How do I claim my business on Cars.com?

Cars.com's help center describes dealer tools for Cars.com Marketplace subscribers and does not describe a public claim form. Sign in to the Cars.com Hub, choose Cars.com, then Dealer Dash. Under Dealer Management click Start, then open Dealer Profile. Update hours, photos, taglines, the description, fees and disclosures, and dealer highlights, then save.

Can a business reply to reviews on Cars.com?

Open the Cars.com Hub, select Cars.com, then Reputation, and sign in to the Dealer Panel. Click the Reviews tab, choose All Reviews, find the review (filters are available for date range, sentiment, keyword, source, response status, and tagged employee), click Respond, type the reply, and click Send Response. Only Admin users can submit, edit, or delete review responses. The All Reviews view shows reviews from Cars.com, Google, and Facebook. After replying, View Details shows the response status and timestamp; an Admin can later edit or delete the response. The help center supplies reply templates with placeholders that should be edited for accuracy before sending.

What are the review rules on Cars.com?

Cars.com says any dealership customer with a car-shopping or service experience can write a review, and describes its reviews as written by real people about real experiences. The review should be written from the reviewer's own personal device, not one supplied by or owned by the dealership being reviewed. Reviews should focus on the dealer and the reviewer's own experience, and describe an experience from the past 12 months; only one review is accepted per dealership experience. Dealership employees, their immediate family members and others whose work with dealerships could be a conflict of interest may not post reviews, and reviews cannot be posted on someone else's behalf, with an allowance for caretakers or immediate family of a user who cannot post themselves. Cars.com may remove or modify reviews with obscenities, discriminatory language, defamatory or otherwise inappropriate comments, harassment or threats, language encouraging illegal activity, advertising or spam, links, or contact information such as email addresses, URLs, phone numbers and physical addresses. Cars.com says it may also remove a review for any reason at its discretion, without notice to the reviewer. A review suspected of being written by anyone other than the consumer will be rejected. Feedback about website content or quality issues should be sent to Cars.com directly rather than posted as a dealer review. Cars.com and DealerRater both require a written review of at least 15 words, according to a DealerRater help article, which says the minimum helps limit fraud and inflated reputations.

How do I report a review on Cars.com?

DealerRater's help center documents one reporting process that covers both DealerRater and Cars.com dealer reviews. Reviews can be reported if the dealership believes they violate the review policy. Sign in to the Dealer Panel with an account that has administrative access. Go to Reviews in the header and select All Reviews. Scroll to the review and click report. Complete the required fields and submit; the request goes to the DealerRater Moderation Team. The page does not state a timeline or possible outcomes.

Cars.com Review Guide: claim, reply, rules

By state
State	Checked businesses with a profile	Checked (n)
Connecticut	32% small sample	79
Washington	26% small sample	88
Massachusetts	23%	137
Missouri	13% small sample	32
Georgia	11%	188
Colorado	10%	203
Illinois	10%	216
Maryland	9%	110
California	8%	487
Texas	7%	610
Ohio	7%	107
Florida	6%	571
New Jersey	6%	572
Virginia	6%	202
Pennsylvania	6%	209
Arizona	5%	393
South Carolina	3% small sample	62
New York	3%	538
North Carolina	3%	144
Indiana	2% small sample	57

Who uses Cars.com

Car dealerships that subscribe to Cars.com Marketplace products, and car shoppers comparing local dealers. Dealer staff with Admin access handle replies.

Claim your profile

Cars.com's help center describes dealer tools for Cars.com Marketplace subscribers and does not describe a public claim form.
Sign in to the Cars.com Hub, choose Cars.com, then Dealer Dash.
Under Dealer Management click Start, then open Dealer Profile.
Update hours, photos, taglines, the description, fees and disclosures, and dealer highlights, then save.

Official guidelines: help.carscommerce.inc

Replying to reviews

Open the Cars.com Hub, select Cars.com, then Reputation, and sign in to the Dealer Panel. Click the Reviews tab, choose All Reviews, find the review (filters are available for date range, sentiment, keyword, source, response status, and tagged employee), click Respond, type the reply, and click Send Response.

