So let's say you want to look for a common car but with a low volume build - a manual transmission Maxima or G35 for example. Doing a regular 500 mile (or nationwide) autotempest search will net you lots of cars to wade through but just about all auto trans. Is there a way through autotempest or another search engine to add a filter that would be reliable given the lack of structure in the ads?
Nope.
For what you're trying to do, there would have to be some consistent way that posters listed the transmission (or other features that are part of your search criteria).
I would LOVE for CL to enforce just a basic form before you could post something in the "Cars and Trucks" section and make the really basic stuff mandatory (year, make, transmission, price).
I'd make my own site that did that, but without the critical mass of users, it'd be pretty worthless.
Go to searchtempest.com and set it to search only in for sale, only in cars and trucks, only ads with pictures, in your distance range, and for the price range you're looking at if you have a specific price point. In the search terms, enter "maxima manual" and select that it must be ALL (not any) keywords. That should significantly narrow down your search. Do another one for "maxima speed" and you'll get ones where people say 5 speed, "maxima stick" and you'll get ones where people say it has a stick, etc. Picking a few clever keywords and narrowing your price (say, more than 1000 and less than 20000) will drastically lower the number of ads to sift through.
You can also exclude certain words (for example, WITH maxima but NOT automatic, WITH maxima but NOT auto, etc.) but IMO that's not going to be as effective to narrow out the automagics.
Bryce
jaxed works if you have a specific car in mind. Doesn't work for generic things like "project"
Negating "automatic" doesn't work nearly as well as you'd hope. Far too many people list the inane crap we don't care about like "automatic locks".
As a daily CL troller (and I mean that in the original fishing context of the word), what I do is be pretty honest with myself about the price range, only search for stuff with pictures, and then just look at stuff I know I'd actually keep for more than six months. 10% of the time they'll say what tranny it is in the ad, another 20% of the time there's an interior shot that shows the shifter, and the other 70% of the time I just fire off an email if it's something I'd actually buy at their asking price were it a manual.
Never heard of autotempest, I used to love Craigslook until they shut it down...
Auto tempest is great, and I use it almost every day for those cars I've been looking for for years just in case they turn up. It does require a bit of thinking to return the results you want, though. It is also no defense against the aggravating sellers who put eleventy-billion "keywords" after their listing just so they show up in your search.
One thing that I keep noticing on Craigslist is people who have "Manuel" transmissions in their cars. I'll even look at some of those if they are in the $200 range, because someone who puts that in their ad may very well sell a non-working car that's just run out of gas.
Use google reader so you only get the new ones instead of having to wade through all the old ones every day. (Ignore this if search tempest already does that for you)
Browse all maximas or whatever in your radius manually, so you know whats out there. The get craignotify for your droid phone and build your search. Enable push notifications, so you see everything new that hits craigslist within 15min or less. Much more manageable that way.
No reliable way to search for MTs, but you can see everything in your price range and radius at a glance easily, once you weed out what's already out there.
Craignotify and a ready wad of cash is about the only way to get the good deals these days.
I made www.statewidelist.com so that you can craigslist search and entire state. I also kept and made some filters for searching.
On the site you could search for: Maxima -auto
This will give ad results without the word auto in them but with the word maxima in a specific state. You can specify as many - words as you like: maxima -auto -automatic -trans
Canoe?
No canoe
In reply to Javelin:
No. Just because a new reader shares a link does not me they're a canoe. He's on topic and contributing positively.
Please carry on...
Just checking, hence the question mark. Guess I better click the link then! 
I have been on and off of here for years now. But tell me what it means to be a canoe.... lol I have to know now. :)
That's our code-word for a possible spammer. You have practically no posts and popped into a thread with a link 6 days late which is suspicious. It's OK though, you're not a canoe salesman, and your link is awesome!
Tom Heath wrote: In reply to Javelin: No. Just because a new reader shares a link does not me they're a canoe. He's on topic and contributing positively. Please carry on...
Probably damn confused now. Canoe will confuse the berkeleying E36 M3 out of him.
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