Cars.com -vs AutoTrader -vs CarGurus

[Ed_Flecko]

Has anyone advertised and sold their used car through any of these three services?

Do you have an opinion as to which is better than the others?

Thank you,
Ed

 

[atikovi]

As long as it's free I put stuff on cars.com and cargurus. And the $5 ads on Craigslist will help to clean up the place a lot. Auto Trader doesn't let me put individual ads lake they did years ago but want's me to sign up for a block of ads for like $200 a month for 10 cars even if I only have maybe 2 or 3 a month. Screw them. The main problem with cars.com and cargurus is the price rating they give your car since your ad is under private party. If you list it near or even $1000 below retail, it will be listed as overpriced even if the exact same car listed by a dealer with the same miles and price might say it's a great deal. I have the most success on Ebay myself with the auction format starting at a low price, with a reserve and a Buy It Now price included.

 

[Wolf359]

I just like to use Cargurus as a search engine as they tell you how long the car has been on the site. I don't like the private listings as much because basically private sellers tend not to put up as many pictures and they don't put in enough or accurate information in the listing like the VIN number. On certain makes, once you have the vin number, you can use a vin decoder to figure out what options the car has or figure out the type of engine it has just from the vin number.

 

[csandste]

Last car I sold directly was almost a decade ago on AutoTrader. Also bought through them in late nineties-- not as much competition then. No problems with any transactions.

 

[cheech279]

I believe cars.com is more popular for listings near metropolitan areas, particularly the northeast. Last time I used Autotrader to sell a vehicle it was $35 for a 30 day ad, and it worked for me. Cargurus has some decent features, but maybe not as much exposure.

 

[grampi]

I have noticed that when entering in the same search criteria on all 3 sites, more vehicles seem to come up on Autotrader.com...I think more people still use it than the other two...