Disclaimer

Last updated: 2026-05-29

⚠ Experimental research project. Car Scout is an in-development prototype operated for research and learning purposes. Features may change, break, or be removed without notice. The site may go offline at any time. Data may be stale, incomplete, or wrong. Do not rely on it for important decisions without independent verification.

🤝

Want your listings on Car Scout via API?

If you run a dealership, dealer group, classifieds platform, or vehicle-data service and would like your inventory surfaced here via a clean API feed, get in touch. We'd prefer to ingest your data the way you want it displayed, with full attribution back to your site and click-through to your listing pages. Commercial terms can be discussed case-by-case.

Free vs paid features

Car Scout's core research features are currently free to use:

Browsing listings, filtering by make/model/state/year/km/price
Best-value rankings, best-in-category views
Sold-price history and dealer desperation index
WOVI/WOVR write-off flagging
VIN extraction and Check car (PPSR / recall / state rego links)
3 free AI questions per day

Paid features exist only where they incur real per-use compute costs to us (primarily LLM inference for deep research):

Deep Dive ($3) — 20 AI questions in 2 hours, ideal for digging into one specific car
Day pass ($7) — 24 hours, up to 75 AI questions, no account required
Question pack ($15) — 150 AI questions valid for 90 days, no account required
Structured reports ($5–$15 each) — Trade-In Reality Check, Family Buyer Report, Dealer Negotiation Pack, WOVI Deep Investigation, etc.

Why caps even on paid passes: each AI question costs us real money in compute (typically $0.03–$0.10 depending on tool depth). Caps keep the model viable without forcing accounts. If you hit a cap and have a legitimate need for more, contact us — we'll usually accommodate.

No subscription, no account. All paid options are one-off Stripe purchases. You pay, get a token, use it until it expires — no password to remember, no monthly billing to cancel, no "forgot password" flow.

What you are paying for is compute and reasoning, not data. The underlying listings, sold prices, dealer metrics and value scores remain free to browse via the search, listings, best-value, sold-prices and dealers pages. The paid tier exists because language-model inference costs us money per question and a structured report can run 10+ tool calls plus a multi-thousand-token synthesis. We charge to cover that cost plus a small margin, not to gate access to the data itself.

Buyers always have free alternatives: they can browse the data directly on Car Scout, or visit the source sites (CarsGuide / Drive / etc.) without paying us anything.

Data sources

Listings are aggregated from publicly accessible pages on:

CarsGuide (operated by AutoTrader Media Pty Ltd)
Drive (operated by Nine Entertainment Co. Holdings Ltd)

Additional sources may be added over time — for example: Gumtree, Carsales (via API partnership), Pickles, Manheim, Toyota Certified, state-based dealer feeds, and private-seller marketplaces. Any new source added will be listed here and on the Runs page.

Car Scout is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any of these companies. All trademarks, brand names, and listing photographs remain the property of their respective owners. Every listing card on Car Scout links back to the original listing on the source site — the goal is to drive interested buyers to the source, not away from it.

Data accuracy

Pricing, kilometres, vehicle history, write-off status, and all other listing data is scraped automatically and may be out of date, incorrect, or incomplete. Source sites may change their data at any time. Always verify any listing against the dealer's current listing page before making a purchase decision.

Write-off (WOVI) flagging

Write-off detection is keyword-based on dealer descriptions and may produce false positives or miss disclosures. The only authoritative check is a PPSR search at ppsr.gov.au ($2 per check). Do not rely solely on Car Scout's flagging when buying a vehicle.

No financial or buying advice

"Value score" calculations, best-pick rankings, and AI-generated commentary are provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, mechanical, legal, or buying advice. Always obtain an independent pre-purchase inspection from a qualified mechanic and conduct your own due diligence.

AI-generated content

Answers from the Ask AI feature are generated by a language model and may contain errors. Claims about specific cars are grounded in scraped data which may itself be inaccurate. Verify any AI-stated fact against the source listing.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author of Car Scout accepts no liability for any loss or damage arising from use of, or reliance on, the information presented. Use the tool at your own risk.

Source-site opt-out

If you are CarsGuide, Drive, or any other site whose data is (or may in future be) surfaced here and you wish your listings to be excluded from Car Scout, please contact the operator. The relevant source will be removed from the scraping configuration within 7 days of a reasonable request and the existing scraped data for that source will be deleted from the database. We'd prefer to partner via API where possible — if your organisation offers a B2B data licence, we'd genuinely like to talk.

About

Car Scout is built and operated by DLK Studio — an Australian software studio building custom data tools, automation, and AI-driven research products. Contact dlkstudiotechnology@gmail.com for partnerships, custom builds, or general enquiries.

This disclaimer is provided in plain English for transparency. It does not constitute legal advice and is not a substitute for proper legal counsel.