Autotrader – Shop All the Cars Reviews

by Aaron102332

The developers have been destroying Autotrader with each update over the years, to the point where it’s unusable now. I have been a longtime user of this app and have been using it for over 5 years. The old app was the best. When they started to modernize Autotrader , each update introduced new bugs and annoyances. The most recent update that introduced a new interface and a type search feature is the absolute worst thing. It was easy to tap make and model in the old app as it was front and center, but now it’s the search bar. The search bar does not recognize some very common models. For example, I type “S550” it brings up every Mercedes model except for the S550. If you do manage to find what you're looking for, when you apply the filter sometimes it doesn’t work, it shows the entire brand instead of what model you’re looking for. Autotrader has had issues with it logging you out of your account for OVER A YEAR! How ridiculous is that? The newest issue is that, if you do manage to stay logged in, it won’t save cars that you want to save. Instead, it will give you an error. What’s also new is that if you tap on a vehicle to open the listing, it will show a blank screen. Autotrader is literally unusable, in addition to showing us showing ads for this ridiculous performance, the developers and the company as a whole should be ashamed.

by The Man With No Books

I don't think that it's exaggerating to say Autotrader is getting worse and worse. For the last week plus there's no place to login on Autotrader , but it gives you an error message if you try to save more than three cars, and tells you to login, which you can't... Autotrader seems pretty unstable.

A rating of just one star is kind of harsh however this is a company that had something like $500 million to merge with Kelly so it's not like some coders are working in their basement.

Some search criteria are very clunky Eg you cannot select multiple models within a brand in one step; you have to select three shades of brown if you're looking for a tan interior; blah blah blah... they survey for input all the time but don't seem to do anything with it :)

You can't search cars by the listing date on Autotrader , but you can on the website. Ie you can't display the new listings first.

I set up an alert on the website, it looks like you can't do that on Autotrader , but either way I get notices for "new listings" that display all the old listings...

It is frustratingly poor performance for a system that just searches their own database of listings.

The support people on the phone have been terrific and I'm sure they have competent talented programmers so what's the deal?!

by Hold The Mayos

You’re looking for cars? How about an ad on something else that is not cars? Yes, that’s what you want. Touch any where in Autotrader …even that car you’re trying to look at and no, it’s not going to take you to that car you were looking for but an advertiser that is paying us to funnel traffic to them and we can show them all the clicks we are getting that are in essence, falsifying customer interest. So after happily using Autotrader for years, this current version I have recently deleted because you can no longer scroll vehicles and search results without Autotrader leaving the search results every 2 to 5 seconds and bringing you to another advertisement in a web browser. No matter where you touch in Autotrader at all, it prompts this as if you clicked an ad. I am not interested in the ads and this is just obnoxious. At first this was just irritating, but now it’s made Autotrader completely unusable. I’d rather use other platforms that do not do this. Look, I get it, you have to pay the bills and monetize this content you provide in some kind of way. But you’ve lost me with the poor user experience here. Hope you figure this all out before you lose more of us and Autotrader is no more. Appreciate how this used to be.

by TxTeacherGuy

The latest update has several awful problems. First, Autotrader is running the device out of memory and Autotrader is slowing (or in some instances) quitting completely. Secondly, when selecting a Sort other than Relevance (e.g. Price Low to High), tapping on one vehicle to view and returning to the search results list reverts the sort back to Relevance (Autotrader will not maintain the desired Sort). Additionally, the ads embedded among search results are layering over (on top of) the filter selection screen. If you tap to select a category in the filter screen, the ad is selected instead - taking the user out of Autotrader entirely. FEATURE REQUEST: please allow user choice to open Saved Vehicles or Saved Searches when selecting the Fav button (instead of always defaulting to Saved Searches first).

by Doonona

The fundament thing of finding a good car is seeing the best ones fast. That means as soon as they are listed. Why would ANY developer devalue this metric in a car app. Idiotic overthinking by manipulative morons. Hiding this metric says everything about Autotrader—it’s junk and only wants to spam the user with rubbish listings and bill listers for false hits. I enjoyed deleting Autotrader. I’d doubt if the developers can even drive a car. They’ve certainly never bought a good one using this piece of rubbish app.
Additionally, asking for a users physical address when opting out of information is borderline criminal. Yes, intimate all you want, but I will enjoy the anonymous future coming... when this type of gutter dwelling over information gathering will be prohibited and devalued. Bad, morally corrupt companies and developers are at play in Autotrader.

