The Honda Accord was the most-researched car in America among new-vehicle buyers in 2013 our survey of top automotive sites revealed.
The Accord was named on five top-10 lists and among the most-popular models on one additional list, which didn’t identify vehicles using a top-10 format.
The results we surveyed were compiled by Consumer Reports, The Car Connection, Edmunds.com, Autoweek.com, AutoGuide.com and MSN-Autos and were based mainly on prospective buyers’ online research. Most of the top cars also appeared on Edmunds.com’s lists of most-popular vehicles of 2013.
In addition to the Honda Accord, our list of vehicles also includes the Ford Mustang and Honda CR-V, which were named on lists compiled by four sources. They were followed by the Toyota Camry and Toyota RAV4, each named by three sources, and the Ford Focus, Subaru Impreza, Subaru Forester and Mazda Mazda3, which were named by two automotive sources – our minimum requirement for this list.
The Ford Fusion fell just short of making the requirement but rounds out our top-researched vehicles because it was named on The Car Connection top-10 list and just outside the top 10 elsewhere.
Keep in mind, this is not a compilation of top-selling vehicles of 2013, but about the top-researched vehicles of last year. For the top-selling vehicles of last year, see our infographic “Keep on Trucking: The Top-Selling Vehicles of 2013” on The Open Road blog at RoadLoans.
But most-researched lists demonstrate the growing importance of online shopping for car buyers.
The results of a 2013 Polk Automotive Buyer Influence Study, commissioned by AutoTrader.com, indicate that car buyers are spending less time shopping overall but are devoting more of their shopping time to the Internet. Buyers spent an average of 75 percent of their car-shopping time online last year (77 percent for new car buyers and 73 percent for used car buyers).
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