To be up-front with you I work for CarQuake, and just like to clarfiy a few things in this thread:
1. We are a 'direct to dealer' service, but they don't pay us commissions. They pay a set rate to advertise, therefore it is in their interest to be as competitive as possible and there is no 'hidden cut' in the deal. Which means that for a good number of manufacturers, we have very good deals. There is no other site which offers this kind of service because most do ask for commissions.
2. Going to your 'local' dealer is not always the best plan. Firstly because all dealers want their local marketplace to be the most profitable - so they don't offer the best deals in the showroom or to local enquiries. Secondly, because there are different bonuses available to dealers depending on hitting sales targets - there are many offers on CarQuake that local dealers cannot match.
3. When we built the site in the first place, the aim was to make it easy to buy new cars online. The point being that going to a local dealer is a huge waste of time, energy and often money - whereas you can, and people have, buy very easily through CarQuake.
4. if you do just use CarQuake to get your local dealer to get close to price-matching - then that's fine. But then you're just supporting the 'status quo' and we created CarQuake based around the negative feedback of so many car buyers who didn't like the tortuous new car buying experience and haggle. So, entirely up to you, support the 'old' way of doing things if you want to!
5. Finally, in the three and a half years we've been running, we've helped dealers sell tens of thousands of cars... the exact number? We can't tell, because we don't ask for commissions on sales ;-)