---
title: "AutoTempest Review: What It Searches and What It Leaves to You"
description: "AutoTempest searches 19 partner sites and links to craigslist and Facebook, but sells no cars. What its terms, privacy policy and help center say."
url: "https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/autotempest-review/"
type: "article"
published: "2026-10-16"
modified: "2026-10-16"
site: "Baron Auto"
disclaimer: "This site is under new ownership and is not affiliated with Baron Auto Emporium dealership."
---

# AutoTempest Review: What It Searches and What It Leaves to You

> AutoTempest searches 19 partner sites and links to craigslist and Facebook, but sells no cars. What its terms, privacy policy and help center say.

*Used Car Buying · 22 min read · 4,918 words*

## The short version

- AutoTempest is a search engine for car listings, not a seller. Its terms say “We do not sell any vehicles ourselves,” so you buy from the dealer or private seller who placed the ad, under the terms of the site that carries it.
- Its privacy policy names 19 listing partners, among them eBay, Cars.com, Carvana, CarGurus and TrueCar. For craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and Autotrader it only builds search links, and it says it “can’t actually ‘see’ those pages.”
- Its terms take “no responsibility for” the accuracy of any listing and say anything you find through it is “at your own risk.” They contain no arbitration clause and no dollar cap, only your agreement not to hold its owners responsible.
- Advertising is the only revenue source its pages name in words. Its selling, insurance and trade-in pages send you to named partners, and no page says whether those partners pay it.
- Searching shares your IP address with ad and listing partners, and the page address they receive can include your ZIP code and filters. A contact form sends your name, email and phone to the partner. A separate version, donotshare.autotempest.com, loads no tracking ads or images.
- Use it to find a car, then check everything yourself: open the listing on the site that carries it, match the VIN, check the title and the seller, and get an inspection before you travel or pay. AutoTempest’s own terms say “we strongly recommend you do due diligence on any vehicle before purchasing.”

Yes, AutoTempest is a legitimate car search engine. Its About page says it has been running since 2008. It does not sell, list or vouch for cars: it gathers listings from other sites, and its own terms leave every check on the car and the seller to you. On 16 October 2026 we read its Legal & Privacy page (last updated May 25, 2026), its About, How AutoTempest Works, Partners, Sell Your Car, Contact, insurance and trade-in pages, all 10 articles in its help center and two of its 2015 blog guides: 21 pages in all. Its terms bar automated access, so we opened each page once by hand, and as its robots.txt asks, we used nothing from the one page marked noindex. We ran no search and typed no ZIP code, make, model or contact detail. This site has no commercial relationship with AutoTempest or any site it searches.

**Figure: What each thing you see on AutoTempest means, by AutoTempest’s own pages**

A seven-row table reading what a shopper sees on AutoTempest against AutoTempest’s own pages: a car shown on AutoTempest with a contact form came from a listing partner, and the form sends your name, email and phone to that partner for the seller; a result that opens another site hands you to that site and its privacy policy; links to craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and Autotrader are searches on sites it has no partnership with and cannot see; filters those sites lack are mapped, dropped or turned into keywords; listing details come from other sources and AutoTempest takes no responsibility for their accuracy; ad partners such as Google and Amazon receive your IP address and may set cookies; and donotshare.autotempest.com loads no tracking ads or images but cannot contact sellers for you.

Read from AutoTempest’s Legal & Privacy page (last updated May 25, 2026), How AutoTempest Works page and help center on 16 October 2026. No search was run and nothing was entered.

## Is AutoTempest legit? What it is and who runs it

AutoTempest describes itself in one line of its [Legal section](https://www.autotempest.com/legal): “AutoTempest.com is a search engine for vehicle for-sale listings. We do not sell any vehicles ourselves; we only provide a service to help users find vehicles for sale from other sources.” Its [About page](https://www.autotempest.com/about) says it was built to save shoppers time “by gathering results from all the top used car websites such as eBay Motors, Cars.com, TrueCar, Carvana, Cars & Bids and more.” It adds that it is “NOT affiliated with craigslist or AutoTrader,” and every page footer adds Kijiji to that list.

