Car fans can now research and compare prices, and specifications at www.IrishTimesMotors.com, the Motors section of ireland.com.
As motorists begin to research for the New Year, the new facility allows visitors to either check out all the details of their potential purchase, compare it in terms of price and specification, against rival makes and models, view images of the cars or just do a bit of browsing, perchance to dream of owning a supercar and matching it up against their supermini.
The website, which is available free on the Ireland.com website, also contains all the articles from the weekly Motors supplement, along with the chance to search our road test archive for previous car reviews.
The new search tool is provided by Alldatasystems.com and according to its managing director Oliver Cavanagh, the firm will stream live updates to IrishTimesMotors.com ensuring up-to-date information on every new vehicle available in the State.
Researching new car data has become one of the most popular activities on the Internet. According to Forrester Research, 68 per cent of car buyers said that independent motoring websites were important for making decisions about their car purchase, exceeding the number who relied on advice from car company websites , or car dealership personnel .
This is supported by a recent J.D. Power study which found that sales leads generated from manufacturer websites are up from an average of 18 leads per dealer in 2002 to 31 this year.
The also study found that independent online buying services generally deliver the most leads, while car firm sites deliver the lowest cost per lead to participating dealers.