I headed online to start researching (I was looking for a used car) but was overwhelmed by an avalanche of information. Everyone seemed to have something to say about cars, whether in blogs, community forums, editorial reviews, Kelley Blue Book values, Carfax reports or local dealer sites. As I discussed my findings with friends and family, more people than not were surprised to hear about the variety of research and price comparisons available online.

This week’s column is an overview of sites that may help you or someone you know browse for a new or used car on the Web. I used sites ranging from trusted resources like ConsumerReports.org to search engine tools like Yahoo Autos. This column can’t possibly mention every car-searching resource on the Web; rather, it’s just a taste of what’s available.

Edmunds.com and ConsumerReports.org both feature informative data on a number of new and used vehicles. Edmunds is a free site specifically geared toward cars, including an online magazine for enthusiasts called Inside Line and a Web forum for discussions about automobiles called CarSpace. I used various tools on Edmunds.com, including one that estimates the true cost to own a specific car over time. I especially enjoyed reading an article titled “Confessions of a Car Salesman,” which proved uncanny in predicting a range of tricks and techniques the salespeople used when I first visited a car dealership.

Edmunds offers a four-step pricing system, which includes getting quotes from dealers, and a payment calculator, which estimates monthly payments. Edmunds teams up with AutoTrader.com to help perform searches for certified pre-owned or used cars online.

Consumer Reports covers products as well as cars but keeps much of its most useful data behind a Web-site subscription, which costs $26 annually or $5.95 monthly (magazine subscribers can pay a discounted price of $19 a year). You need this subscription to access CR’s respected ratings and certain sections of its Web forums. These ratings were helpful to me, as they assessed numerous aspects of specific car models, including trouble spots by year, performance, safety and fuel economy.

CR also offers valuable lists such as “All Recommended Cars,” “Best and Worst Used Cars” and “Reliable Used Cars by Price.” A car-buying calculator is an asset to this site that helps you decide whether it would be smarter to buy or lease a vehicle.

Google, Yahoo and AOL all present special search-results pages when you search for a specific car for sale, using drop-down menus and various ways to sort results. Google Base for automobiles, found by selecting “Vehicles” from www.google.com/base, is a list of data submitted to Google. Drop-down menus help broaden or narrow results by sorting the data according to certain attributes, such as make or price. Vehicle-search results can be viewed in one of three formats: List View, Table View or Map View — an illustration of each car’s location in relationship to a Zip Code. I found Table View most useful because it organized data in smart, spreadsheet-like displays so I could quickly skim through columns listing price, color, amenities and mileage.

But not all car searches within Google Base returned the same drop-down-menu options for sorting. In a few instances, I couldn’t sort my search results by model year. Google Base does show the date on which each car was listed.

Yahoo Autos, found at www.autos.yahoo.com, teamed up with Cars.com to offer richer content, including a Car Finder feature that helps people narrow down what type of new car they might like according to price, driving style and fuel (type and economy). Yahoo even tries to answer car questions with its Yahoo Answers Q&A tool, which lets people submit questions. I found user reviews on this site, as well as expert reviews provided by NewCarTestDrive.com, an auto-review site.

The used-car section in Yahoo Autos reminded me of Google with its drop-down menus and results that displayed in list or map views. List view shows plenty of information in one glance, including an image of the car for sale and the number of additional available photos. From this list, users can link directly to view or order Carfax reports or email the dealer, saving time wasted on excess mouse clicks and browsing.

AOL Autos, found at http://autos.aol.com, does a nice job of integrating Web 2.0 features such as pop-up menus that appear within a page rather than in an entirely new Web page. Vehicle-search results are found by entering a few criteria for a new or used car, and used-car results can be further narrowed by adding or subtracting desired specifics listed on the far left of the screen. Some specs include model type, engine, year or extras like heated seats or a sunroof.

This site can also condense numerous used-car listings into one graph that illustrates car prices in relationship to mileage or year. Selecting any point on the graph reveals a short description of a vehicle’s location, price and mileage. For new cars, AOL Autos offers lengthy expert reviews from NewCarTestDrive.com, as well as user reviews.

Both Yahoo Autos and AOL Autos walk users through steps to get price quotes from dealers for new cars.

Carfax.com provides car-history reports using vehicle-identification numbers, or VINs. For a $30 fee, used-car buyers can use Carfax.com for 30 days. This report shows a vehicle’s history such as if it was a rental or not, how many different owners it had, how long each owner possessed the vehicle and where it came from. Tips pop up within these reports, including one that warned me about “curbstoning,” a term that describes an individual without a dealer’s license looking to sell a number of cars by posing as a private seller.

As can be expected, many newspaper Web sites offer automobile sections that display digitized classified ads, so be sure to check your local paper’s Web site.

At the end of the day, test-driving a car will be a true test as to whether or not you like it — no matter how much research you’ve done online. But knowing your stuff before you visit a dealership can save money and time.

• Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

This week, I tested two free Web sites that don’t try to steal users away from their trusted travel Web sites. Instead, these sites attempt to make your already booked reservations more useful and accessible.

I tested two such sites: TripIt Inc.’s www.TripIt.com, which acts as a virtual assistant to generate schedules using your reservations; and Groopvine (http://Groopvine.Groople.com), a feature offered by Groople, Englewood, Colo., that brings social networking to group travel plans. Both travel aids became available in September, though Groopvine has been released only in its beta, or testing, stage.

As someone who makes travel arrangements for about 10 work-related or personal trips every month, I paid close attention to the simplicity and usefulness of these sites. TripIt’s straightforward approach makes it addictive: When I forwarded travel confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com, the information in each reservation was automatically assessed, compiled and organized into a schedule, which was emailed to me in seconds.

Groople (a mashing of the words “Groups” and “People”) started four years ago as a site that helped big groups book hotels, flights and other travel arrangements. Groople’s new Groopvine tool offers group booking, but it focuses on working as an online forum where trips can be discussed among those in the traveling group. Photos, polls, videos and Web feeds can be added to each group’s trip page, prompting everyone to participate in the trip planning — or at least get excited about it.

I found a few hiccups on both sites. TripIt duplicates plans on a schedule if you accidentally forward a confirmation email more than once, and it works with most but not all reservations. Groopvine’s trip pages are rough around the edges in some places, obscuring key features and making certain flight and hotel ideas impossible to share with the group. But each site is helpful in its own way.

TripIt is a refreshing switch from the Web sites that force people to create usernames and passwords before doing anything. I started using TripIt by forwarding an Expedia email reservation to plans@tripit.com. Less than a minute later, I received an email from TripIt that included a link to my itinerary of flights, local weather forecasts for the duration of my vacation and maps related to where I was going. This email also included an assigned account ID (the email address from which I forwarded the reservation) and a password that I easily changed from within the account’s Web settings.

Along with this first test from Expedia, I forwarded a variety of other reservations to TripIt including bookings for a hotel in Atlanta, a rental car in Washington, D.C., and a round-trip Amtrak train from D.C. to Wilmington. I forwarded the reservations from various email addresses (as long as they were listed in my account), and each reservation was added to the right itinerary according to date.

TripIt can also accept forwarded restaurant reservations made on OpenTable or TopTable and will sort these into the itinerary.

This Web site’s idea of asking users to do very little to get a fully organized schedule works well, though everything can be edited. I unknowingly forwarded the same car rental to plans@tripit.com twice and two car reservations appeared on my itinerary, making me think I booked two cars until I saw the confirmation number repeated and deleted one. Attractive pre-loaded icons or your own photos can be added to the top of each schedule, as well as other plans for while you’re traveling, including images and Web links.

A feature called TripIt To Me lets you retrieve anything loaded into TripIt by simply emailing a command to the site, such as “Get Flight Tomorrow.” This worked well on my BlackBerry.

I started using Groopvine by signing up and creating a trip page for an annual vacation. I walked through steps to create my page, which I titled and set to a certain color scheme. I chose pink hues and added various sections to my page for displaying polls (to get votes from invited travelers), photos, videos, RSS feeds (for news related to the trip destination, for instance), weather, group discussions and useful Web sites.

I invited a group of friends to join my trip, and everyone accessed the trip page without needing to first become a member of Groopvine. Instead, usernames and passwords are automatically created for return sign-ins. In a few short steps, I made one poll asking friends where they thought we should go and another to ask them how many days they preferred to spend on vacation.

My fellow travelers and I added photos to the page that showed up in handsome Web 2.0 fashion, popping out from the screen in a box overlaid on the page at the click of a button. But I was disappointed that more of the site didn’t take advantage of this technology, which saves users from jumping to new Web pages. While browsing hotels and flights — two important parts of travel arrangements — I was directed to sites away from my personalized trip page.

Users can share hotel suggestions with the group by selecting up to five at once and asking others which they prefer, including details like room rates and amenities. When starting a trip, you must choose from a list to tell Groopvine what the trip is for (i.e. class reunion, sports team travel, family vacations, etc.). From that information, Groopvine suggests certain hotels depending on your group. A school trip, for example, would automatically return results with hotels rather than motels because motels don’t keep kids as contained and safe.

But in a search for Arizona hotels, I couldn’t share any of my choices with the group without first booking rooms. Groople says 70% of its hotels are shareable before booking, so I guess I picked the wrong city. I looked at flights and fares from various airlines, but (again) couldn’t share my findings with the group unless I booked a trip first or knew specific details about flight options. Groople says sharing flight information before booking — as is done with hotels — isn’t possible yet, though the company is working on finding a way to do it.

I’d prefer to share flight options with my group as I came across them. But it’s understandable that flights are difficult to share because fares change so often and various seats and fares are offered to members with different airline statuses. Another challenge with airlines is that only six reservations can be booked online at a time. Groople Agents, reachable by phone, can assist with challenges like these at no charge.

On March 11, Groople plans improvements for Groopvine, including fixing the hotels so that all of them are searchable and sharable. A new opt-in feature will automatically notify each traveler via email of changes on the trip site.

If you wish you had a personal assistant to arrange your travel reservations into a neat itinerary, TripIt does a great job and requires minimal effort and time. Its itineraries look polished, combining reservations into one neat list per trip that can be retrieved at any time. Groople’s Groopvine will encourage groups to get excited about their coming trip, whether they booked it through another favorite travel Web site or through Groopvine, itself. Hopefully, the impending fixes due in March will make this site’s pages more user-friendly.

• Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

To make Bluetooth even easier to use in cars, most new luxury cars and some standard cars are sold with optional built-in Bluetooth speakerphone technology which doesn’t even require an earpiece. Some cars also come with built-in iPod integration, displaying song titles on the dashboard and controlling the iPod using buttons on the steering wheel, again to minimize distractions. One new built-in product, SYNC, the voice-activated system created by Ford Motor Co. and Microsoft Corp., lets users do both things hands-free: play music or make phone calls using simple voice commands.

The $120 Parrot PMK5800 uses voice recognition for a more hands-free experience.

This week, I tested two devices that bring Bluetooth technology to older cars in hopes of integrating hands-free phone calls and music with a car’s stereo system. I tried the $130 Venturi Mini from NextGen Venturi Ltd. (www.myventuri.com) and $120 Parrot PMK5800 from Parrot Inc. (www.parrot.com) on three cars made in 2000 and 2005.

Neither device offers a surefire solution; each is limited by your particular car and cellphone. But the Parrot sails ahead of the Venturi Mini by using voice activation for phone calls, something the Venturi Mini can’t do. Venturi’s version of “hands-free calling” requires initiating a call on the cellphone itself or by looking down at a tiny, grayscale screen and painstakingly scrolling through names of contacts. Furthermore, the Parrot worked after only a few steps, while the Venturi took much longer to set up and get going.

Both of these are one-piece black gadgets that plug into your car’s cigarette lighter and use FM transmitters to play on unused FM radio stations. Each has a tiny screen, though the Parrot screen is used solely to display the current station so as to match it with the radio. The idea is that after initially “pairing” a Bluetooth cellphone with one of these devices, the phone and device will automatically find each other whenever both are in the car and on, making calls easier and music a bit more hands-free.

The Parrot and Venturi Mini will only play music via Bluetooth using cellphones that have a technology called A2DP, which enables music streaming. More and more new cellphones have this technology, such as the Nokia 6555 that I used, but many — including Apple’s iPhone — don’t. Most people will play music by attaching an iPod or other portable music player to these devices using cables that come with them.

The $130 Venturi Mini doesn’t work with voice commands.

Neither the Venturi Mini nor the Parrot PMK5800 enable voice commands with music: songs streamed via Bluetooth are controlled using buttons on the devices, and music coming from a wired-attached player can only be operated using buttons on that player.

The Parrot isn’t as compact or as stylish as the Venturi Mini, but its best feature is unseen: built-in voice recognition software that guides you while using this device. If your cellphone has built-in voice-recognition software, which many do, you can plug in the Parrot and get started. Otherwise, contacts must be loaded on to the Parrot and assigned a voice tag. Large green and red buttons initiate or end phone calls, but speaking commands also works. A knob turns to different stations or can be pressed and turned for audible descriptions of menus. Three glowing Play/Pause, Skip Ahead and Skip Back buttons are easy to find without looking down so as to navigate through music.

While I was listening to music coming from one paired cellphone, my sister called me on another paired cellphone that I had forgotten I had in my purse. The music automatically paused, and the sound of a ringing phone came from the car speakers until I answered it by pressing the Parrot’s green button (speaking the word “phone” also works).

If voice tags are assigned to contacts in your phone, the name of the person calling can be announced over the speakers, like caller ID. Music automatically re-starts after a call ends.

I made calls on the Parrot by pressing its green button and speaking directions like “Call Allison Mobile” to call the correct number from my phone’s contact list. The voice recognition sounded a bit robotic, but almost always found the right number.

Most voice calls sounded rather clear to the people with whom I spoke, but in the car, calls suffered when stations were interrupted with static as I drove around the Washington, D.C., area. One major issue with relying on FM transmitters in major cities is the small number of unused radio stations. Static also affected streamed music, making it sound scratchy at times. Music playing from a cord-connected iPod had no trouble.

The same static problems arose with Bluetooth calls and music on the Venturi Mini. This device’s rectangular face has a scroll button in its center, which seems like it would be a useful addition. But this can’t be pressed down to select anything on the screen, which is maddening. Instead, selecting anything from the Venturi screen must be done using a separate button, as if it wasn’t even designed to be a hands-free device.

To set up the Mini, a paired phone’s contacts must be copied from the phone onto the device. Once these contacts are added, calls can be initiated through the device by finding the correct name on the screen using the scroll wheel and pressing more buttons to select that name and place the call. None of this involves voice recognition, and it’s all supposed to be done while you’re driving.

For all its faults, the Venturi does have a few features that the Parrot doesn’t, including the ability to display Bluetooth data — like the name or number of an incoming caller and a song title and artist — on your radio display if your car has this ability. But most older cars don’t allow this, and I couldn’t quickly figure out how it worked even while driving in a 2005 car. You can also charge devices through the Mini using a built-in USB port.

The position of a car’s cigarette lighter matters to the Venturi Mini and the Parrot. This plug is often positioned near the gear shift, and in my manual car, it would’ve been difficult to operate these gadgets while in fifth gear (I didn’t try). The location of this plug also determines how loud or soft your voice sound to callers. So as to not sound so far away during calls I tried to lean closer to the devices, but this isn’t safe while driving.

The Venturi Mini looks like a hip device, but without voice recognition software and a smart interface, it’s frustrating and dangerous to use. Parrot’s PMK5800 plugs in and works and its voice-recognition software makes it a true hands-free device that will improve the way you use Bluetooth in your car. Just look out for static, especially in big cities.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com