by RacerRhapsody

Due to owning most of Internet traffic for resellers and dealers… Auto trader has the luxury of not including lots of options that lots of people would love to see…

For example I can drill down to the year instead of being lumped in groups but yet I can’t drill down to the mileage that I want to select. Case in point, I don’t want any vehicle over 50,000 miles, yet I’m forced to go up to 60,000 miles and then have to eliminate options just based on scrolling. Also I specifically want an SUV with seven seats not eight seats but there is no option for that either.

Since Ford decided to make well over half of their expeditions in an eight seater configuration instead of a seven seater, 1 in 10 maybe one in 15 options at auto trader sources for me as actually a viable vehicle for me to even look at.

by Hollendeeziac

Autotrader is just short of great but for the reasons it’s not, are nothing short of frustrating. If you search for cars and set a mileage or price parameter, lets say under 20,000 miles under $10,000. The search returns 80% of your results with cars that have unlisted mileage. Unlisted mileage doesn’t mean they forgot to list the mileage, it means the mileage is so high they don’t want you to know until you look into the vehicle. There’s no way to exclude these high mileage vehicles (or unlisted as they say), & its a huge waste of time to make people view them. You can’t sort them out to show only actual low mile vehicles, they mix the unlisted in with lets say 15,000. Even if you sort from low to high mileage, still mixes them all up. They could have made a minimum mileage search option, or a “exclude keyword”, but what they should do, is FORCE the advertiser to list the mileage. It is what it is, so put it in the ad. Auto Trader, you need to fix this, and stop making this a frustrating experience. Should be easy and enjoyable. Your developers clearly don’t USE Autotrader , just test it. Maybe you should actually use it for a change, and work on sorting out these issues.

by Kvbit

I want to like Autotrader when it works it’s great.
Some things I’d like changed is full screen photos, what’s the point of enlarging the photos if they are about the same size? If you are looking at a car you want to be able to get a close look at it. Also photos load really slow so optimization there would be great.
But the one continuously frustrating part is all the constant glitches, things don’t load, server drops, can’t connect, errors etc. It is so frustrating and this has been the case for a long time now and who ever is building Autotrader has not been able to fix it.
auto trader needs to find a new app developer and rewrite Autotrader so it’s stable. Autotrader doesn’t work as it yet to be fixed.
I’ve used it for a long time in the hope that they will get their app straightened out.

by Jeffbaxter126

I want to start this off by saying I’ve used this app for a long time and really like the platform. But, this latest update is a major step backwards in UI. It’s clunky and hard to use compared to the old version. Searching is slow and tedious now. My biggest gripe is removing class selections in favor of models. For instance, instead of being able to select BMW then 5 series to see all available models (535i/550i/540i/etc) you have to select each model individually. This is really annoying if you are unfamiliar with the exact years certain model designations were used or want to see across many years. Second- Autotrader should open to a screen where you select make and model every time, like the website. This is the primary function of Autotrader ! Why is it multiple taps away in a harder to use filter menu. Please rethink the way sorting and filtering are handled. The new UI looks nicer but it seems aesthetics took priority over functionality.

by Pdvoorheis

this app is a massive and wildly successful company. They are the leading website for car searches. I love their website and they have been my go-to for years when buying/shopping for a vehicle. That said, their app is so poorly done it’s embarrassing. Autotrader frequently crashes and the crashing problem has existing for a long while. With the recent dark mode update, Autotrader looks terrible. The option wheels hide the text. The functionality is clunky at best compared to the online website. If I want to search for example a Nissan Altima and Maxima in both SL and SV trims, I have to search for 4 separate vehicles. I should be able to select multiple makes/models/trims in a list the way the website allows. I should be able to narrow down mileage limitations more than just the 5 allowed on Autotrader . I could go on and on, but it’s nothing that other users haven’t already complained about. It’s just a shame that a company with nearly one thousand employs won’t do anything about it.