The About page says “We’ve been around since 2008,” 18 years by our arithmetic. Its founder and CEO, Nathan Stretch, started the site “solo back in 2008.” The page lists 12 people (our count), from the founder to junior web developers. It describes one developer’s job as “organizing and coordinating listings that are imported from all partner shopping sites,” which is a fair summary of what the business does.

Searchers often ask who owns AutoTempest. None of the pages we read names a company, a legal entity, a street address or a country. The Legal section refers only to “the owner(s) or affiliate(s) of AutoTempest.com.” The [Contact page](https://www.autotempest.com/contact) offers a feedback page, the help center, a support form and an email address, and prints no phone number or postal address. We did not search company registries, so we name only the founder and CEO the About page names.

The About page also claims: “Nowhere else will you find more listings in one place.” AutoTempest publishes no count to check it against, only “millions of listings from dealers and private sellers.” Treat it as marketing.

A legitimate search engine can still show you a false listing, and AutoTempest’s terms make no promise otherwise. Our guide to [finding a used car](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/how-to-find-a-used-car/#cast-wide) explains why searching several channels at once helps; this page covers what changes when one site does that searching for you.

## What websites does AutoTempest search?

The fullest list is in the privacy policy, not on the page called How AutoTempest Works: “We have partnered with the following sites to provide you with vehicle listings: SearchTempest.com, eBay, Detroit Trading, Cars.com, CarsDirect, Lotlinx, CarSoup, AutoWeb, Carvana, VAST, Hemmings, PrivateAuto, Sotheby’s Motorsport, Rythmic, Cars & Bids, BuyTheCar, Speed Shift Media, CarGurus, and TrueCar.” That is 19 names. The Legal section explains the mix: it partners with “companies that aggregate vehicle for sale listings from dealers and private sellers, such as Cars.com, eBay, Detroit Trading, and others, as well as companies that sell their own inventory, such as Carvana.”

A second group is linked, not searched. How AutoTempest Works says: “We’re not partnered with craigslist, Facebook Marketplace or Autotrader, but to save you time, we also link to their results matching your search.” The help center adds CarGurus to the sites it links to without showing their cars. That conflicts with the privacy policy’s partner list, as the table further down shows.

**Where AutoTempest’s results come from, by its own pages (read 16 October 2026)**

| Source group | Named by AutoTempest | How it reaches you |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Listing partners (privacy policy) | 19 sites, from SearchTempest.com and eBay to CarGurus and TrueCar | Some display on AutoTempest; others send you to their own site |
| Aggregators of dealer and private listings (Legal) | Cars.com, eBay, Detroit Trading “and others” | Listings pass through the aggregator before AutoTempest |
| Sellers of their own stock (Legal) | Carvana | The company is the seller |
| Linked, no partnership (How AutoTempest Works) | craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Autotrader | Search links only; AutoTempest cannot see the results |
| Comparison links only (help center) | Autotrader, CarGurus, Facebook Marketplace, craigslist | “their listings are not shown directly in our results” |

Nobody can list a car on AutoTempest itself. A help article for dealers says: “To list dealer inventory on AutoTempest, please contact one of our partner sites, such as Cars.com or Truecar.” Private sellers are told AutoTempest does not “offer direct listing services”, and that a car listed with a partner may take up to 24 hours to appear. So every car you see was placed on another site first. For the partners this site has reviewed, see our pages on [CarGurus](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/cargurus-review/), [TrueCar](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/truecar-review/), [Carvana](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/carvana-review/), [Hemmings](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/hemmings-review/) and [Cars & Bids](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/cars-and-bids-review/). Each sets its own rules for the cars it carries.

## How a listing reaches AutoTempest: three kinds of result

AutoTempest’s pages describe three kinds of result, and each sends your details somewhere different.

