Vehicle data

On a marketplace for cars, members shouldn’t have to type “VW”, “Volkswagen” or “volkswagon” by hand. Vehicle data integrations turn the make and model fields into dropdowns filled from a database of real vehicles: the member picks a make, then a model of that make. Listings come out consistent, and buyers can search by make and model reliably.

Yclas works with two vehicle databases:

Service	Fields it fills	Cost
CarQuery	Year, make and model	Free, no account needed.
Auto-Data	Brand, model and generation	Needs an Auto-Data API token, which is a paid service.

Use one or the other, not both.

Set up CarQuery

The quickest way is the Cars template in Custom Fields, which creates a complete set of fields for a vehicle marketplace (mileage, fuel, transmission and more) and switches CarQuery on for you:

1. Go to Listings › Custom Fields.
2. Under Start from a template, click Cars and confirm.
3. The new fields apply to every category. Open each one and limit it to your vehicle categories (see the warning below).

See Custom fields for the templates.

To switch on CarQuery without the template:

1. Go to Integrations and open CarQuery.
2. Tick Enable CarQuery and click Save.

This creates three custom fields, Year, Make and Model, as required dropdowns that are searchable and shown on the listing page.

The fields CarQuery creates apply to every category and are required, so members posting a sofa would have to pick a car make. Straight after enabling it, go to Listings › Custom Fields, open Year, Make and Model in turn, choose only your vehicle categories under Categories, and save each one.

If fields named year, make or model already exist, they are kept as they are and used by CarQuery. They must be of the Select type for the dropdowns to work.

Set up Auto-Data

1. Get an API token from Auto-Data.
2. Go to Integrations and open Auto-Data.
3. Tick Enable Auto-Data, paste your token into Auto-Data API Token and click Save.

Yclas checks the token with Auto-Data and creates three required, searchable dropdown fields: Brand, Model and Generation. As with CarQuery, limit them to your vehicle categories straight away.

If the panel says Invalid token although you copied the token correctly, contact support.

What members see

In the posting form, the first dropdown lists every make (or brand). When the member picks one, the next dropdown fills with that make’s models, and so on. The search form works the same way, so buyers can narrow down to a make and model.

The values chosen are saved with the listing like any other custom field, so listings keep them even if you switch the integration off later. Without the integration, those fields become ordinary dropdowns with no options, so remove them or fill in their values if you stop using vehicle data.

Tips

• Keep a free-text field such as “Version” or “Trim” for details the database doesn’t have.
• Add your own fields for mileage, fuel type and transmission, or use the Cars template, which includes them.
• Both databases are run by outside companies. If the dropdowns stay empty, the service may be unavailable; check again later or contact support.

Related guides

• Custom fields — field types, templates and categories.
• Categories — organise your vehicle categories.
• Marketplace ideas — examples of niche marketplaces.