Used-car filters for Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji

Marketplace’s own vehicle filters

Facebook gives cars their own category with its own filters. On a computer:

1. Open Marketplace and choose Vehicles in the left column.
2. Set your location and radius at the top of the filters. The radius is approximate, so expect some cars from outside it.
3. Set price, make, model and year. Make and model narrow the list fastest; one make and model per search.
4. Add body type and vehicle type if you know what you want (SUV, truck, sedan, and so on).
5. Add mileage and transmission if they appear in your filter list. Not every account and region shows them.

In the app, open Marketplace, tap the search or category button, choose Vehicles, then tap Filters for the same options.

These filters are worth using, but they have two holes buyers fall into again and again: mileage and dealers.

Why the mileage filter misses cars

A mileage filter can only judge a car by the mileage field, and that field is optional. Plenty of private sellers skip it and write “150k” in the title or “only 93,000 miles” in the description. Depending on how Facebook treats a blank field, those cars either vanish from a filtered search or sail straight through it.

Other common slips:

• Kilometres and miles mixed up. A Canadian seller types 180,000 km into a field that is read as miles, or the reverse.
• Rounded or placeholder numbers. “1” or “123456” to get past a required field.
• The mileage is in a photo of the dashboard and nowhere else.

How to catch them by hand: run your search once with the mileage limit and once without, sorted by newest, and scan the second list for cars the first one hid. It works, but it doubles the scrolling.

Sift does that reading for you. It takes year and mileage from the site’s own listing data first, then from the title and text (“2014 Civic”, “150K km”, “93k miles”), and converts everything to the unit you chose. Cars with no year or mileage anywhere follow your choice: keep them in view or hide them.

Private sellers only

Most buyers on Marketplace want a private seller: a lower price, an owner who knows the car, and room to negotiate. Dealers slip into those searches in three ways. Dealerships list their stock on Marketplace directly; salespeople post cars from their personal profiles; and curbsiders, unlicensed dealers posing as private sellers, flip cars from their own names.

In Ontario, OMVIC lists the signs of a curbsider: several vehicles for sale, a price below market, a car that isn’t registered in the seller’s name (or only recently), a seller who seems to work from a business or uses dealer or mechanic plates, and someone who discourages a CARFAX report, a UVIP or an independent inspection. OMVIC also warns that people who buy privately from a curbsider aren’t covered by its compensation fund.

Signs of a dealer listing you can spot yourself:

• Financing wording: “we finance”, “OAC”, “$1,500 down”, “bad credit OK”.
• “Plus tax and licensing”, “+ HST”, a stock number, or “in stock”.
• The same backdrop, lot or watermark across several cars from one profile.
• A price that is really a down payment or a bi-weekly payment.

Sift reads the same signals. It uses the site’s own dealer flag where Kijiji provides one, plus dealer wording on both sites (financing, OAC, “we finance”, “$X down”, “bad credit OK”, “in stock”, stock numbers, “plus tax and licensing”). You choose what happens: hide dealer listings, tag them with a small Dealer badge so you can still compare prices, or show them as normal. A ready-made “dealers” word pack is there too, if you’d rather block the phrases yourself. Excluding words on Marketplace explains how word filters work.

Hide branded titles

A branded title records serious damage or a write-off. These cars can be fine, but they’re worth much less, can be harder to insure and finance, and need a careful inspection. If you’re not shopping for one, there’s no reason to scroll past them.

With branded titles hidden, Sift removes listings that describe the car as salvage, rebuilt, flood, as-is or for parts, in English and in French (VGR, véhicule gravement accidenté, in Quebec). Each hidden card keeps its reason, so you can peek at what went and bring any of them back.

One limit matters: Sift can only read what the seller wrote. A seller who leaves out a rebuilt title won’t be caught by any text filter. Before you hand over money, get the VIN and run a history report: how to buy a used car on Facebook Marketplace lists the checks by country.

Green chips: the good signs

Sift also marks what you want to see. Green chips appear on listings that mention one owner, service or maintenance records, or a clean title or Carfax, so the promising cars stand out in a long list.

The same chips work in the other direction. Red “Check this” chips mark car ads that ask for a deposit first, want to move you to text or WhatsApp, or come from a seller who is “out of the country”, the scripts behind most car scams. See the scam checker for the full list.

Kijiji cars

The same car filters work on Kijiji’s car listings, with the same settings. Kijiji already has a For Sale By filter for owners and dealers, a maximum-kilometres box, and price labels from CARFAX Canada. Sift adds what it lacks: branded titles hidden, dealer wording caught in “owner” ads, Top Ads out of the way, and price-drop badges on cars you’ve seen before. For the paperwork, province by province, read buying a used car on Kijiji.

Privacy and where it runs

Sift runs entirely in your browser: Chrome, Edge or Brave on a computer. It needs no account, sends nothing to a server of ours (there isn’t one), and keeps the history of listings you’ve seen on your own computer. It doesn’t run in the Facebook app or on a phone. Save your car setup as a preset (“Car hunt under 120,000 km”) and switch to it from the popup whenever you’re shopping.