Used Car Research Tools

Intro

There are tons of search engines out there that help you find used cars. Only some sites sell their own vehicles, there are many sites that simply aggregate from these sources. Some are a mix of both where they offer “classified ads” (i.e. private sellers) and aggregates.

The goal of this post is to illustrate many of the different search engines and where they get their results from.

Overview

Here is an overview of all the search engines I’ve come across while researching a relatively new (less than 10 years old) new car.

• Autotempest – This is an aggregator of aggregators, designed to help you find the most cars from the most sources in one place. I often start a search here to get a good view of the broad ranges of prices for my desired make and model, year and mileage.
  • They indicate they aggregate results from ebay, cars.com, TrueCar, Carvana, Hemmings, Cars and Bids, Car Soup, Cars Direct
  • They also provide external links AutoTrader, CarGurus, Facebook Marketplace and Craiglist
• cars.com – They offer private classified ads but most results will be sourced from local dealers and online sellers Carvana, Shift and vroom
• TrueCar – They are an aggregator of local dealers and online dealers, including Carvana and vroom
• Ebay – Not an aggregator, but may include listings from private parties as well as physical dealers and online dealers
• Autotrader – They offer private classified ads but most results will be from local dealers
• Cargurus – They offer private classified ads but must results will be from local and online dealers; includes CarMax and shift
• Carvana – Primary source where they sell cars they have purchased. Online-only, no-haggle.
• shift.com – Primary source, online-only, no-haggle
• vroom – Primary souce, online-only, no-haggle
• CarMax – primary source; no haggle
• Copilot – Their results are sourced from local dealers
• Yaa – Their results are sourced from local dealers
• Autolist – They aggregate results from local dealers
• Craigslist – Like ebay, may have private listings or listings submitted from local and online dealers
• Facebook Marketplace – Private listings

My primary workflow:

1. AutoTempest -> cars.com (dealers, shift, vroom), Carvana, Ebay
2. CoPilot -> Dealers but with an excellent interface and price analysis
3. CarMax -> Their own listings

Much less frequently I take a look at AutoTrader, CarGurus, AutoList, Facebook and Craiglist to see if missing anything

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