It’s Saturday, which means you have chores to do. You jump in your minivan and turn the ignition. Without being told, your favorite song is cued, your seat is automatically heated to your preferred temperature, and you are reminded of about how many miles you can drive until you need gas. “Oh,” you think, “I’ll get gas first.” With the touch of a button, your navigation system shows your current location and the price of gas at the five nearest gas stations.

Welcome to the world of telematics and the new wave of automotive in-car technology that’s quickly finding its way into our vehicles.

Telematics is deeply embedded hardware, software and telecommunications systems that provide an increasingly wide range of applications that serve our vehicles. These applications can enable safety, security, monitoring of vehicle health and remote diagnostics services. For the driver and passengers, telematics systems can provide dynamic location-based services such as navigation, traffic information, emergency assistance and a suite of other driver services based on two-way connectivity.

As the automotive industry continues to struggle in a poor economy, manufacturers’ and dealers’ have made significant cuts to their advertising budgets. These companies who were once upon a time some of North America’s leaders in terms of marketing expenditures, are now looking to reduce this high expense in search of lower cost means that can produce similar returns on investment. In addition today’s new car sales have become so poor that a greater emphasis has been placed on their pre-owned inventory. Used cars and used trucks today offer many of the advantages of buying new and are a much more affordable option. For consumers trying to buy a used car or used truck the difficulty comes in finding one that meets their specific needs. Unlike a new car purchase, with a used car you can’t pick colour, interior, kms, engine size or options. These specifications could only have been made when the vehicle in question was being purchased new. Therefore, people looking to buy a car typically just won’t go to one dealership, instead they want to comparison shop and the most popular means of buying a used vehicle has been through using online automotive marketplace’s as well as free classified sites. These online methods allow buyers to search and or browse through thousands of ads in search of the used car, truck, motorcycle, boat, snowmobile, ATV or collector car that’s right for them.