**Cars shown on AutoTempest.** The privacy policy says “Some of these partners provide us with vehicle details to display entirely on AutoTempest.com.” When such a car opens on an autotempest.com page, AutoTempest offers a contact form. It collects “your name, phone number, and email address” and sends them “to the partner who provided the vehicle listing, in order to forward it to the seller.” Your message passes through two companies before the seller reads it. The same policy says AutoTempest shows the dealer’s details on these pages, so “you can use the dealer’s information to contact them directly” instead.

**Cars that open on a partner’s site.** “Other partners prefer that we link from our search results to vehicle detail pages on their websites,” the policy says, giving cars.com and ebay.com as examples. Once you click, you are on that site, under its terms and its privacy policy: “AutoTempest’s privacy policy does not apply to any interactions that occur on third party websites.”

**Comparison links.** For sites it has no deal with, AutoTempest builds links that run your search there. The help center explains the catch: “we don’t have any way to know whether each link actually has results matching your search. (AutoTempest can’t actually ‘see’ those pages.)” For craigslist it generates a link for each region in your search area. It warns that craigslist “only deals in keywords”, so a search for “a 1998-2002 car” can match “an ad where someone has listed their ride for $2000.”

Filters do not always carry across. AutoTempest says it does its “best to map your AutoTempest search parameters to compatible filters” on linked sites, which it does not control. On Facebook Marketplace, “when searching with keywords, filters other than price can’t be used (such as make, model, transmission, body style, etc.),” and “On mobile you are essentially limited to searching by keywords only.” That is why a comparison link can show cars outside your price or mileage range.

Of the help center’s 3 advanced keyword tools, one excludes words with a minus sign, and its own example excludes “salvage title”. That removes only ads that use the phrase, so check the title yourself; our guide to [salvage titles](https://baronauto1.com/vehicle-history/what-is-a-salvage-title/) explains the brand.

Timing cuts both ways. A help article says a car listed with a partner “may take up to 24 hours to appear in our results.” No page we read says how quickly a car that has sold, or been pulled, disappears. Treat every AutoTempest result as a copy of someone else’s advert that may be a day or more behind the original.

## What AutoTempest does not do: sell, inspect or handle the money

Its pages confirm in words that it does not sell or list cars; on inspection and payment they are silent.

**What AutoTempest’s own pages say about selling, inspecting and payment (read 16 October 2026)**

| Question | What its pages say | Where |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Does it sell cars? | No: “We do not sell any vehicles ourselves” | Legal section |
| Can you list a car with it? | No: it does not “offer direct listing services”; dealers and private sellers go through partners | Help center |
| Does it inspect or vet cars or sellers? | Not stated either way. No page describes any inspection, verification or vetting; the terms take “no responsibility for” listing accuracy | Legal section |
| Does it take deposits or payments? | Not stated either way. No page describes AutoTempest holding money; the escrow and identity checks on its Sell page are other companies’ services | Legal section; Sell page |

The terms cover everything after the click in one sentence: AutoTempest “has no control over, and takes no responsibility for, anything that happens during the process of purchasing or attempting to purchase a vehicle.” Its pages make no claim that anyone at AutoTempest has seen the car, checked the seller or held your money.

**A listing found through a search engine carries no checks of its own.** AutoTempest says all its listings “come from other sources” and that it has “no control over” their accuracy. A price far below the market, a seller who will only text, or a request for a deposit before you see the car are reasons to stop, wherever the ad first appeared. Our list of [seller red flags](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/used-car-red-flags/#seller) covers the common patterns.

## How AutoTempest makes money, as far as its pages say

None of the pages we read mentions a fee for shoppers. They describe several commercial relationships, but name only one, advertising, as a source of money.

**Advertising.** “We have also partnered with several companies to provide advertisements. These include Google, Amazon, IndexExchange, Improve Digital, and AppNexus,” the privacy policy says: 5 named ad partners. Its ads.txt file, which it cites for the full list, was empty when we requested it. The policy says third-party ad networks may use cookies and web beacons “to build a profile in order to provide relevant advertisements to you across multiple websites,” and that AutoTempest “has no access to or control over these cookies.”