by Codine777

I have never left a negative review before, that being said, an app this bad is deserving of a bad review. For starters I have never used an app with this many bugs. I have used Autotrader to find cars in the past and have been using it a lot recently trying to find the right vehicle to purchase next and every time I try to use the advanced search feature, it shows a blank page and shows zero cars. I have to delete and re-download Autotrader to use it and that’s a temporary fix because it happens so often. Even if I get it to work, browsing cars is a nightmare because it freezes up and crashes. Autotrader used to be amazing before the big “update” a couple months ago. If I were the designers, I’d seriously consider going back to the drawing board and maybe even take a few pointers from the previous version. I have now moved on to a different app for my car search

by Beienchciakkfocka

Yup, Autotrader is broken. When i try to like a car, i get an error and it doesn't allow me to like/save the vehicle. If i exit and swipe out of Autotrader several times, i can favorite a couple cars before the error pops up again.

Also, when searching for cars and putting in the parameters, it’ll say “0 results found.” So ill delete the parameter, then put it in again and voila, low and behold it works. The flaws with Autotrader are small but absolutely annoying. Ive switched over to other apps and almost always avoid using this one now because of how flawed it is with tiny but mind boggling glitches. Trash and flawed. I like the layout for the most part but CarFax and Cargurus are allot more user friendly and wayyyy less flawed.

by Primer315

I love Autotrader bc of the wide variety of vehicles I can find. However, there are quite a lot of posts that have no mileage posted whatsoever. That is a major drag due to the fact that you can’t weed out those postings within your searches. Lately, I’ve been searching for vehicles on a day to day basis and saving quite a few that I have my eyes on. I love being able to go back and look at them and see which one would fit my needs best, well all of a sudden the list of saved vehicles has now disappeared, and I can no longer save new vehicles either. An error message appears stating, “oops. We stalled. Please try again”.
I have tried restarting my phone, logging out and back in, and even not using Autotrader for a few days. And it still appears. Please fix this. Thank you.

by Lowe303

I don’t usually review apps, but I’m hoping if enough people do they’ll fix whatever is wrong with this thing. I have used this app for years and never had any major issues but lately it has become very laggy. These issues have gotten even worse with the new “update” a few days ago and now it is to the point where it’s really only usable for a few minutes before it becomes basically impossible to use and also heats up my phone. I have tried everything, restarting Autotrader countless times, restarting my phone, and even reinstalling Autotrader . Nothing has helped at all. I know there are other car shopping apps out there but like I said I have been using Autotrader for years and therefore am very comfortable with the software so please fix this! It is a great app when it is working properly.

by DrDrillgood

For the most part I love this app. I find it very useful. I found my most recent vehicle purchase on it. But you guys really need to hammer out the glitches in your app. If I get particularly far in scrolling through a search Autotrader just decides it can’t handle it and shuts down. Then I have to restart my search from the beginning and try to scroll back to where I left off. I think to myself “maybe I should check to see if there’s an update that fixes this.” Yes! An update there is. Great, let’s try this out again. Problem definitely “fixed.” It’s not crashing out of the searches any more because it will only let me see....oh, I dunno....50 of the results? Out of 1600. Yeah that’s just perfect. That’s exactly what I was hoping for. Just show me those 50 cars. And let’s forget all about the other 1550 I might be interested in. God forbid you let me see them, because obviously your app can’t handle it without crashing. I’m rolling my eyes so hard that if I was driving, I would crash like your app. Or, I just update my brain to the new software version that only lets me see 5 cars on the road at a time, and then I would never crash. Because that’s how things work, right?

by Arthur.Wolford

For finding cars, Autotrader does the job for you. There are various filters you can apply, in addition to being able to save certain vehicles and even your searches.

The reason I rated this three stars rather than five is due to the application performance. Autotrader tends to lag and delay response time to scrolling significantly. The result amount listed was tested at 127 results and 100. I do not think Autotrader should be struggling to display these results, and I don’t think it does, however I believe the advertisements cause this latency issue. As they load in continuously, Autotrader must focus on loading the pictures in for the ads, in addition to the specific dimensions. It seems that when the ads is loading in, the performance drops. When this happens, it seems to slow any scrolling, even in the filter screen.

