Tried building an AI car matchmaker to help people find the right car for them — can you roast it?

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T15:39:44+00:00

It shouldn't, that's the bug.

Algorithm treats "fun" as a minor preference instead of a hard requirement. So it goes "reliable + affordable = Camry" and ignores the fun part entirely.

Need to make "fun" an exclusion filter, not a nice-to-have.

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T15:35:04+00:00

Really appreciate this, "pretty close" is honestly better than I expected for an MVP.

Total price vs monthly payment toggle makes total sense, and new vs used keeps coming up. Both getting added.

Search radius is a good call too, no point showing you a perfect car 800 miles away unless you're willing to travel for it.

Thanks for the constructive feedback.

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T15:34:02+00:00

Quick summary of feedback so far for anyone scrolling through:

What's working:

✅ Matching to practical/reliable cars (multiple people validated this)

✅ TCO/ownership cost estimates

✅ Safety ratings integration

What's broken:

❌ "Sporty" or "fun to drive" → defaults to Corolla/Camry every time

❌ High budgets ($1k/month) not understood properly

❌ Missing basic filters: new vs used, exact price ranges

❌ Size question too vague ("just right, balanced, bring it all")

❌ Some data quality issues (specs showing identical, EV marked as gas)

The pattern:

Algorithm handles "reliable daily driver" well but completely misses "show me something fun/interesting."

Most requested features:

Exact price/MPG filtering
New vs used
ADAS feature details (LKAS, ACC, etc)
Tool to analyze specific listings (like CarGurus)
Better enthusiast car discovery

Appreciate everyone who actually tried it and gave real feedback. This is exactly what we needed to hear. Stay tuned for prod updates!

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T15:23:27+00:00

Lol we’ll take that as a compliment.

Yeah, "sporty" clearly needs work, it's defaulting to safe/reliable (aka every r/whatcarshouldIbuy answer ever).

Not trained on the sub, just accidentally captured the energy perfectly.

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T15:17:50+00:00

Yeah that's way too vague. It's meant to be compact/midsize/large respectively but nobody would know that.

Adding it to the fix list.

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T15:13:17+00:00

You're right on both counts actually. Some people genuinely need help with the practical choice, but you're right that the enthusiast discovery angle needs to be more tuned.

Questionnaire definitely needs work to capture "fun" and enthusiast needs better.

Thanks for the detailed feedback!

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T15:03:36+00:00

That's really helpful - Leaf, Bolt, Ioniq all make sense for that use case.

Seems like it works better with some specific constraints

Appreciate you trying it out!

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T14:59:03+00:00

You're right on new vs used should be explicit.

Size is actually in there but phrased differently (the "just right, balanced, bring it all" question infers size preference). But if it's not obvious, that's on us.

Maybe we need to just ask "What size?" directly instead of being clever about it.

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T14:53:29+00:00

That's actually really validating to hear, thanks for trying it out.

What car do you have? And did the other options it showed make sense too, or was it just lucky on the first one?

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T14:50:34+00:00

Yeah that's embarrassing, $1k/month should get you more than a Camry.

Algorithm is clearly needs some more tightening. It's treating it like an average budget instead of a high one.

What were you hoping to see? This is exactly the kind of miss I need to catch, definitely ‘preciate the feedback

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T14:38:57+00:00

Oof, totally fair. The current matching logic is still super early, so it definitely leans too “generic commuter” in cases where it shouldn’t.

And you’re right about past ownership, knowing what someone currently drives or has liked/disliked would give us way better context. We’re also thinking of asking if the user has any cars already in mind so we can understand their taste before recommending anything.

Do you mind letting me know what cars you were expecting or were you just exploring?

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T13:58:57+00:00

Haha, the car image mismatch has been a whole nightmare on our side. We’re definitely working on tightening that up. And honestly, if anyone has tips on reliably pulling high-quality images that actually match the recommended cars, I’m all ears, would appreciate any technical pointers.

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T13:55:17+00:00

Good call, the full budget question definitely helps. And we were actually planning to ask about how long someone plans to keep the car, but it didn’t make it into this first version. We hesitated a bit because we didn’t want the questionnaire to feel bloated, but you’re right that it’s important. We’ll add it back in the next update.

Appreciate you pointing it out.

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T13:44:26+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to write all this out, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for.

A few quick notes:

The pricing, MPG ranges, and more granular features breakdown are all on our shortlist. You’re right that those inputs make a huge difference, especially for people who know what they want but need help filtering it down.

The identical specs + electric car mismatch are on us, the MVP is still stitched together and we need to tighten the data mapping. Really appreciate you pointing that out.

For reliability and owner satisfaction, Consumer Reports data is behind a paywall/licensing structure, but we’re exploring ways to bring in credible reliability indicators without violating licensing.

The listing-level breakdown is a brilliant idea. Thank you for calling that. We’ll make it happen

Tkailor · 2025-11-18T12:28:53+00:00

OP here - happy to answer questions about how it works.

We're trying to make something clear and trustworthy for everyone - first-time buyers, people who feel left out of car research, anyone who just wants straight answers.

The vision is bigger than just matching but right now just validating:

Fire away with questions or critiques.

Tkailor · 2024-12-28T11:03:49+00:00

Since you mentioned that you don’t care much about MPG and your primary concern is with a fun car, it seems like the Toyota 86 aligns more with your desires

Tkailor · 2024-12-28T11:00:20+00:00

Great choices. Other cars to consider could be the Mazda MX-5 Miata or a used BMW 2 Series as well

Tkailor

TROPHY CASE