K Car API: Inspected Used Cars From a Direct Korean Seller

A direct seller, not an open marketplace

On Encar or KB ChaChaCha, thousands of sellers each write their own listing. At K Car, the company itself is the seller: it buys the car, runs its own diagnosis and lists it. For data users this means listings that follow one house style, with the same kinds of information presented the same way.

KoreaCarsAPI is an independent data service and is not affiliated with K Car. The API reads public K Car listings; delivery, rent, lease and installment are services K Car offers on its own site.

Who uses K Car data

Consistency is the main reason people pick K Car data out of the Korean sources.

• Exporters who want a reliable reference price for a model from a seller that inspects every car.
• Pricing teams that use K Car as a stable benchmark next to the wider spread of open marketplace prices.
• Analysts comparing a direct seller's asking prices with the same company's dealer auction, K Car Auction.
• Developers who want clean listings with fewer gaps to start a Korean car catalogue.

What a K Car record contains

K Car records use the same format as Encar. The vehicle part holds year, brand, model, generation, trim, engine volume, fuel, transmission, body type, colour and options in English. The listing part holds the K Car URL, title, odometer, price with currency, photos, the created_at, updated_at and last_seen_at dates and a dated price history.

Inspection and history data are returned when the listing shows them publicly. Inspection records in inspections[] can include conclusions such as the overall result and accident, water, fire and chemical damage status, inspection blocks with checked, passed and issue counts, checked items placed on a body map, diagnostic error codes and photos.

Prices come with their currency, and the dated price history shows each change K Car makes to a listing. Together with created_at, that tells you how long a car has been on offer and whether its price has moved.

Pulling K Car cars with inspection data

To focus on cars that carry public inspection data, use has_inspections=1 on GET /search. Add domains[] with K Car's ID from GET /domains to narrow the results to K Car. For a full K Car copy, use GET /cars with the K Car entry in domains[] and follow next_url.

# Cars of one model that carry a public inspection report
curl --get https://api.auctionsapi.com/search \
  -d "brands[0][id]=BRAND_ID" \
  -d "brands[0][models][0][id]=MODEL_ID" \
  -d has_inspections=1 \
  -d api_key=$API_KEY

# For K Car only: GET /cars with domains[] set to K Car's ID from GET /domains

Practical tips for K Car data

Because K Car data is consistent, small details become comparable from car to car.

• Use the inspection conclusions as a first filter, then read checked_items for the details.
• Compare evaluation_score only between reports from the same source, since sources score differently.
• Track the price history. A single seller tends to change prices in a pattern you can learn.
• A missing inspection report never means a clean history. Show it as unknown.
• Keep K Car apart from K Car Auction in your reports, as one is retail asking prices and the other is dealer lots.

K Car with K Car Auction, Encar and KB ChaChaCha

The most interesting pairing is K Car with K Car Auction, the company's dealer auction. One shows what K Car asks retail buyers, the other shows lots offered to dealers. Reading both side by side, model by model, shows the gap between the two channels of the same company.

For a wider retail view, add Encar and KB ChaChaCha. All three marketplaces share a record format, so a K Car price can be placed against the open market with no extra parsing.

When the same car is listed on another site as well, GET /cars/vin/{vin} links the listings.

Questions