Cars.com Scraper — US Used & New Listings, VIN & Prices

Disclaimer: This is an unofficial integration developed independently. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Cars.com, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries.

Cars.com and related names are trademarks of their respective owners. Data is read from publicly accessible vehicle listings. No Cars.com account login is required.

This Actor is provided for informational, research, and price monitoring purposes only. You are solely responsible for complying with applicable laws, Cars.com's terms of use, and your organization's policies.

Cars.com scraper for the largest US new / used / CPO inventory marketplace. Scrape Cars.com search results and listing pages into JSON/CSV via Apify — VIN, price, deal rating, mileage, dealer, and photos. Search by a copied /shopping/results/ URL, by make / model / ZIP, by VIN, or by dealer ID. Optional monitor mode emits only new ads and price changes. Fast HTTP path (no headless browser) with US residential proxy for Akamai. Use as a Cars.com API alternative from Python, Node.js, cURL, or MCP / AI assistants.

Best for: US used-car price research, dealer inventory monitoring, VIN lookup, and automotive market analytics.

Crawloop vehicle suite — US retail, EU retail, and salvage.

Cars.com	AutoScout24	Mobile.de	Copart	IAAI
Cars.com Scraper ◄── you are here	AutoScout24 Scraper	Mobile.de Scraper	Copart Scraper	IAAI Scraper

When to use this Actor

• Used-car price intelligence — Build valuation datasets with prices, Cars.com deal ratings, mileage, and VINs by make/model/ZIP.
• Dealer inventory monitoring — Paste a search URL or set dealerId, then enable monitorMode for new ads and price drops.
• Exact browser-filter replication — Apply filters on Cars.com, copy the /shopping/results/ URL, paste into Start URLs.
• VIN lookup — Pass one or more 17-character VINs and get the matching public listing.
• Lead generation for dealers — Export dealer name, rating, city, ZIP, and customer ID (no personal phones; Cars.com uses dynamic number insertion).

When not to use this Actor

• Dealer phone harvesting — Cars.com serves phones via dynamic number insertion. This Actor does not scrape dealer websites for published numbers.
• Member-only / lead-form data — No login, financing applications, or “Contact dealer” submissions.
• EU retail cars — Use AutoScout24 Scraper or Mobile.de Scraper. Salvage auctions: Copart Scraper then IAAI Scraper.

Key features

• URL + filter + VIN modes — Paste search or listing URLs, or build a search from make, model, ZIP, radius, year, price, mileage, body, fuel, and deal rating.
• Deal rating — Cars.com’s own badge (Great Deal, Good Deal, Fair Deal, …) plus signed dollar delta vs local market average.
• Flat numeric schema — price, mileage, vin, dealDeltaUsd, dealerZip — ready for CSV and BI tools. No nested analytics dumps.
• Shippable vs in-radius — Optional drop of out-of-radius nationwide-shippable cards (includeShippable).
• ~10k cap splitting — When a search reports the site’s ~10,000 result ceiling, the Actor splits by year or price band.
• Monitor mode — Key-Value store baseline; later runs emit only new listings or price changes.
• Lightweight HTTP — curl_cffi Chrome TLS impersonation; 128–512 MB RAM; no Playwright.
• Akamai-safe URLs — sort=best_deal, page_size, and maximum_distance=all are stripped so residential fetches are not 403’d.

Input

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
startUrls	Array	[]	Search (/shopping/results/) or listing (/vehicledetail/{id}/) URLs.
make / model / trim	String	—	Brand and model used when Start URLs are empty.
zip	String	—	US 5-digit ZIP for radius search.
searchRadius	String	50	10 / 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 200 / 500 miles (not all).
stockType	String	used	used, new, cpo, or all (three searches, de-duped).
minYear / maxYear	Integer	—	Model-year range.
minPrice / maxPrice	Integer	—	Price band in USD.
maxMileage	Integer	—	Maximum miles.
bodyStyle / fuelType / transmission / drivetrain	String	all	Vehicle filters.
dealRating	String	all	Keep Great / Good / Fair Deal only.
includeShippable	Boolean	true	Keep out-of-radius shippable cards.
vins	Array	[]	17-character VIN lookup.
dealerId	String	—	Restrict to one dealer’s inventory.
keyword	String	—	Free-text search.
sortBy	String	relevance	Best match, price, mileage, newest, year, distance.
maxItems	Integer	100	Cap per run.
scrapeDetails	Boolean	false	Fetch each VDP for extra gallery/specs. Search cards already include VIN and deal rating.
monitorMode	Boolean	false	Emit only new ads and price changes after a seed run.
maxConcurrency	Integer	5	Parallel detail fetches.
proxyConfiguration	Object	US residential	Apify RESIDENTIAL (US) required.

Example input

{
  "make": "Honda",
  "model": "Civic",
  "zip": "60606",
  "searchRadius": "50",
  "stockType": "used",
  "minYear": 2018,
  "maxPrice": 18000,
  "maxItems": 50,
  "scrapeDetails": false,
  "monitorMode": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
  }
}

Start-URL mode (filters on the page are kept):

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.cars.com/shopping/results/?stock_type=used&makes%5B%5D=honda&models%5B%5D=honda-civic&zip=60606&maximum_distance=50&sort=best_match_desc" }
  ],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "includeShippable": false
}

VIN lookup:

{
  "vins": ["19XFC1F37KE202871"],
  "maxItems": 5
}

Output

Each dataset row is one Cars.com vehicle listing.