**Partner tools.** AutoTempest’s insurance page offers quotes from “our car insurance partners”, naming Liberty Mutual and Kanetix. Its trade-in page says “Our partner Carvana will give you an actual quote in minutes.” Its [Sell Your Car page](https://www.autotempest.com/sell) lists 7 services: PrivateAuto, Cars.com, Carvana, Hemmings, Cars & Bids, eBay and Facebook Marketplace. It gives a code, AUTOTEMPEST, that waives PrivateAuto’s listing fee, and says “In our experience, Carvana is one of the most hassle-free options for selling your car.”

**Links that pass through AutoTempest.** In the Sell page’s HTML, all 8 “Learn more” links point to addresses on autotempest.com under /external/, not straight to the other company. So do the links to AutoCheck and CarFax in its 2015 guide to avoiding lemons. Routing links this way usually lets a site count the clicks it sends. AutoTempest does not say whether any of these companies pays it, and we did not follow the links.

**Creators.** The Partners page lists 17 YouTube creators and channels, introduced as “the creators we support, and who help AutoTempest grow.” The blog’s menu puts the same link more plainly: “the talented creators we work with to promote our brand.” If a car channel you watch recommends AutoTempest, it may be one of them.

**New-car quotes.** The site menu offers “Build your ideal new car, then find matches at a dealership near you.” A Google result for “is autotempest legit” on 16 October 2026 listed a page titled “AutoTempest New Car Quote Service” at autotempest.truecar.com. We did not open it: TrueCar’s sites refused our requests when we built our [TrueCar review](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/truecar-review/). That review explains, from TrueCar’s own 10-K, how TrueCar runs co-branded car-buying sites for more than 250 partners and shares user information with them. Read any page’s terms before you type your phone number into it.

**Figure: Annotated photograph**

Three numbered callouts over the photograph mark the phone, the car’s glass and the car’s side, each with one fact from AutoTempest’s Legal & Privacy page.

AutoTempest’s Legal & Privacy page, read on 16 October 2026: AutoTempest only finds the car; a dealer or private seller elsewhere sells it (callout 1); AutoTempest urges due diligence: match this VIN to the listing before you travel or pay (callout 2); Its terms take no responsibility for a listing’s accuracy: confirm it on the source site (callout 3). The photograph is illustrative.

## What AutoTempest’s terms say about listing accuracy and liability

AutoTempest’s terms are short: the “Legal” section at the bottom of its Legal & Privacy page, last updated May 25, 2026. They bind you without a click: “In order to use this website in any way, you must agree to these terms. Use of the website implies agreement to these terms.” They also bar “automated means (including but not limited to bots, scrapers, crawlers, or scripts)” from copying data from its sites without written permission, which is why we read every page by hand.

On listings, the key sentence is: “Because all the vehicle listings found on AutoTempest come from other sources, we have no control over, and take no responsibility for, the accuracy or any other aspect of the information contained in those listings, nor the pages we link to.” On the purchase, it disclaims “any interaction between our site’s visitors and our partners or other sites that we link to.” And it sums up: “Basically, anything you find through AutoTempest is your own responsibility and at your own risk. You agree not to hold the owner(s) or affiliate(s) of AutoTempest.com responsible for any damages that may occur, whether directly or indirectly, through your use of this service.”

What the section leaves out matters too. We read it in full and found no arbitration clause, no class-action waiver, no governing-law clause, no dollar limit on liability and no fee for shoppers. It names no company you are agreeing with. Whether a promise “not to hold” a site responsible would survive in your state is a legal question we cannot answer; in practice there is no named company and no stated process for a claim.

Two of AutoTempest’s listing partners have been reviewed on this site, and their printed terms make a useful comparison. The table below copies what we recorded when we read them; it is not a ranking.

**AutoTempest’s Legal section beside the printed terms of two of its listing partners, as this site read them**

| Term | AutoTempest (May 25, 2026; read 16 October 2026) | CarGurus (April 10, 2026; read 6 October 2026) | TrueCar (January 23, 2025, archived copy; read 9 October 2026) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Sells the car? | No: “We do not sell any vehicles ourselves” | No: “NOT AN AUTOMOBILE BROKER OR DEALER” | No: “does not broker, sell, or lease motor vehicles” (FAQ) |
| Accuracy of listings | “no control over, and take no responsibility for” it | “We cannot verify the information/photos that third parties supply” | Neither its information nor the cars “is guaranteed or controlled by TrueCar” |
| Disputes | No arbitration clause | “final and binding individual arbitration”; small claims allowed | “final and binding arbitration” before the American Arbitration Association |
| Limit on liability | No dollar limit; you agree “not to hold” it responsible | The greater of fees you paid in the prior 12 months or $100 | Not compared here |

The three agree on what matters to a buyer: none of them is the seller, and none stands behind the listing. If something goes wrong with the car, your rights run against whoever sold it. A dealer selling a used car must display the FTC’s Buyers Guide, which says whether the car comes with a warranty or is sold as is. Most private sales carry no warranty at all. Our guides to [used-car warranties](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/does-a-used-car-come-with-a-warranty/) and to [what changes when the seller is an individual](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/buying-a-car-from-a-private-seller/#protections) explain both.

## What AutoTempest collects when you search, and who else sees it

The privacy policy is unusually plain. In normal browsing, “the only data we receive about you are your IP address and any information you enter into our search forms”, such as your ZIP code and the cars you are looking for. Its log files hold “your IP address, type of browser, date/time stamp, referring pages, and pages viewed.” The partners whose images and ads load on its pages see more than that line suggests:

**What leaves your browser on AutoTempest, and who receives it, per its privacy policy (last updated May 25, 2026)**

| What you do | What AutoTempest receives | Who else may receive it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Browse and search | IP address, browser type, date and time, pages viewed; the ZIP code and filters you type | Listing and ad partners whose images or ads load: your IP address and possibly the page address, which “could include” your ZIP code and filters; they may set cookies |
| Send a contact form on a car shown on AutoTempest | A stored copy of your name, email, phone, physical address and message | The partner that supplied the listing, which passes it to the seller |
| Click through to another site | Nothing further described | That site, under its own privacy policy |
| Use donotshare.autotempest.com | Your IP address and search details | No tracking ads, images or web beacons; AutoTempest cannot contact sellers for you there |
| Use the Android or iOS app | Not described | “Anonymous search filter details and other usage data” stay on your device |

The policy says “We have no interest in selling anyone’s private information,” then states the exception: your IP address “and potentially the page you are visiting” go to partners so that images and ads can load. AutoTempest offers two ways out: the donotshare.autotempest.com version, which it suggests you bookmark, or “an ad blocker such as uBlock Origin.”

The contact form is the one place your identity enters AutoTempest. The policy says that if you have sent a form “within the past 12 months, upon proof of identity” it will hand over “all log files, search history, and contact history” linked to you, and that “You may also request that the information be deleted.” If you only searched, it says it has “no way of associating your identity with any stored information.”

The site “is not intended for use by children (people under the age of 13),” and the policy may change “from time to time, with or without any advance notice.” Our note on [what free tools ask for](https://baronauto1.com/vehicle-history/free-vin-check/#privacy) covers the same trade-off on vehicle-history sites.

## Using AutoTempest safely: confirm the listing and the car before you travel

An aggregator saves time finding a car and adds nothing to checking one. AutoTempest’s own 2015 guide to avoiding lemons names two steps, a vehicle history report and an inspection, and says “We consider the first two steps absolutely critical for all car buyers.” Here is that advice, 11 years on, in the order that saves wasted trips.

**Open the listing where it lives.** Click through to the partner or linked site and check the advert is still there, with the same price, mileage, photos and VIN. For a car shown on AutoTempest itself, the privacy policy says the car’s page carries “all the details we have regarding the dealers”: use them to find the dealer’s own website and its copy of the listing. If the source ad has gone, or differs from what AutoTempest showed, believe the source. AutoTempest’s results can lag by a day or more.

**Find the seller yourself.** For a dealer, look up the business’s own website and phone number from a source you choose, not from the advert, and ask whether the car is in stock. For a private seller, ask whose name is on the title. A “private” seller with several cars for sale may be an unlicensed dealer; our guide explains [curbstoning](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/buying-a-car-from-a-private-seller/#curbstoning) and how to spot it.

