Autotrader had long been the car website of choice for people looking for car ads. The website www.autotrader.com runs in conjunction with their Auto Trader classifieds magazine and offers consumers one of the biggest listings of new and used car ads available.
If you've placed an Autotrader Car Ad, or if you've responded to one, why not send us a review and tell us about your experience?
written by MrsLynfield on 24/03/2018
I contacted Autotrader about a dealer (Carpoint, bolton) and his aggressive, bullying nature. They have been many many reviews where consumers have experienced this and autotrader have removed my review on their page about the garage
written by Dragonville on 16/01/2018
Absolutely terrible experience. We are trade sellers and thought we would try out the Autotrader platform to see if we got any response. The preview of our advert was absolutely spot on and we were very happy, so we proceeded and paid, but the actual live advert is shockingly different. No option to allow customers to contact us by email, no business name showing, very basic info, nothing like what the preview of the advert looks like! When questioned I was told that if I wanted the features that I saw in my advert preview I would have to sign up to a contract with Autotrader (which I know would cost us around £1500-£2000 per month!). They lured us in with a great advert preview then try and get you to sign upto a contract if you want your adverts to look like they do in the preview! As if this wasn't bad enough they now don't respond to any of my emails, probably because I pointed out to them that they had tricked me into advertising with them and that I wanted a full refund and the advert cancelling. Really shocking treatment from such a colossal company, not what you would expect.
written by on 07/08/2017
I wrote a negative review of a dealer on the Auto Trader website. Everything I wrote was factual and honest. The dealer posted a reply and practically every sentence was a lie. I emailed Auto Trader with all the proof I had provided to Trading Standards and the Small Claims Court to show that the dealer response was untrue (dated receipts, dated breakdown reports, dated phone call logs etc) and asked that they remove the dealer's reply because it was misleading and dishonest. Auto Trader replied to say that they wouldn't remove it because the dealer had ticked a box to say it was true. The dealer has a right of reply to a review, but the customer has no right of reply and even when evidence is provided to show the truth, Auto Trader knowingly allow misinformation to remain on their website. The dealer can also edit the reply (this dealer has edited their response four times) but the customer can't edit their review. They also rejected my review twice until I contacted them to ask what was wrong with it and the answer was 'nothing'. Take reviews and responses with a pinch of salt and remember that Auto Trader receive income from dealers...
written by Mylat51 on 24/03/2017
Advertising is to expensive with Autotrader they do not help any dealers they only rip them off
written by Smithdf37 on 17/03/2017
THE HAVE THE WHOLE MARKET AND THEY KNOW IT!! DICTATOR THEY NEED A PROPER COMPETITOR. VERY CONTROLLING AS AN ADVERTISER WITH THEM.
written by Dillan1952 on 02/01/2017
Trying to search for a car, having to wait up to 10 seconds for the page to finally load a page and/or the filters. Set a filter, go away & make a cup of tea, it might have made it's mind up by then. Set another filter, time for another cup of tea. Very frustrating and only have the problem here. Apart from that, best range of cars around.
written by Meier363 on 08/11/2016
This once excellent advertiser of vehicles has has first priced themselves up tenfold over a ten year period, but could still just about justify it by the quality and simplicicty ot their search engine, and level of business they delivered to the people and bsinesses that paid to advertise vehicles with them. However, approx two years ago, they were floated on the market, and have become a ruthless, caniving, money grabbing monster, of which wihtout exception, every decision they have made has been solely to line the shareholders pockets (which is not a problem in itself), but with no concern for the huge negative impact they are having on both the motor trade, and consumers alike. They have massively confused their search engine, therefore making it harder for consumers to find the productsthey have searched specifically for. With this they hide behind giving the consumer 'choice'. Next, they invent useless products to try to sell the trade in order to get more business. Again, this can only affect the consumer negatively as it means they are more likely to find vehicles dealers have paid the most money to put in frot of them, instead of the products tehy are actually looking for. Now they are entering into a valuation system, created by themslves, in order to be able to manipulate pricing in the industry. They have worked out that the only way they can keep growing financially, is to take more money off of advertisers. And the only way they can do this is to manipulate pricing in the whole industry to enable them to keep increasing their already stratospheric pricing. Again, this can only be detremental to consumers and dealers alike. Without a doubt they should be HEAVILY investigated by a governmental body for unfair, manipulative, and bully boy tactics, and general market monopolising.
