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SAN FRANCISCO — Honk, a social-media-driven automotive shopping website, rolled out new enhancements Wednesday geared to make the process even more interactive for users.

The site's new Dashboard now is meant to give potential buyers a central location to manage their entire vehicle-shopping process from discovery to purchase. As users identify their needs and track opinions on their Dashboard, Honk's recommendation engine can sift through more than 300 vehicles and offer suggestions. These recommendations are based on personal lifestyle, tastes and needs plus reviews from like-minded users.

Furthermore the Dashboard offers what site officials called Honk's Car Stream. It's a social decision stream that can capture ongoing shopping discussions from a user's social network.

Basically, site officials explained Honk's Car Stream can allow friends and family to comment, suggest vehicles and vote on the short list of favorites. They believe it enables vehicle shoppers the ability to collect highly focused, informed and honest feedback from their social network.

"Shopping for a new car can be an especially frustrating and intimidating exercise if you're not up to date on the latest models, features and technology," noted Tom Taira, chief executive officer and co-founder of Honk.

"While there are dozens of great websites for editorial and pricing information, none are designed to help guide you to a well-informed decision," Taira declared.

"Honk organizes the entire shopping process and enables consumers to leverage their social networks for trusted advice, suggestions and support," he added.

Co-founder Stephanie LaCrosse elaborated on those points about Honk's capabilities.

"We want consumers to feel smarter and have fun shopping for their next car," LaCrosse emphasized. "Honk is all about letting people benefit from the collective knowledge of their friends and family.

"We've simply put the everyday water cooler and lunchroom discussions online and made it all about the consumer, not the cars," LaCrosse concluded.