the possible explanation comes into focus.
G / O Media can get a commission
It seems that Autotrader somehow describes these cars as a 2.0-liter turbo-six-cylinder when we all know that it is a four-cylinder model. When I perform the nationwide search for six-cylinder Supras through Cars.com, sorting by price from low to high, I get no fake matches for four-cylinder cars. All cars are correctly listed as Supra 3.0 models.
As for the explanation of whether these Autotrader offers are ‘stupidity / ignorance or a tactic’, it could all be above, but I suspect there may be some kind of flaw within the Autotrader system that marks these cars incorrectly. I reached out with Autotrader to get a statement, and I will update the message if they respond.
Is it then possible to find a modern car without a lot of electronic features?
‘I’m currently driving a 2003 VUE that I bought two years ago, and I do not like a SUV very much. It was cheap ($ 1200 and ready for the road), but I want to drive again. I have never in my life had a car that was less than ten years old, and I despise all the technology I see in cars these days. I want a basic FWD manual (NO CVT PLZ), preferably with manual windows and locks, no Bluetooth / heated seats / cameras / GPS / sunroof. I keep looking around, and I can not figure out how to look for vehicles that fall into my criteria. I can choose all of these options, but do not rule them out. Can you give guidance on where / how I go about finding cars that suit my preferences? Most sites boast all of these fun features that I hate, and I just want a simple basic car, the less electronics, the better. ‘
I do not think you can buy any car made in the last four years that meets these requirements. Backup cameras have been mandatory for a number of years, and I do not know of any modern vehicles that are newly sold in the US and that do not have power windows. Bluetooth has been a feature of most vehicles since 2010. There are some ‘basic’ cars that are FWD and a manual gearbox, but they have technology and features that you do not care about. Almost everything that has been slightly built recently will not meet your requirements, so you may want to plan on getting something from the early 2000s.
Do you have a riddle of buying cars that you need help with? Send me an email to [email protected]!