SK Car Rental Auction API: Lot Data With Vehicle History

SK Car Rental Auction in short

The auction runs on auction.skcarrental.com and offers lots to dealers on auction dates. In KoreaCarsAPI it is a dealer auction source, so its records come back with is_auction=true, with auction_at, condition and damage fields, and price and current_bid where the auction shows them.

KoreaCarsAPI is an independent data service, not affiliated with SK Rent-a-car. It returns data only.

Access to the auction and anything that happens there is for its members. KoreaCarsAPI reads what the auction shows and returns it in the same lot format as the other dealer auctions, so SK lots can sit in the same tools as Lotte or K Car Auction lots.

Who looks at history on auction lots

History data is often what separates two lots that look alike on paper.

• Exporters whose clients ask about the number of owners and any insurance claims.
• Dealer partners who need a quick summary of each lot before a session.
• Analysts comparing claim and loss patterns between auctions.
• Developers adding a history panel to a lot review tool.

What a history report contains

Where a public report exists, vehicle_history_reports[] has a summary: first_registered_at, owner_change_count, registration_change_count, insurance_claim_count, vehicle_damage_claim_count with its cost, third_party_damage_claim_count with its cost, total_loss_count, flood_total_loss_count, flood_partial_loss_count and theft_count.

Below the summary, a dated events timeline lists what happened and when. Repairs show amount_parts, amount_labor and amount_painting, with mileage_km at the time. A coverage section tells you what the report covers. The vehicle part and the usual lot fields sit alongside all of this.

Which fields are filled depends on the report and the listing. Some reports carry a full timeline, others mostly the summary. Show what is there, label what is not as unknown, and never fill a missing count with zero, because a zero would claim something the data does not say.

Finding cars with history reports

Use has_history_reports=1 on GET /search to find cars that carry a public history report, together with brand and model filters. Add domains[] with the SK Car Rental Auction ID from GET /domains to keep the results on SK lots. For the full SK lot list, use GET /cars with is_auction=true and its entry in domains[].

If you start from a single lot, GET /cars/{car_id} returns the full record with its history reports, and GET /cars/vin/{vin} links it with any other listing of the same car, which may carry a different report.

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

# Add -d "domains[]=SOURCE_ID" (ID from GET /domains) to keep only SK Car Rental Auction lots

Reading history on auction lots

History data rewards careful reading.

• Read owner_change_count and registration_change_count together; they describe different things.
• Separate own damage claims from third party claims, and look at the cost of each.
• Line up repair events with mileage_km to see when in the car's life they happened.
• Check the coverage section before drawing conclusions from an empty timeline.
• Only public reports are returned. A missing report never means a clean history.

SK Car Rental Auction with the other auctions

SK Car Rental Auction and Lotte Auto Auction are both run by rental companies, which makes them an interesting pair to compare by model, mileage and history. Both share the lot format, so one export with two domains[] values covers them.

Add Autobell Auction, K Car Auction and the Kolon Auto Auction entries for a full view of the Korean dealer auctions, and compare with Encar or K Car when you want retail asking prices for the same model.

Demo keys are available on request, and paid access depends on the sources and volume involved.

Questions