Field	Type	Description
id / url / vin	String	Listing UUID, canonical VDP URL, 17-character VIN.
year / make / model / trim / title	Mixed	Identity.
stockType / cpo	Mixed	Used, New, or certified pre-owned.
price / msrp / monthlyPayment / priceDrop	Integer	USD amounts (msrp omitted when 0).
dealRating / dealDeltaUsd / marketAverage	Mixed	Cars.com deal badge and signed $ vs comps.
mileage / bodyStyle / fuelType	Mixed	Core specs.
dealerName / dealerRating / dealerCity / dealerZip / dealerCustomerId	Mixed	Dealer identity (no DNI phone).
isShippable / shipPrice	Mixed	Out-of-radius shipping expansion.
photos / photoCount	Mixed	Image URLs and reported gallery size.
daysOnMarket / updatedAt	Mixed	Freshness when Cars.com surfaces it.
changeType	String	Monitor mode: new or price_change.
scrapedAt	String	ISO timestamp.

{
  "id": "63cbc79f-54c1-480f-927b-567915f5767d",
  "url": "https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/63cbc79f-54c1-480f-927b-567915f5767d/",
  "vin": "19XFC1F37KE202871",
  "title": "Used 2019 Honda Civic EX",
  "year": 2019,
  "make": "Honda",
  "model": "Civic",
  "trim": "EX",
  "stockType": "Used",
  "price": 11350,
  "priceDrop": 540,
  "dealRating": "Great Deal",
  "dealDeltaUsd": -317,
  "marketAverage": 12207,
  "mileage": 170614,
  "bodyStyle": "Sedan",
  "fuelType": "Gasoline",
  "dealerName": "Mercedes-Benz of Austin",
  "dealerCity": "Austin",
  "dealerState": "TX",
  "dealerZip": "78752"
}

Use cases

Use case	What you get
Used-car valuation	Prices, deal ratings, mileage, year, VIN per model
ZIP / radius comps	Same query across Chicago vs Dallas vs nationwide (searchRadius 500)
Dealer stock watch	Monitor mode + dealerId or a copied search URL
Flip / wholesale scan	dealRating=great plus price-drop and single-search filters
AI / MCP pipelines	Structured JSON for assistants and BI tools

Integration examples

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('crawloop/cars-com-scraper').call({
  make: 'Honda',
  model: 'Civic',
  zip: '60606',
  maxPrice: 18000,
  maxItems: 50,
  scrapeDetails: false,
  proxyConfiguration: {
    useApifyProxy: true,
    apifyProxyGroups: ['RESIDENTIAL'],
    apifyProxyCountry: 'US',
  },
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items.slice(0, 5));

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(token)
run = client.actor("crawloop/cars-com-scraper").call(
    run_input={
        "make": "Honda",
        "model": "Civic",
        "zip": "60606",
        "fuelType": "gasoline",
        "maxItems": 50,
        "scrapeDetails": False,
        "proxyConfiguration": {
            "useApifyProxy": True,
            "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
            "apifyProxyCountry": "US",
        },
    }
)
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items
print(items[:5])

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/crawloop~cars-com-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "make": "Toyota",
    "model": "Camry",
    "zip": "90210",
    "maxItems": 20,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
      "useApifyProxy": true,
      "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
      "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
    }
  }'

MCP and AI assistants

Use this Actor from AI tools via Apify MCP. Connect your Apify account, then call crawloop/cars-com-scraper.

Example prompts:

• "Run Cars.com Scraper for used Honda Civic near ZIP 60606 under $18,000 with maxItems 40 and return title, price, VIN, mileage, and dealRating as JSON"
• "Scrape Cars.com Toyota Camry listings in 90210 and summarize median price by year"
• "Chain Cars.com Scraper then Copart Scraper to compare retail Civic prices with salvage lots of the same make"

Suite next step

After US retail coverage on Cars.com, pull salvage comps with Copart Scraper then IAAI Scraper, and used-parts with Car-Part Scraper. For Europe, use AutoScout24 Scraper or Mobile.de Scraper.

FAQ

Is this a Cars.com API?
There is no public read API for listing search. This Actor is a Cars.com API alternative that returns structured dataset items you can call from Python, Node.js, or MCP.

Why do I need a residential proxy?
Cars.com uses Akamai Bot Manager. Datacenter IPs typically get HTTP 403. Use US RESIDENTIAL.

Why did my URL 403?
sort=best_deal, page_size, and maximum_distance=all match robots.txt patterns and trigger Akamai. The Actor rewrites those parameters automatically. Use searchRadius 500 for nationwide-style coverage.

How many listings can one search return?
24 listings per page, capped around 10,000 results per query. This Actor splits wide searches by year or price when that cap is hit. Narrow ZIP / year / price filters go deeper faster.

Do search cards include VIN?
Yes. Cars.com search JSON already carries VIN, deal rating, mileage, dealer, and preview photos. Leave scrapeDetails off unless you need a larger gallery.

Does this return dealer phone numbers?
No. Cars.com phones are dynamic-number-insertion tracking lines, not the dealer’s published number.

Start URLs or make/model filters?
Paste a browser search URL in startUrls to keep every filter you already applied. Leave Start URLs empty and set make / model / zip to build the search in the Actor.

Can I watch a dealer’s stock?
Yes — set dealerId (the listing’s dealerCustomerId) or paste a filtered search URL, then turn on monitorMode.

Related Actors

• AutoScout24 Scraper — European used-car listings
• Mobile.de Scraper — German vehicle listings
• Copart Scraper — US/CA salvage auctions
• IAAI Scraper — US/CA salvage auctions
• Car-Part Scraper — used auto parts inventory
• Facebook Marketplace Scraper — US local listings + vehicles