Hey everybody, welcome to the first-ever newsletter edition of CarInspection.com’s “The Score”. Co-founders Paul Rubillo and Tom Reese here. Our previous claim to fame was in the investment world, with Dividend.com being the most well-known and popular business we built together. Back in 2008, we came up with a ratings system that remains the industry standard for anyone looking to invest in stocks that pay dividends.
Fast forward to today, and we’re looking to build the next industry standard in the used car space. As you can tell from our CarInspection.com brand, we love building on memorable URLs. 😀
“But Paul and Tom, why CarInspection.com?” Well, based on our own rough experiences buying cars over the years, we saw a major need for an easy-to-use app that everyday car shoppers can rely on to evaluate any used car from a quality and value standpoint (example below).
The lightbulb moment
Paul: Not long ago, I bought a 2015 Honda Crosstour for my son, figuring AWD was a must as he was getting through school in balmy North Dakota. I did my homework (so I thought), focused mainly on the CARFAX and rust-free pics of the undercarriage. Everything looked fine, so we pulled the trigger on the car to 90K miles. 5K miles later, the timing belt went, leading to alternator and radiator fixes. $2,000 lighter in the wallet, I learned a valuable lesson: CARFAX is great, but it’s backwards-looking. I didn’t factor in things that would need to be done moving forward. That’s when the idea came to me for a score that could factor in the multitude of things used car buyers should be considering.
Tom: The ultimate goal is to help folks without specialized car knowledge to make smarter purchase decisions. We envision the CarInspection.com Score taking its place alongside CARFAX or AutoCheck reports, providing background and insight that those documents don’t have - like whether a particular generation of a certain model is reliable or not.
What’s in store
In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing progress on the CarInspection.com app as it approaches go-live. We aim to be the trusted 3rd party source - like PSA and Beckett in the sports card world, or Wine Enthusiast and Wine Spectator in the wine world - that takes important data and puts it into context that all used car buyers can understand.
This newsletter will also point out cars we’re bullish on (sorry, we had to borrow a finance term for old times) and ones to avoid, along with curated content from trusted experts in the car space.
It’s called 4Runner, not RearRunner
We love Toyota and the venerable 4Runner, but this 2018 model is one to avoid because of three letters: R-W-D. $30K for a rear-wheel drive 4Runner? No thanks, from the snowy and bitter cold east coast (RWD 4Runners are awful in the snow - don’t believe us? Here’s a video of one slip-sliding around).
More content we like:
Doug Demuro shares one of our favorite 4Runner generation rankings
Sherwood Cooke and his team posted a great breakdown of engines to avoid (Ford Eco-Boost owners look away!)
Tom the Used Car Dealer has some great lessons learned over the years (we’re considering a dealership ourselves)
Not in the car space, but if you’re entrepreneurial you’ll love our friend Chris Koerner - check out his YouTube channel if you’re starving for business ideas
Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you again soon!
-Paul and Tom