**Get the VIN before you set off.** A seller who will not give you the vehicle identification number (VIN) before you travel is a seller to drop. Decode it free and hold the result against the advert: year, make, model, body and engine should all match. Our guides to [VIN lookups](https://baronauto1.com/vehicle-history/vin-lookup/) and to [matching the VIN in three places](https://baronauto1.com/vehicle-history/how-to-check-a-used-cars-history/#vin) show how.

**Run the free checks.** NICB’s VINCheck looks for theft and insurance total-loss records; NHTSA’s recall lookup shows open safety recalls; NMVTIS holds the state title brands, such as salvage, flood and rebuilt. Our guides cover [stolen cars](https://baronauto1.com/vehicle-history/how-to-check-if-a-car-is-stolen/), [open recalls](https://baronauto1.com/vehicle-history/how-to-check-a-car-for-open-recalls/), [NMVTIS reports](https://baronauto1.com/vehicle-history/nmvtis-report/) and [free VIN checks](https://baronauto1.com/vehicle-history/free-vin-check/). AutoTempest’s own guide raises the question many buyers forget: “How would you like to have your new car repossessed to cover the previous owner’s bad debts?” Our [lien check guide](https://baronauto1.com/vehicle-history/how-to-check-for-a-lien-on-a-car/) explains how to rule that out.

## Before you pay: inspect the car, check the paperwork, then move money

**Inspect before you travel or pay.** Nothing on AutoTempest’s pages says anyone has seen the car. Book an independent [pre-purchase inspection](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/used-car-pre-purchase-inspection/#remote), ideally before you make a long trip. For a car in another city, a [mobile inspector](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/mobile-pre-purchase-inspection/#out-of-state) can go for you; our [Lemon Squad review](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/lemon-squad-review/) covers one such service. A seller who refuses an inspection has told you something.

**Read the title, not just the advert.** The name on the title should match the seller’s ID, and the VIN on the title should match the car. A brand such as salvage or rebuilt should be on the title even if the advert never mentions it. Get a [bill of sale](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/bill-of-sale-for-a-car/) with the odometer reading on it.

**Move money last, and traceably.** No AutoTempest page describes it holding a deposit, and its terms take no responsibility for “anything that happens during the process of purchasing.” Do not send a deposit, gift card or wire to someone you have not met for a car you have not seen. Our guide to [paying a private seller](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/buying-a-car-from-a-private-seller/#payment) sets out which payment methods can be reversed and which cannot; for a loan on a private sale, see [private-party auto loans](https://baronauto1.com/financing/private-party-auto-loan/). With a dealer, get the [out-the-door price](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/out-the-door-price/) in writing before you go.

**Plan the trip home.** AutoTempest lets you search “whether you cast your net locally or across the country,” so the car may be in another state. Tax, registration and inspection rules then follow your home state, as our guide to [buying a car out of state](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/buying-a-car-out-of-state/#sequence) explains. AutoTempest’s “Get Shipping Quotes” link opens a 2015 blog guide that names shipping firms “that we at AutoTempest have worked with in the past.” Our page on [car shipping companies](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/car-shipping-companies/) shows how to look any carrier up in the federal FMCSA records first.

## Where AutoTempest’s own pages disagree

Read side by side, AutoTempest’s pages disagree in five places. None changes the basic picture, but two affect what you can expect to find.

**Points where AutoTempest’s own pages say different things, read on 16 October 2026**

| Topic | One page says | Another says |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Are CarGurus cars shown? | Privacy policy: CarGurus is one of the sites that “provide you with vehicle listings” | Two help articles: CarGurus listings “are not shown directly in our results”; comparison links only |
| Do Cars.com private listings appear? | Sell page: a free Cars.com listing is “of course appearing for Autotempest users too” | Selling help article: “We currently don’t have access to cars.com private listings.” |
| Where is the partner list? | Dealer help article: “You can find a full list here”, linking How AutoTempest Works | How AutoTempest Works names no listing partner; the list is in the privacy policy |
| Is your location shared? | Privacy policy: your “physical location” is not “received by us or shared with anyone else” | Same policy: partners “may also receive” the page address, which “could include” your ZIP code |
| Where does a trade-in value come from? | Trade-in page: “Our partner Carvana will give you an actual quote” | Blog menu: “getting its Black Book trade-in value” |

