Searches for Hyundai Vehicles on Cars.com Heat up in June

	Name or Desc	Type
Search for press release

Sites

Directory By Category

Directory By Country

Press

Searches for Hyundai Vehicles on Cars.com Heat up in June

16th June, 2003

Hyundai, which was recently listed among the top three nameplates in J.D. Power's Initial Quality Study for the first time ever, had several cars see a significant increase in search activity on Cars.com last month. According to the June Cars.com Consumer Search Index, Hyundai's Tucson, Santa Fe, Sonata and Azera all cracked the list of cars with the largest increase in searches last month.

"While the increase is due in large part to Hyundai's latest round of incentives and an aggressive new ad campaign, consumers are starting to key in on what studies like J.D. Power's Initial Quality Study have discovered: Hyundai has a quality product and is certainly a force to be reckoned with in the future," said Cars.com editor David Thomas.

Fuel-Efficiency Searches Start to Slow

Despite gas prices that continue to climb toward near-record levels, consumer searches for the most fuel-efficient vehicles on Cars.com have started to cool off. The Toyota Yaris and Prius, the Geo Metro, and Honda's Insight and Fit all made the list of vehicles experiencing a significant decline in searches over the past month.

"There is still a large number of searches being conducted for fuel-efficient cars as a category, which shows that gasoline prices are still affecting consumer shopping behavior," said Thomas. "However, the initial shock of the recent rise in gas prices has seemingly worn off."

Consumer searches for recently launched vehicles, including the Toyota FJ Cruiser and the Dodge Caliber, also have started to slow. The two cars, which are both new models for 2007, have been very popular with consumers on Cars.com since their introduction.

About Cars.com

Partnered with more than 200 leading metro newspapers, television stations and their websites, Cars.com is the most comprehensive destination for those looking to buy or sell a new or used car. The site lists more than 1.5 million vehicles from 11,000 dealer customers, classified advertisers and private parties to offer consumers the best selection of new and used cars online, as well as the content, tools and advice to support their shopping experience. Recently selected by Forbes.com as a Best of the Web site for car shopping, Cars.com combines powerful inventory search tools and new-car configuration with pricing information, photo galleries, buying guides, side-by-side comparison tools, original editorial content and reviews to help millions of car shoppers connect with sellers each month.

Launched in June 1998, Cars.com is a division of Classified Ventures, LLC, which is owned by leading media companies, including Belo (NYSE: BLC), Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI), Tribune Company (NYSE: TRB) and The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO).

Release link: