Hate shopping for a car? Edmunds.com made big updates to its mobile app of Android and iOS

It is a joke rooted in American society that working with car dealers while negotiating the price of a new vehicle is never a pleasant experience. In fact, American comedian Ron White coined the experience almost perfectly, “Would you rather spend two hours of your life talking to a car salesman? Oooooooor, would you rather be [dragged] naked over a cactus with your mouth over the tail-pipe of a Greyhound bus? Oooooooor, would you rather sandpaper the [backside] of an alligator in a phone booth?” After a brief pause, “What was that second one again?”

We know not every car dealer is like that, but it is a stereotype the industry will not soon escape. Edmunds.com is a popular on-line service that catalogs and reviews automobiles from just about every manufacturer, as well as incentives, inventories, and other features that are handy to those that are simply in the market to buy a car, or auto enthusiasts in general.

Edmunds.com’s “True Market Value” tool is a distinctive feature for those that are looking at reviews and values of used vehicles. The company’s site and mobile applications have had direct interfaces with car dealers around the country for quite a while.

Now, in the latest updates to the mobile apps for iOS and Android, Edmunds.com has enabled dealers to set up text message correspondence with prospective car buyer as a way to help close the deal. Given how much we use our smartphones for anything but a phone it seems, this little feature can make quite a bit of difference for people that are not well versed at one-on-one real-time negotiations. Plus, the less dynamic nature lets everyone carefully review what they really want before they make the investment.

Edmunds.com is on a committed cycle to update its Android application weekly, and its iOS counterpart will see updates every three weeks.

Download Edmunds.com for your smartphone: Android | iOS