Consumer Reports: Car deals, guaranteed

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Consumer Reports is now offering a service that, it says, can get car shoppers a guaranteed dealer price quote, without subjecting them to phone calls and e-mails from salespeople.

Car shopping on the Internet can be a tricky business in which asking for a simple price quote often gets potential buyers nothing more than come ons from car dealers.

The magazine, owned by the non-profit group Consumers Union, has long been known in the auto industry as an influential magazine among shoppers who frequently check the magazine's ratings of cars on its website ConsumerReports.org.

Now, car shoppers can also get price quotes on new cars from area dealers through the website.

While many automotive websites offer price quotes from local car dealers, Consumer Reports boasts that its price quote service is different from most of the others in that it protects consumer privacy and provides a guaranteed price.

Vehicle price quotes are a significant source of revenue for many auto-related websites. Typically, dealerships will pay for access to price quote requests. In most cases, dealers are simply provided with a car shopper's contact information and which vehicle he or she is interested in.

In Consumer Reports' case, a consumer's contact information is not simply passed along to dealerships willing to pay for it.

Instead shoppers are provided with firm price offers -- dealers have agreed ahead of time to abide by the price breaks they offer -- without any of the shoppers' contact information being shared. The car shopper can then choose which dealers will be allowed to contact him.

All dealer and customer cash rebates are included in the prices provided by the dealerships, Consumer Reports said in its announcement. Since not every dealer will have the exact vehicle the customer wants, including color and options, the dealer agrees to sell the car for a set amount below the dealer's invoice price.

The Consumer Reports car buying service is run by Zag.com, a company that specializes in creating car-shopping interfaces like this for various companies and organizations.

Zag.com operates essentially the same service for a number of other companies and groups including American Express, USAA, Progressive Insurance, Overstock.com, and various AAA clubs, a Zag spokeswoman said.

Only dealerships that have agreed to uphold certain customer service standards are allowed to participate in the Zag programs, a spokeswoman for the company said. As a part of their agreement to participate in these car pricing programs, dealers agree to have Zag personally check on their customer service practices and they allow Zag access to their computer networks to check that vehicles have been sold for agreed-upon prices.

The website Carsdirect.com has also offered a similar service for some time. Zag.com founder Scott Painter was an executive with Carsdirect.com.

Zag pays Consumers Union a flat fee for each car sold through the program regardless of the make or model or the participating dealership that sells it. Dealers pay Zag a fee to participate in the program, both Zag and Consumer Reports said.

"Consumers Union does not have any financial relationship with dealers, and the fee that Consumers Union receives from Zag is unrelated to Consumer Reports' rating of a specific model or its price," Jerry Steinbrink, Consumer Reports vice president of publishing, said in the announcement. "Revenues generated by the program will be used to fund CU's ongoing work and mission."