As this looks like a big con, and to me it kinda is, Autotrader still gives you the ability to search cars to a tee that fit your style.

by SZTC

I agree with a prior review. AT was clean and generally simple. The best in my opinion. Not a bunch of hidden menus and options with overly complicate (IT nerdy) ways to use the tool. Competitor tools tend to overwhelm the user and are confusing to navigate. I’d set all of my advanced settings, multiple vehicles at times, and hit search. And, I’d save the search or vehicle(s) and periodically set alerts. If I were to improve anything - realizing AT must satisfy both the retailers/sellers and buyers experience - I’d continue efforts to only show vehicles asked for under set query parameters. Meaning, if I say Toyota Tundra CrewMax, under 75k miles, max $30k, within 25 miles, don’t show me vehicles that don’t match this criteria. It’s annoying and I abandon tools that do this. Asking the user if they’d like to see similar vehicles or those further out or more dollars, etc. would be fine - though essentially running a finite report criteria and getting back incorrect results is a pain. Clean, Simple, Accurate!

by Brown66

App support is nonexistent?? Received an error message 404 not found on website for app support? Needed help why the iPhone app error keeps appearing that there was an error fetching the search options. No other way around this message. No exit button? Had to close Autotrader several times and reopening to no avail. So I deleted Autotrader . Still can’t get into Autotrader so I have to resort to the website or my iPad for now.

Please fix this error for I use this IPhone app to find cars to buy for my daughter. A one star for now until Autotrader is fixed for iPhone.

by PantherGirl1979

I love Autotrader. I browse it weekly, sometimes daily! I wrote a review a while ago suggesting they make an option to sort vehicles by uploaded date so we can see the newly listed ones as a filter so we don’t keep looking at all the same ones we don’t want. It finally happened! So I just want to thank you whoever updates Autotrader and say it’s amazing now!! I love it even more! Keep up the great work. Also maybe have the private seller ones show us at least a state that it’s located in so we know if we want to even bother with it! That would be cool. And one more idea: can we please have an option to get rid of a vehicle in our saved searches that doesn’t meet our needs so we don’t have to keep checking it again and again? Meaning: let’s say I search for a Fiat and I put in specific criteria and save it. Ok so now I check that saved search every day and if I find a vehicle that I definitely don’t want to look at again within my search I would like to have the option to get rid of it within that saved search. Thanks!!! . :-)

by Polly Glott

I needed to replace an Audi. I kept cruising this app and the net deciding what I wanted, seeing the options, and, mainly, working up the nerve to drop that much money on a purchase. One day I noticed the latest model with everything I wanted and very low mileage for 25% off. I contacted the dealer and it was already sold. However I learned from that dealer that the dealers sell their loaner cars at the same time when the new model arrives. So I watched this app like a hawk. Sure enough another one appeared at a dealer closer to me. I emailed them immediately through Autotrader and snagged the prize. I was planning to pay full price for a new car, but I figured a loaner was basically a new car at 25% off. I think I got the new car with everything I wanted and saved $13,000 or more. I presume Autotrader made a little money too—good for them. Unfortunately the Audi dealer we always worked with wasn’t part of this app so they lost my business. Thanks this app! I’m a big fan.

by Brian3086

I’ve used it for a few years. It’s worked fine. A few options missing from full online version would certainly make it better. For example, ability to select multiple trims under same model instead of having to add another car/model/trim. Also, it has started crashing on a regular basis the past couple of days. I can only view a few cars then it locks up and eventually crashes/closes.

