Patent ID: 8036952

Claim:
A method for automated vehicle selection for a price quote, the method comprising: maintaining a database in memory, the database storing information concerning a plurality of available vehicles, the stored information including information regarding a plurality of features associated with each vehicle; receiving a price quote request concerning a requested vehicle, the price quote request indicating a specification regarding a feature of the requested vehicle; and executing instructions stored in memory, wherein execution of the instructions by a processor: retrieves a first set of search results from the database, the first set of search results including available vehicles matching the specification provided by the price quote request, determines that the first set of search results does not meet a predefined target, wherein the predefined target refers to a price range of the available vehicles, and wherein the price range may be divided to define a lower price range, a middle price range, and a high price range, identifies an alternative specification regarding the vehicle, retrieves a second set of search results from the database, the second set of search results including available vehicles matching the identified alternative specification; selects a plurality of vehicles in accordance with the predefined target, each vehicle being selected from the first set or the second set of search results, and generates a response including a price quote for each of the selected vehicles.