However, the company does not give any warranty for cars advertised on indiacar.com by others. Mr Naik emphasies, "We just facilitate the buyer and seller through this service. Anyone who wants to sell his car puts up information about his car on the site and also mentions his contact number.

The potential buyer, after going through the site, contacts the seller directly." Indiacar.com is not the only car portal, though. Automart.com, Autoclubasis.com, etc, are the other popular portals that promise good deals in secondhand cars.The procedure of on-line transactions is usually quite systematic.

Automartindia.com begins with asking you the type of vehicle you want (two-wheeler or four wheeler) and where you want it. One can also give preference about the colour. Then the portal finds you a suitable match and furnishes the details of the car including the model, expected price, mileage, insurance paid, tax paid, registration number, fuel type, accessories, it's present condition and whether it had an accident history or not. Similarly, if you want to sell, all you have to do is to fill up details of your car and the portal gets in touch with you within two-three days with as many matches as possible.

Adds Mr Sanjeev Prasad, customer relation manager with automartindia.com: "As of now we don't offer any warranty but we do give certification on the request of the customer in which we send a service engineer who checks the condition and certifies the car." The portal also has tie-ups with dealers who provide the cars. However, when a transaction takes place the portal charge Rs 1,000 as the service fee and Rs 499 from those who want a certification to be done. The portal is planing to set up an outlet in Delhi in a few months so that customers can personally see and feel the car.

According to Mr P Tharyan, executive director of Indiaautobiz magazine, striking a good secondhand deal on the net actually depends on how strong the portal is? "Strong portals employ a whole bunch of experienced people and one can rely on them. Buying secondhand through such sites is absolutely safe," he says. He adds: ``But one needs to know how reliable the portal is.'' That's not enough, though. ``One should also have some idea about the car one wants to buy. Buying a Peugeot 309, whose spare parts are not available, will be a stupidity. It would be advisable to buy those cars that are being manufactured here and not those that are being phased out," he adds. Of course, these sites offer such helpful tips, too.