Autotrader Scraper

Scrape AutoTrader.co.uk by specifying search criteria, with results returned as a dictionary.

Installation

Python 3:

$ pip3 install autotrader-scraper

To update from an older version, the best way is to run pip3 uninstall autotrader-scraper before running the above command.

(Note: Python 2 is no longer supported as this package now uses cloudscraper to bypass CloudFlare protection, which in turn doesn't support Python 2)

Usage

Step 1: Import the package

>>> from autotrader_scraper import get_cars, save_csv, save_json

Step 2: Call get_cars() with your criteria (full list below) and store the returned dictionary

>>> results = get_cars(
        make = "Audi",
        model = "A5",
        postcode = "SW1A 0AA",
        radius = 1500,
        min_year = 2005,
        max_year = 2020,
        include_writeoff = "include",
        max_attempts_per_page = 5,
        verbose = False
    )

Step 3: Call save_csv() or save_json() with your results dictionary to output as a csv or json

>>> save_csv(results)
>>> save_json(results)

(You can chain these functions together to do everything in one line)

>>> save_csv(get_cars(make = "Audi", model = "A5", ...))

Criteria

Criteria / Argument	Type	Description	Values	Default Value
make	String	Make of the car	Get these from autotrader.co.uk*. Examples are "Audi", "BMW", "Jaguar"	"BMW"
model	String	Model of the car	Get these from autotrader.co.uk*. Examples are "A3", "A4", "A4" for Audi	"5 SERIES"
variant	String (optional)	Variant of the car/trim	Get these from autotrader.co.uk*. Examples are "520d", "S-Line", "340i	"540i"
postcode	String	Postcode where you are searching	Example: "CB2 1TN", "NW1 2BH"	"SW1A 0AA"
radius	Integer	Radius of your search from the postcode	Can be any positive integer. Use 1500 for nation-wide search	1500 (i.e. nation-wide)
min_year	Integer	Minimum year of the car's manufacture	Can be any positive integer	1995
max_year	Integer	Maximum year of the car's manufacture	Can be any positive integer	1995
include_writeoff	String	Whether or not to include insurance write-off categories (i.e. Cat S/C/D/N)	"include", "exclude", "writeoff-only"	"include"
max_attempts_per_page	Integer	Maximum times to attempt scraping a page. A request may fail due to connectivity issues, server response issues, etc. and so in the event of a failure, the request will be retried a number of times specified by this argument	Can be any positive integer	5
verbose	Boolean	Whether or not to print progress on the console. Good for debugging	True, False	False

* When doing a search on the autotrader.co.uk website, look at the URL of the search results page to get an idea of what string to pass in here. Ignore URL encoding characters such as "%20" (replacement for a space) and type it how you normally would e.g. use "SERIES 5" rather than "SERIES%205"

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! For bug reports or requests please submit an issue.

Donations

If you feel like showing your love and/or appreciation for this project, you can do so below:

Contact info

Feel free to contact me to discuss any issues, questions, or comments.