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Find information on:

Reliability and Safety
Manufacturers
Prices
Financing
Buying and Selling

You can find all the answers you'll need for your next car purchase on the Internet. Here are some of the best and most popular sites out there. And we've included some of the biggest retail sites, for after you've kicked enough virtual tires.

Reliability and safety

Carfax. This site offers a free "lemon check" (and powers the same tool for several other auto sites), but it makes its money selling detailed title histories for $24.99. (You can check up on more than one car for $29.99.) By entering the car's vehicle identification number, Carfax can tell you if the car was ever titled as salvage, was rebuilt or reconstructed, was flood-damaged or had its odometer rolled back.

IntelliChoice. Maintained by the publisher of the Complete Car Cost Guide, this site provides ownership costs and safety information for almost all models.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Check recall histories, consumer complaints, defect investigations, crash-test results and more. This site is a little tricky to navigate but contains essential information for every car buyer.

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Manufacturers

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Pricing information

CarPrices.com. Used- and new-car prices, as well as reliability reports and national classified advertising.

Edmunds.com. This company brings more than 40 years of automotive consumer writing and rating experience to the Web, offering a ton of great information on its homepage.

Kelley Blue Book. From the publication synonymous with car values, this site also offers a buy/sell section and reviews.

LeaseSource contains a wealth of information about leases, including residual values of cars, which are hard to come by. (The residual value of a leased car is the estimated value of the car at the end of the lease.)

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