Still not fixed. Freezes up, crashes, does not allow you to view car details when clicking the more arrow. To the point app is useless and I just use browser. I’m on latest iOS and latest app running dark mode.

by WesleyCC

Overall Autotrader ok, however I have seen two issues. The first is I have went to go test drive cars but they were already sold yet they were showing available on Autotrader . I realize this is could be the dealerships fault for not updating their data but it could also be Autotrader ’s fault for not syndicating the data everyday, but nevertheless the integrity of the information shown is still compromised. My second issue is more annoying than anything. The AD vehicles show multiple times on the same screen which skews the results. If the AD vehicles only showed once at the top of the screen I would have given it 4-stars.

by TylerMpersonal

I have used Autotrader for a couple of years and one thing I’ve noticed is the developer doesn’t improve Autotrader very often. I find it stalls on a regular occasion regardless of the device. And when I set my search criteria to not show vehicle without photos or price somehow they still show up. I don’t understand how someone can try and sell a vehicle without pictures or price. Really need to set that as required information and tell accounts that use stock photos they will lose the privilege of this site if that is continued. Would make a lot better experience for everyone. De-Clutter this app

by No Touch ID!!!!!

Absolutely love this app. Bought a car and found other cars for others. 1 thing missing for me and would love to see included...on the website users can choose to hide or remove certain selections from the search. The user is also able to leave a comment as to why they want the particular selection to not be included in the search. For example...searching for a manual transmission, but the search results include automatic transmissions. The auto transmission cars should be hidden or removed because they were not included in the search criteria and should be flagged

by Buckolaci

I’ve been using the this app app for about 4-5 years now. It’s had its ups and downs, but overall it’s been my go-to car shopping app. Love the saved car and saved search options and enjoy the mix of dealer and private party listings.
With that said, there are a couple of areas where the developers could make some improvements:
1. You can’t modify your saved searches. Once you have saved a search, you can’t change the max price, you can’t later add extra criteria to it and you can’t even rename it. I’ve been waiting for this feature for years and I’m still waiting.
2. You can’t see the location for private party listings. Not sure which update caused this, but for a while now there’s no way of telling what state/town the seller is located. With dealer listings they give you the full address, website and phone number - with the private party sales I have to guess from the landscaping if it’s a quick drive or a long plane ride away from me.
3. Old abandoned listings: I sometimes save a listing and it’s still on the website a year or two later. Is it still for sale? Does anybody check with the seller? Anybody care at AT? Maybe a days listed column would help consumers get an idea of how long it’s been listed and also sellers should be required to update their ads once in a blue moon.
That’s all I’ve got for now...still love Autotrader

by Truth12345z

Love Autotrader, and have used it for years. However, recently the description pages of individual cars is all messed up and scrunched into the middle of the screen, overlapping and thus making it unreadable (and the this app app UNUSABLE).

I have tried removing it and re-downloading it. I have tried it on different devices. Still the same problem. Still does not work.

this app app guys, here’s an idea: before you push a new update of Autotrader out —- test it to make sure it actually works!

by Peter The Car Buyer

I have been using this app for years. The last few times I have used it not only is it glitchy and freeze up, but the quality of the results were not inclusive of many many other results found on other competing websites. Step it up or I will start my car searches where the results can be found. I have also sold a few cars on this app. The last time I TRIED to sell a car I was SHOCKED how expensive it was. Tried it for a few weeks with only a few calls, all tire kickers. I put the same car on another site after a few weeks on this app and we had ten calls in two days and the car was sold within a week. So, again poor results. this app needs to lower the cost to list a car to solve their two biggest problems. 1)Not enough listings 2)because it’s to expensive to list a vehicle. Look, I think this app has been the goto in car searches/selling over the years, but they got too big for their britches! Come back to reality this app and realize you are getting your clocks cleaned cause you got greedy.......

by Vishal Ghorpade

Great app. But I think the most recent iOS update messed up functionality. I don't see the years to select from. Additional, note that might help you QA is to test Autotrader on the new IOS update with dark mode on. It might be something to with the background color selection as well. Good luck. Hopefully, the next release should resolve this.

Additionally, Autotrader crashes if you perform too many searches. Maybe memory cache?You have to close Autotrader and reopen to restart the search.

by Sundlie

App is great to search for local vehicles. Plenty of filters to narrow down exactly what you’re looking for. However it’s always been a bit buggy on iPad. Using the favorites for saving vehicles or searching has always been hit or miss. Sometimes it saves and sometimes it just doesn’t. Lately it appears to have stopped working all together. The apps shows no saved cars or searches even though I know I’ve had them saved previously. Hopefully this gets figured out soon.