written by AliyaHahn on 05/11/2016
I have been a car dealer for over 20 years working at a garage established in the 1970's and owned still the the founder, my father. We have used Autotrader as a platform to sell stock for many years. Let me tell you what they are doing. They are trying to tell us what price we should be selling our cars for. They the way they do this is the send out a recomended retail price and tell us our car is too dear, or too cheap. Cheap cars are often cheap for a reason. Possibly not prepped properly, serviced or MOT'd. Granted, there can be some genuine bargains out there, but what happens is, it forces the price of the car down, making it harder to make a living AND make the stock we sell to the correct standard. They are also using this tool to value the part exchanges, which also doesn't give the correct price. Often it is too low, and you the customer wont want to view the car because you think WE the trader have valued it. And, sometimes, it is too high, and YOU get an unrealistic valuation and are upset when you appear at our garage with your car thinking it is worth more than we do. Now, I know what you are thinking, a car trader that wants to charge more and you don't trust us. Well, many people in the trade are honest hard working people that want to sleep at night. We want to make a living and we want to know that our cars are great order, so that our customers will come back in the future and recomend us to friends and family. We are not asking for something special. And, what we are not asking for is Autotraders new tool, which will allow people to post unsolicited reviews about our companies and dealerships. So, if someone has a petty grievance they can make a review and there isnt a great deal we can do.
written by Rhodes73 on 23/07/2016
After many years of use Autotrader website freezes after less than a minute and is now inaccessible , such a shame!
written by Baileysi269 on 11/11/2015
What an absolute nightmare, Where to begin. From the outset it takes ages to navigate the site due to unwanted adverts constantly slowing down your search. The requirement to put in your postcode is absolutely unnecessary unless you specifically want the search parameters kept within chosen areas an distances and should not be a requirement unless selected. Again, whilst I cannot fault the overall content of most areas of the website searched for various motor vehicles, the site continuously either slows or stops whilst it loads all the puerile advertisements, which obviously provides funds to Autotrader but increasingly annoys its customers. What is required is a pure and simple cost analysis prior to considering a vehicle purchase simply provided by a website that is not totally obsessed with generating funds at the cost of its viewers. Enough is enough I shall use either the RAC or Parkers in future.
written by MrDDixon on 31/08/2015
Used to be able to see things for sale by going to site. Now have to register and login. How stupid is that. The company makes money from sellers thinking people can see things they have to sell. Creating barriers for viewers is plain dumb. What next estate agents insisting one registers to see what properties they have for sale....refused to register
written by MrDDixon on 31/08/2015
Used to be able to see things for sale by going to site. Now have to register and login. How stupid is that. The company makes money from sellers thinking people can see things they have to sell. Creating barriers for viewers is plain dumb. What next estate agents insisting one registers to see what properties they have for sale....refused to register
written by SavannaHowell363 on 06/07/2015
why is this web site so bad. I have 4G 50mb connection, but this site freezes within 2 pages. 0000s of cookies try to load, delete them and 000s more appear in 2 seconds. Please sort this out it was far better for the user years ago. i dont bother going there anymore, its quicker to visit the garage 20 miles away than wait for this site
written by 444Mitchell on 08/06/2015
Autotrader is The worst website to advertise on, extremely expensive, you will get no calls at all from buyers, FACT, it doesn't matter how cheap you try to sell the car. Website cumbersome, slow and has too many ridiculous options. Complete waste of money. Been advertising on autotrader for more then 10 years as a motor trader and like most traders will not be advertising on there again. YOU WILL NOT SELL YOUR CAR ON AUTOTRDER SAVE YOUR MONEY. Autotrader can't even afford to advertise on TV anymore, when was the last time you saw an autotrader advert on TV or on a mainstream channel. Bigger companies than autotrader advertise so they are not too big to advertise. All positive reviews on here are from autotrader employees.
written by Onionandrew on 16/12/2014
I put my audi a4 on autotrader. After a week with no calls i checked advert and autotrader had not put it into the correct engine size category. Called them 3 times to rectify this. And then the calls and texts started flying in. Silly offers and scams were all i had. I decided to list the vehicle on ebay and it sold instantly. Would never use autotrader again. And i certainly wouldnt reccomend it? I wish i hadnt wasted my £65.
written by CarmeloDay on 06/12/2014
Naturally I thought the best place to advertise your car was on a car website with the stature and well known name of AutoTrader, how wrong I was. The setting up of the advert was easy enough and you had to get the car cleaned and take the best possible photos to ensure a good response. The advert was placed after a fee of £65. I started the at the recommended price the website stated based on car, model, age and mileage. Many views but no calls, after two weeks I dropped the price by £500. This time the vehicle was on the site well below any cars of same model, mileage and condition by at least £1500 !!! Again no calls, not one... I think the people viewing the site just want an unrealistic bargain. As far as I am concerned I wasted £65, 2 weeks sitting on a car losing value. I would advise not to bother.
written by ZackaryCantuItalian2 on 15/10/2014
twice already i used auto-trader paying the full price of 45.95 to advertise my car and i think i would have been better off putting a note on a shop window. so this time i thought id go for the cheaper option of 19.95 i submitted my ad on the 9th oct 2014, it was processing for two days so i emailed them, no reply then the add just disappeared from manage my ads section. that was the 11th. i checked my bank and noticed 19.95 debited out of my account by another company on behalf of auto-trader. so today Monday 13/10/2014 called them to find out why has my money been taken out if there is no ad!!!? AFTER BEING ON THE PHONE FOR 25 MINUTES AND A CALL BACK FROM THE MANAGER, THEY TELL ME THAT THE ADD WAS CANCELLED BY THEIR SECURITY TEAM BECAUSE BASICALLY I ENTERED A PRICE LESS THAT THE RECOMMENDATION PRICE THEY PROVIDED AND THAT THEY CANNOT REFUND ME THE MONEY BECAUSE IT SAYS SO IN THE TERMS AND CONDITION UNDER SOME SECTION, which is a loophole for them to take your money.. DAYLIGHT ROBBERY ... all they can offer is for me to pay the minimum difference of 16 pounds to upgrade my add and this whole time No one bothered to contact me and let me know. i think is disgusting good day
written by hooti22 on 14/10/2014
twice already i used auto-trader paying the full price of 45.95 to advertise my car and i think i would have been better off putting a note on a shop window. so this time i thought id go for the cheaper option of 19.95 i submitted my ad on the 9th oct 2014, it was processing for two days so i emailed them, no reply then the add just disappeared from manage my ads section. that was the 11th. i checked my bank and noticed 19.95 debited out of my account by another company on behalf of auto-trader. so today Monday 13/10/2014 called them to find out why has my money been taken out if there is no ad!!!? AFTER BEING ON THE PHONE FOR 25 MINUTES AND A CALL BACK FROM THE MANAGER, THEY TELL ME THAT THE ADD WAS CANCELLED BY THEIR SECURITY TEAM BECAUSE BASICALLY I ENTERED A PRICE LESS THAT THE RECOMMENDATION PRICE THEY PROVIDED AND THAT THEY CANNOT REFUND ME THE MONEY BECAUSE IT SAYS SO IN THE TERMS AND CONDITION UNDER SOME SECTION, DAYLIGHT ROBBERY ... all they can offer is for me to pay the minimum difference of 16 pounds to upgrade my add and this whole time No one bothered to contact me and let me know. i think is disgusting good day
written by autoTraderisoverpriced on 21/09/2014
WHY GET RID OF THE AUTOTRADER MAGAZINE ???? a great way to find a car , you can flick through a 100's of cars and different models by a flick of the page .. you can scan a whole page in 30 seconds . it takes forever to turn the autorader web page over , unlike its famous competitor eba ..where the pages flow quicker and have better adverts and better pictures and more information autotrader website has always been a disappointment ! .. so sales of the magazine went down from 250,000 in its heyday down to 29,000 .. thats still a £100,000 a week turnover / £5 million a year , but not worth keeping the magazine ??? , plus most importantly what autotrader forgets is the website popularity has gone hand in hand with the magazine . after 10 years or so , other websites will come along and other a better service and price . i can only see autotrader going down hill from now on .. its only a website . nothing more nothing less .. and the new generation will never know what a great magazine the autotrader was .. there will be no , nostalgia to keep future generations advertising .. so good luck to autotraders future competitors !! autorader has never looked after its main customers , car dealers !! Car dealers spend £1000's a year advertising with autoTrader and have always paid more in the past for a very long time than private customers. so when a better website starts coming along car dealers will have no loyalty to autotrader , and many now switching to eba . for a better price and simlar response . the website has always been sloooowwww , clunky .. and poorly thought out ..and over priced . and first page is full of scam adverts or credit £249 a month etc etc .. .they have recently upgraded and made some improvements . like report and advert , after coloring a stupid advert for a renault , to help them free their website from scammers . i got fed up after reporting the first 5 fraud adverts i found !!.. yes autotrader might be number 1 for now ,, but definetley WONT stay THAT way .. the magazine helped define autotrader .. AND now the magazine has gone it will define the moment autotrader starts to fail !! and others will come and get a slice of the advertising cake
written by Chappy76 on 28/08/2014
I advertised my car for sale on Autotrader website at under their recommended price, had one call from someone 60 miles away offering about £1,000 less than the car buying company's. Would not waste my time using them again, very poor. And no place to leave a review on their website, so goodness only knows where their excellent "testimonials" come from, I can only assume it's their marketing department!
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Remb6464's Comment
Written on: 01/12/2017
Horrible carry on, we lost faith in them a long time ago.
Used to sell a lot of our caravan stock on their but just became too expensive.
We use another company instead now. Free too.