Only Admin users can submit, edit, or delete review responses.
The All Reviews view shows reviews from Cars.com, Google, and Facebook.
After replying, View Details shows the response status and timestamp; an Admin can later edit or delete the response.
The help center supplies reply templates with placeholders that should be edited for accuracy before sending.

Official guidelines: help.carscommerce.inc

Review rules

In our own words. The official page is the rule that applies.

Cars.com says any dealership customer with a car-shopping or service experience can write a review, and describes its reviews as written by real people about real experiences.
The review should be written from the reviewer's own personal device, not one supplied by or owned by the dealership being reviewed.
Reviews should focus on the dealer and the reviewer's own experience, and describe an experience from the past 12 months; only one review is accepted per dealership experience.
Dealership employees, their immediate family members and others whose work with dealerships could be a conflict of interest may not post reviews, and reviews cannot be posted on someone else's behalf, with an allowance for caretakers or immediate family of a user who cannot post themselves.
Cars.com may remove or modify reviews with obscenities, discriminatory language, defamatory or otherwise inappropriate comments, harassment or threats, language encouraging illegal activity, advertising or spam, links, or contact information such as email addresses, URLs, phone numbers and physical addresses.
Cars.com says it may also remove a review for any reason at its discretion, without notice to the reviewer.
A review suspected of being written by anyone other than the consumer will be rejected.
Feedback about website content or quality issues should be sent to Cars.com directly rather than posted as a dealer review.
Cars.com and DealerRater both require a written review of at least 15 words, according to a DealerRater help article, which says the minimum helps limit fraud and inflated reputations.

Official guidelines: cars.com

Reporting a review

Cars.com's own process, step by step.

DealerRater's help center documents one reporting process that covers both DealerRater and Cars.com dealer reviews. Reviews can be reported if the dealership believes they violate the review policy.
Sign in to the Dealer Panel with an account that has administrative access.
Go to Reviews in the header and select All Reviews.
Scroll to the review and click report.
Complete the required fields and submit; the request goes to the DealerRater Moderation Team. The page does not state a timeline or possible outcomes.

Official guidelines: help.dealerrater.com

Tips

Reply to reviews promptly and professionally, and write for the public readers who will see the response.
Edit template replies so they are accurate and specific before sending.
Keep hours, contact details, and the dealership description up to date in the Dealer Profile.
Report only genuine policy violations, with specific details, rather than disagreements about the customer's opinion.
Follow the platform's terms and never write reviews for your own dealership.

Sources

Last checked October 22, 2026. Site rules change; the official pages are the final word.

About the numbers

AI citations: the share of answers from AI assistants that cite a page on cars.com, out of 23,227 answers in the last 90 days, to questions about the businesses in our directory ("what do customers say about ...") and to category questions ("best dentist in ..."). Search-result and help pages on a review site are not counted. As of October 30, 2026. ↩
Cited by AI, by industry: for each industry (a directory category, or the national brands filed under an industry such as e-commerce), the share of AI answers about businesses in that industry that cite a page on cars.com; n is the number of answers in that industry (last 90 days; only industries with at least 20 answers). As of October 30, 2026. ↩
Has a profile, by industry: the share of the businesses we checked in each industry that have a Cars.com profile; n is the number of businesses checked in that industry. As of October 30, 2026. ↩
States: the share of the businesses we checked in each state that have a Cars.com profile. States with too few businesses for a stable number are marked "small sample" and are not ranked; when every state is a small sample, none is shown. As of October 30, 2026. ↩
Typical rating: the mean star rating of the Cars.com reviews we collected for the businesses we checked (337 reviews). As of October 30, 2026. ↩
Site reach: the estimated monthly organic search visits to cars.com (DataForSEO Labs) and its Domain Rating (Ahrefs, 0 to 100). These are third-party estimates for the whole domain, not figures from Cars.com. As of October 2026. ↩

How these numbers are collected: how we measure.

Key facts