Vinny app is a must if buying new vehicle

If you're ever looking to buy a new or used vehicle, you must download Vinny on your smart phone. It's a great invention and will help you better negotiate with dealers.

I mentioned yesterday that we're in the market for a truck. We found one we really like and went back to the dealership yesterday to wheel and deal. We couldn't get them to come down so we walked.

Btw we had the worst luck yesterday. Before going to the dealer someone slammed on their brakes and my husband tapped the back of their vehicle. Luckily there was no damage. We get to the dealership and they run the carfax on our SUV that we want to trade in. Apparently it was in a wreck before my husband purchased it. We had no idea and think the dealership it was purchased from covered it up. Certainly explains why that SUV has been somewhat of a lemon. After leaving the dealership, a huge truck drove by us and a rock flew up and cracked our windshield. So the windshield is getting fixed this morning. Maybe it was all some sort of sign? Let's hope today goes better.

Anyways, I was doing more research yesterday evening and stumbled across Vinny.

Here is a write up on it from Driving Scene:


"A new app in the iTunes store promises to give you the upper hand the next time you plan on selling or buying a car. Vinny wants to be 'your buddy in the used car business' by removing the information gap between consumers and dealers. The app was created by a team who recently had trouble buying a used car, and decided to fix the problem for themselves and others.

The process goes like this: You scan the VIN barcode in the driver’s door frame with Vinny and the app pulls up the wholesale price (within 5%) allowing you to 'negotiate with confidence.' Vinny claims to be on the side of consumer and promises to never sell user data. On top of the free wholesale price, Vinny will also let you purchase a vehicle history report while within the app. Their goal is to replace the CARFAX and Kelly Blue Books of the world by remaining consumer-centric rather than dealer focused.

Best of all? It’s free. Download it, give it whirl, and tell us what you think in the comments below. Even if you’re not planning on selling your current vehicle, you can at least know exactly what it’s worth the next time someone calls it a piece of junk."

Here are a couple more articles on it:

Chicago Tribune
Phonearena
TUAW

This article and the below chart from Vinny was really interesting to me. The chart is showing up pretty small so you might want to read it in the article instead.

So give Vinny a try. It helped me realize that our final offer was in fact on target and fair. Of course the car salesman tried to convince us that they'd be losing money on the deal. Vinny exposes what dealers truly are paying for vehicles and how much room there is to get them down. Of course it's not a "be all end all". It's not going to be 100% accurate all of the time, but I scanned in 10 different cars and I thought it was on point for all of them. Pretty awesome.