Copart Scraper: Salvage Auction Data, Bids & VINs

Copart Scraper extracts salvage auction lot data from Copart — the world's largest online vehicle auction platform — and returns VIN, year/make/model/trim, primary + secondary damage, odometer, current bid, buy-it-now price, retail value, auction date, yard location, photos and seller info per lot. Built for car flippers, export dealers, parts dismantlers and auction-data researchers, it runs on the Apify platform with proxy rotation, scheduling, API access and JSON/CSV/Excel dataset exports built in.

Use Copart Scraper for Salvage Car Market Research

• Salvage auction market research — track bids, sale dates and damage mixes across the market by model, year and yard.
• Car flipper sourcing — filter by damage code, odometer and bid vs. retail value to find rebuild candidates.
• Salvage car export data — pull VIN + damage + photos + yard location for overseas buyers and exporters.
• Parts dismantling — locate donor vehicles by make/model/year and yard for parts harvesting.
• Auction price monitoring — watch current bid and buy-it-now price movements on the lots you care about.

Each row is a complete record fetched in a single HTTP request — no extra per-lot round-trips, no browser.

Get Copart Auction Data Without an Official API

Copart sits behind Imperva Incapsula (cookie + JS challenge wall) and offers no public REST API for anonymous lot data — you must log in on copart.com. This actor talks directly to Copart's own public JSON endpoints, the same ones Copart's frontend calls, and pushes search-level records with zero extra per-lot requests. No browser, no mobile app surface, no Playwright — just fast HTTP.

Step	Endpoint	Purpose
1. Search	POST /public/lots/search-results with {query, start, page, size}	Enumerate lots (VIN, make/model, bid, auction date, damage, photos …)
2. Search fallback	POST /public/lots/search (browse-all surface)	Tried when the primary search-results endpoint is Imperva-challenged
3. Retry on challenge	Same endpoint, fresh proxy session (up to 2 retries)	The WAF is flaky — a fresh session often gets through
4. Lot detail	GET /public/data/lotdetails/solr/lotNumber/{lot}	Only used for directly pasted /lot/<number> seed URLs

The actor auto-detects the first working search endpoint and logs which one won, so the bypass stays transparent.

Build a Vehicle Auction Dataset / Export Copart Listings to CSV or Excel

• Fast & cheap — pure HTTP + CheerioCrawler, no browser on the hot path. Runs on 256 MB with low concurrency (3).
• Lightweight — no Playwright dependency, ~300 MB Docker image.
• Export-ready — pull results as JSON, CSV, HTML or Excel from the Apify dataset, or fetch them via the Apify API.
• Automate it — schedule daily runs for auction price monitoring, or trigger runs via webhook from your own tooling.

How to use

1. Click Try for free (or open the actor in Apify Console).
2. Enter a Search query (e.g. tesla model 3) or paste Copart URLs into Start URLs — a filtered /lotSearchResults/ URL (filters preserved) or individual /lot/<number> URLs.
3. Set Max lots and click Start.
4. Download results as JSON, CSV, HTML or Excel, or fetch them via the Apify API.

{
    "searchQuery": "tesla model 3",
    "maxItems": 50
}

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Notes
searchQuery	string	no	ford f-150	Keyword seed for the public JSON search API. Paginated automatically (~20 lots per page). Used when no Start URLs are given.
startUrls	array	no	[]	Copart search URLs (filters preserved) or /lot/<number> URLs. Overrides searchQuery.
maxItems	integer	no	50	Max unique lots (1–1000). Free users capped at 20.
maxRequestRetries	integer	no	5	Retries on 403/429/503 from Imperva-class gateways (0–10).
proxyConfiguration	object	no	Apify proxy, residential group	Residential proxies strongly recommended — datacenter IPs get challenged almost immediately.

Output: Lot Data, Damage Codes and Auction Prices

One dataset record per unique lot:

{
    "lotNumber": "41609716",
    "url": "https://www.copart.com/lot/41609716",
    "vin": "5YJ3E1EA7JF000123",
    "year": 2018,
    "make": "TESLA",
    "model": "MODEL 3",
    "trim": "LONG RANGE AWD",
    "primaryDamage": "REAR END",
    "secondaryDamage": "MINOR DENT/SCRATCHES",
    "odometer": 45210,
    "odometerBrand": "ACTUAL MILEAGE",
    "currentBid": 8500,
    "buyItNowPrice": null,
    "retailValue": 24900,
    "auctionDate": "2026-09-15T16:00:00.000Z",
    "saleLocation": "CA - SAN JOSE",
    "city": "SAN JOSE",
    "state": "CA",
    "color": "BLACK",
    "engine": "ELECTRIC MOTOR",
    "transmission": "AUTOMATIC",
    "drive": "AWD",
    "fuel": "ELECTRIC",
    "bodyStyle": "SEDAN 4D",
    "seller": "INSURANCE COMPANY",
    "images": ["https://cs.copart.com/v1/AUTH_svc.pdoc00001/..._ful.jpg"],
    "thumbnail": "https://cs.copart.com/v1/AUTH_svc.pdoc00001/..._ful.jpg",
    "imageCount": 12,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-10T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Data fields

