Your inside track for new and used vehicles.(Autos)(Buyers guide)

This 80-page section is structured to be your all-in-one guide to buying a vehicle. Starting off on page 132, we detail the 5 Steps to Get the Right Car and Best Price. Buying a car can be thrilling and terrifying at the same time, but following these five easy steps can take the advantage out of the salesperson's hands and put you in charge of the buying and negotiating process.

Turn to page 142 to see which vehicles, among the 246 we recently tested, did best and worst in our Ratings. Here you can see how each ranks among its competitors in overall test score, real-world fuel economy, Ratings for predicted reliability, accident avoidance, and crash tests.

The vehicle profiles, starting on page 153, are our summary reviews of 253 vehicles, including our recommendations and Predicted Reliability Ratings.

Consumers considering a used vehicle should turn to the Best and Worst Used Cars, on page 178. You'll find our CR Good Bets, models that have performed well in our road tests and reliability surveys, as well as the CR Bad Bets, vehicles with poor reliability that you should avoid.

We close the section with our Reliability History charts, starting on page 184. These charts are based on responses from our 2006 annual survey, when we ask our approximately six million magazine and Web site subscribers about any serious problems they have had with their vehicles in the preceding 12 months.