Autotrader Reviews 

Honestly the safest way for me to purchase a vehicle through a private seller. They were thorough, efficient and on top of everything. It made my entire car buying experience so much easier. They provided updates and made me feel secure moving forward. Great customer service!! Thank you!!

I received quite a few responses on my car that I paid $49.00 to advertise on Autotrader but unfortunately every single one were from Scammers that were SO obvious. I finally got frustrated enough to just take the ad down. I found this platform to be useless to sell private and that Autotrader does not do enough to filter out these scammers.

The entire process was simple and quick. Less than 24 hours from the time the seller and I agreed on a price to the time I drove off in the car.

Mike

After trying to sell my Z3 on other platforms, I decided to try AutoTrader. I posted my car info and pictures at the end of June. In less than 3 weeks and after 30 inquires, I sold my car at a good price to a local person.
The process was secure and quick resulting in a good outcome for seller and buyer.
I would recommend AutoTrader to anyone interested in selling their well-maintained vehicle.

Overall, very good and easy. There were a lot of steps along the way that got a bit clunky and I am having trouble finding a receipt for my payment. I would think it would be right in the transaction somewhere. The seller was good and seemed very honest. Vehicle drove to our business on the day of pickup about 100 miles with no issues. Looking forward to completing everything with DMV. Overall good experience.

The assembling the ad for the vehicle was easy with a lot of good tips of what to include. My vehicle was a classic 30+ year old vehicle, so the market is smaller. First couple inquiries were bogus, but did get several serious buyers and offers. When sold, process was easy, Private sale customer service staff was helpful, and sale did go smoothly. Received payment once vehicle was delivered to transportation company (Out of state buyer). Fees were well worth the trouble of not having to worry about funds being good and transfer of title was taken care of. Would definitely use Autotrader again.

Outstanding seller and very easy process with Autotrader.

My seller was wonderful and I appreciated having free access to the Experian reports.

Everything went to fruition without issues, including seller and buyer verifications and communications.

Only scammers trying to bait you to send info outside of autotrader system. Not a single genuine buyer, at least in my case.

If Autotrader can vet and make listings available only to genuine buyers, their success and seller satisfaction would be super high. Sadly, I was not able to find a single genuine buyer and autotrader's offer to buy was really really low. I found a buyer for a much higher price at the last minute.

Clear communication, both in writing and verbally. Fast response to questions. Built trust for both buyer and seller.

Overall this platform works well and attracts truly interested buyers. Sold my car within a week. Unfortunately it also attracts all sorts of scammers.
My advice - make an interested buyer let you call them via FaceTime to ensure they are real to answer questions but USE the private exchange to get offers and accept them. Do NOT entertain personal checks or money orders.
The customer service is great, answer quickly and are very helpful.
Cox - your mobile app could use some work!

I had an extremely disappointing experience trying to sell my car on AutoTrader. I listed my Buick Regal expecting to hear from legitimate buyers, but instead I was flooded with scammers almost immediately. Nearly every inquiry I received was some variation of the same scam—people wanting me to purchase vehicle history reports from obscure websites, asking for personal information, or sending generic messages that clearly weren’t from real buyers.

Over the entire time my listing was active, I received virtually no serious interest from actual people looking to buy my car. It felt like I paid to advertise my vehicle only to become a target for scammers. I spent more time blocking fake buyers and deleting fraudulent messages than communicating with anyone who genuinely wanted to purchase my car.

I expected AutoTrader to have much better systems in place to detect and filter out obvious scam accounts before they ever reached sellers. Instead, it felt like I was left to deal with the problem myself. Selling a vehicle is already stressful enough without constantly wondering whether every message is another scam attempt.

For the money I spent on my listing, I expected exposure to real buyers—not an inbox full of fake inquiries. Based on my experience, I cannot recommend AutoTrader to private sellers. If you’re considering listing your vehicle, be prepared to waste a significant amount of time sorting through suspicious messages instead of talking to legitimate buyers.

I sincerely hope AutoTrader invests more in protecting its users from scammers because my experience was frustrating from beginning to end. I won’t be using the platform again unless I see major improvements in how they screen inquiries and protect private sellers.

I used the Private Sellers Exchange in an unsuccessful attempt to sell my Honda. This was an awful experience and the service is nothing but scammers. In the week I tried to sell my vehicle, I had about 25:1 ratio of scammers to serious inquiries. Don’t waste your time with Autotrader.

The seller was a fantastic person. The Auto Trader people were excellent.

The process made everyone comfortable. Worked great since there was a lien on the vehicle. I would use this method again for private sales even without a lien since it's very secure. Shipping was fast too!

Sales Process was easy to follow. Liked that Autotrader brokered the money to ensure seller got paid, loan got paid off, and buyers money is safe until they take the car. Some issues with mobile app though. It was hard to get to messages and app would log out or fail to login at times. Website was much easier use for managing messages.

This is the platform of choice to sell a used car. Both the seller and the buyer are protected and the transaction occurred quickly and efficiently in a trustworthy system. Wide reaching audience too.

Very impressed by the service. Easy to use and quick enough that trust was built early. Worst part is the scammers during the sales process. More information to the seller about their tactics, maybe a learning or FAQ hub would be nice or a first-time seller tutorial.

I can't believe this is supposedly the best site for a private vehicle sale.

I paod for an ad, and since Autotrader and KBB are the same, and people usually go to KBB to check values, I listed my car at the estimated value - up to $5100.

Then I saw within my ad manager, that autotrader said I was substantially undervaluing my car. The recommended price was $6,300. Huh. Ok, if the market is that high, I dont want to leave it on the table. I updated the listing price.

Today, I check the ad again and now the recommended sell price is $6,900. Wtf?

Why are is the recommended sell price wildly different than your own car valuator?

On top of this issue, I have been getting multiple emails a day telling me I have "unread messages from buyers" even though I've read through them all - 12 messages so far, 10 of which being scammers. Nice ratio.

I call in to "support" which is an Indian guy introducing himself as Adam. He says the unread messages reminders is a known issue and theyre working on it. Then he tells me the reason the suggested sell price is exorbitant and changes daily is because it's showing "what its been sold for including dealers." This suggested sell price is literally in my ad I paid for as a private seller. He admitted this made no sense and had lead to weeks of me getting no offers and said he's "pass it on to the team."

Is this really the best service available? What a shame.