Field	Description
lotNumber	Copart lot identifier
url	Public lot URL
vin	17-char VIN when Copart exposes it (masked for some anonymous views)
year, make, model, trim	Vehicle identity
bodyStyle, engine, color, transmission, drive, fuel	Specs
odometer, odometerBrand	Mileage + brand (ACTUAL / NOT ACTUAL / EXEMPT)
primaryDamage, secondaryDamage	Damage codes (FRONT END, REAR END, …)
titleCode, titleState	Title brand + issuing state
seller	Seller type when exposed
currentBid, buyItNowPrice, retailValue	Auction economics (USD)
auctionDate	Sale date, ISO 8601
saleLocation, city, state, zip	Yard location
images, thumbnail, imageCount	Full-size photo gallery
searchUrl, scrapedAt	Provenance

How Much Does It Cost to Scrape Copart?

The actor runs on 256 MB with low concurrency (3) to stay under rate limits. A 50-lot run uses a fraction of a compute unit plus residential proxy traffic. Free-plan users get up to 20 lots per run as a preview; paid users get the full maxItems. You only pay for the compute and proxy traffic Apify actually consumes — no per-lot surcharge.

Tips

• Filtered searches: apply filters on copart.com, paste the /lotSearchResults/ URL into Start URLs — query and searchCriteria are forwarded to the search API.
• Single-lot mode: paste /lot/<number> URLs to fetch detail JSON directly.
• Keep maxItems tight while testing; each search request returns ~20 lots so a 50-lot run needs only 3 search pages.

Related Actors

• Copart Scraper (crawloop) — reference Copart lot scraper in this cluster
• IAAI Scraper (crawloop) — IAAI auction data, Copart's main US competitor
• VIN Decoder Recall Auditor — decode VINs and check recall status for the lots you collect
• Cars.com Scraper — US retail car listings, VIN and dealer data for price benchmarking
• AutoTrader UK Scraper — UK car prices and specs for export/resale comparisons

FAQ

Does Copart have a public API? Copart exposes internal JSON endpoints that its own frontend uses, but there is no documented, rate-limited developer API — you need to log in on copart.com to browse lots. This actor reads the same public JSON endpoints anonymously, so it works as a Copart API alternative.

What are alternatives to Copart? IAAI is Copart's largest US competitor — see the IAAI Scraper. For US retail pricing context, pair Copart data with the Cars.com Scraper.

Why are some VINs masked? Copart masks trailing VIN characters for anonymous views; the actor returns exactly what Copart exposes publicly.

How can I monitor auction prices for a model? Schedule the actor to run daily on the search query (e.g. tesla model 3) and diff currentBid / retailValue across runs — Apify's scheduling makes this a set-and-forget feed.

How do car flippers find rebuildable cars? Filter by primaryDamage, odometer and the gap between currentBid and retailValue — lots where bid sits well below retail are typical rebuild candidates.

Zero rows? Check the run log. If you see repeated Imperva challenges, make sure you're on a residential proxy group (default is BUYPROXIES94952). If you see zero lots, verify your search query returns results on copart.com.

Issues & support: please use the actor's Issues tab on Apify. Custom scraping solutions are available on request.

SEO Keywords

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For AI Agents & LLM Apps

One dataset record per Copart auction lot: VIN, vehicle identity, damage codes, odometer, current bid / buy-it-now / retail value, auction date, yard location and photo URLs — wired for the Apify MCP server and the Apify API.

Minimal working input:

{
  "searchQuery": "tesla model 3",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Variant 1 — filtered search URL (filters preserved):

{
  "startUrls": ["https://www.copart.com/lotSearchResults/?free=true&query=tesla+model+3"],
  "maxItems": 50
}

Variant 2 — single-lot detail fetch:

{
  "startUrls": ["https://www.copart.com/lot/41609716"]
}

Output field list: lotNumber, url, vin, year, make, model, trim, bodyStyle, engine, color, transmission, drive, fuel, odometer, odometerBrand, primaryDamage, secondaryDamage, titleCode, titleState, seller, currentBid, buyItNowPrice, retailValue, auctionDate, saleLocation, city, state, zip, images, thumbnail, imageCount, searchUrl, scrapedAt.

Behaviors an agent should know:

• startUrls takes priority over searchQuery — set one, not both (Start URLs override the search query).
• Leave maxItems unset or low for a cheap run — free accounts are capped at 20 lots.
• Some VINs are truncated by Copart for anonymous views — expect masked trailing characters.
• Use a residential proxy group; datacenter IPs get challenged by Imperva almost immediately (free preview runs at low concurrency).
• This is a Copart API alternative performing anonymous reads only — no login, no account-gated data.

Billing model: pay-per-event (compute + Apify proxy traffic actually consumed); pricing from $0.67 per 1,000 results.

Legal & Compliance Disclaimer

This actor is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Copart, Inc. It only reads data that is publicly visible to anonymous visitors without logging in, via the same endpoints Copart's public web surface uses; it does not bypass authentication or access account-gated data. Users are responsible for complying with Copart's Terms of Service and all applicable laws in how they collect and use the data.