The CarGurus row matters most: if a car you saw on CarGurus is missing from AutoTempest, search CarGurus directly (our [CarGurus review](https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/cargurus-review/) explains its deal ratings). On location, the policy counts your ZIP code as “search information”, but a ZIP code is still a location, and it can reach ad partners. The trade-in row looks like a blog menu left over from the 2015 guides.

## Before you contact a seller you found on AutoTempest

- **Open the ad at its source** and confirm the price, mileage, photos and VIN match what AutoTempest showed.
- **Remember who you are dealing with.** AutoTempest does not sell the car; the seller and the site carrying the ad do.
- **Prefer contacting a dealer directly** with the details on the car’s page, if you do not want your name and phone passed through a partner.
- **Get the VIN before you travel,** decode it, and run the free theft, title-brand and recall checks.
- **Check the seller independently:** a dealer’s own website and phone number; a private seller’s name on the title.
- **Do not trust a comparison link to be filtered.** craigslist and Facebook Marketplace results may ignore your price, mileage or model filters.
- **Book an inspection** before a long trip or any payment; a mobile inspector can go for you.
- **Send no deposit, wire or gift card** to a seller you have not met for a car you have not seen.
- **Use donotshare.autotempest.com** if you would rather ad partners did not receive your IP address and search details.
- **Read the partner site’s terms** before you use a selling, insurance or new-car quote tool reached from AutoTempest.

## Common questions

### Is AutoTempest legit?

Yes. AutoTempest is a car search engine that its About page says has run since 2008, and its founder is still its CEO. It is open about what it is: its terms say it does not sell cars and takes no responsibility for the accuracy of the listings it shows. The site is real; each listing still needs checking on its own.

### What websites does AutoTempest search?

Its privacy policy names 19 listing partners, including eBay, Cars.com, Carvana, Hemmings, Cars & Bids, CarGurus and TrueCar. It also builds search links to craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and Autotrader, which it is not partnered with. Its help center says CarGurus cars appear only through links.

### Does AutoTempest sell cars?

No. Its Legal section says “We do not sell any vehicles ourselves.” Every car is sold by a dealer, a private seller or a company such as Carvana, through the site that carries the ad. AutoTempest does not take direct listings either: dealers and private sellers list with its partners.

### Who owns AutoTempest?

Its About page names Nathan Stretch as founder and CEO and says he started the site “solo back in 2008.” None of the pages we read, including the Legal and Privacy page and the Contact page, names a company, legal entity or address behind it.

### Is AutoTempest free, and how does it make money?

None of its pages mentions a fee for shoppers. The only revenue source it names is advertising, through partners including Google and Amazon. It also sends visitors to named partners for selling, insurance and trade-in quotes through its own /external/ links. It does not say whether those partners pay it.

### Is it safe to buy a car you found on AutoTempest?

Treat it like any advert from a stranger. AutoTempest has not seen the car or checked the seller, and its terms put everything you find through it “at your own risk.” Confirm the ad on its source site, check the VIN and the title, have the car inspected, and pay only once you have the car and the papers.

## Sources and further reading

- [FTC Used Car Rule](https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/dealers-guide-used-car-rule)
- [NICB VINCheck](https://www.nicb.org/vincheck)
- [NMVTIS (US Department of Justice)](https://vehiclehistory.bja.ojp.gov/)
- [NHTSA recall lookup](https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls)

Recall, complaint and safety-rating figures on this page were retrieved from the federal databases above on August 19, 2026. Federal data changes — re-check any VIN before you rely on it.

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*This site is under new ownership and is not affiliated with Baron Auto Emporium dealership.*

Canonical source: https://baronauto1.com/buying-guides/autotempest-review/