CarExpert named best new car advisory and buying service for Australia in FDI Insider Awards

Second award in as many months

CarExpert has been named Best New Car Advisory and Buying Service for Australia in the FDI Insider Awards, according to AutoTalk Australia, making it the second award in recent weeks for the buying service the company operates across more than 1,200 Australian dealers. CarExpert's own newsroom carries the same announcement, listed as Best New Car Advisory & Buying Service – Australia 2026 and dated October 6, 2026. ¹³

The first recent recognition came from consumers rather than an industry judging panel. AutoTalk Australia reports that CarExpert's EOFY Sale Hub took the People's Choice Customer Service Innovation award at the 2026 Finder Innovation Awards, a category voted on by Australian consumers. CarExpert's newsroom confirms the win, crediting the hub with bringing end-of-financial-year new-car deals from 80 brands into one comparable place. ¹³

According to AutoTalk Australia, CarExpert describes the FDI Insider Awards as assessing nominees on impact, community engagement, sustainability, global integration and innovation, using information supplied by nominees alongside publicly available research. That description comes from CarExpert's own release, so the judging methodology is the company's characterisation of the awards programme rather than an independent account. ¹

What the buying service does

The buying service sits alongside CarExpert's reviews and comparison content. AutoTalk Australia reports that CarExpert's New Car Specialists help customers compare pricing and availability from dealers, manage the process through to purchase and delivery, and that the service is free to the customer, funded through the dealer network. CarExpert's own buying page describes a five-step process in which a customer outlines what they want, CarExpert compares dealer offers, the buyer chooses an option, and the company coordinates paperwork and handover through to delivery. ¹⁴

CarExpert's service page states the network extends to more than 1,200 dealers across Australia, supported by more than 20 New Car Specialists. Buyers pay nothing, with dealers paying CarExpert a fee when a completed sale comes through the service, and customers still purchase the vehicle from an authorised dealer. The page also lists finance support covering more than 40 lenders, insurance quotes, and trade-in coordination as part of the service. ⁴

CarExpert's marketplace explainer on its own site goes further, describing a dedicated New Car Specialist who coordinates with multiple dealers, verifies the vehicle order, reviews dealer paperwork, aligns trade-in details and acts as an escalation point, with an advocacy promise extending to warranty issues after handover. These are the company's own descriptions of its service and terms, and this publication has not independently tested the buying experience. ⁶

EOFY Sale Hub results

The award-winning EOFY Sale Hub pulled new car offers from 80 brands into one place, updated in real time from June 1, 2026. AutoTalk Australia reports CarExpert's own figures that the hub drew more than half a million visitors over the period, that new car buyer leads rose 53.6% year on year, and that the cost of generating each lead fell 31.1%. CarExpert's newsroom repeats those same performance figures in its Finder award announcement. ¹³

Those visitor, lead and cost-per-lead figures originate from CarExpert's own release and have not been independently audited, so they should be read as the company's reported performance rather than third-party verified data. The underlying claim that the hub aggregated offers from 80 brands appears consistently across both the AutoTalk Australia report and CarExpert's newsroom. ¹³

Fallah framed the service around the gap between research and purchase. AutoTalk Australia quotes CarExpert founder and co-chief executive Alborz Fallah saying people can spend weeks researching a new car, but that once they decide what they want, the buying process can still be pretty painful, and that the company built the buying service to help with both parts of that journey. ¹

Business trajectory and leadership change

The buying service launched in October 2025. AutoTalk Australia described the launch at the time in its November 2025 issue as Australia's first large-scale car-buying service, an end-to-end platform connecting buyers and dealers through dedicated specialists and nationwide quoting. CarExpert's newsroom marks the commercial build-out with the launch of the CarExpert Exchange dealer platform on October 3, 2025, bringing quoting, communication, contracts, invoicing and deal management into one portal, and the July 2025 expansion into a full end-to-end buying service following its acquisition of CarVroom assets and earlier purchase of PriceMyCar in 2022. ¹⁸³

The company has also expanded offshore. CarExpert New Zealand launched in February 2026 with five foundation partners — Chery, Ford, GWM, MG and MINI — backed by a joint venture with Trade Me, and CarExpert's newsroom says CarExpert NZ became New Zealand's largest digital automotive publisher in under six months, reaching over 407,000 Kiwi drivers in July across CarExpert.co.nz, Trade Me and Stuff. The Sales Atlas new vehicle market data tool followed in June 2026. ¹³

The awards arrive weeks after a leadership change. AutoTalk Australia reported in September that chief executive Damon Rielly left CarExpert after four and a half years, with founders Paul Maric and Alborz Fallah stepping in as interim co-chief executives. Rielly's tenure covered the move from media into transactions and into New Zealand, according to the report, which noted the marketplace is generating thousands of new vehicle enquiries and hundreds of vehicle sales, figures the company provided without stating the period they cover. ²

AutoTalk Australia observes that CarExpert's award release describes both founders as co-chief executives without the interim qualifier the company used the previous month, so the precise status of their leadership roles remains unclear from the available statements. The company has not named a successor or set out a search process in what AutoTalk Australia reports. ¹²

Maric tied the awards to the company's broader ambitions. AutoTalk Australia quotes him saying CarExpert reaches Australians when they are researching and deciding what car to buy, and that the opportunity was to build on that trust and help with what comes next, by connecting customers, dealers and manufacturers more effectively and making the transaction easier. ¹

Context in a busy marketplace sector

The change comes amid broader activity among Australian new-car marketplaces. AutoTalk Australia's September report notes it landed in an active month: carsales launched its Nexgate dealer platform on September 1 and began referring buyers to subscription provider carbar on September 7, while Drive claimed second place by dealer listings on September 8. CarExpert's 1,200-plus dealer network and its claim to more than two million Australian views across its website and video channels frame the scale on which it competes, according to AutoTalk Australia. ²

CarExpert's awards footprint extends beyond the buying service. Its newsroom lists a rebuilt Car Chooser launched in August 2026, and the company's annual CarExpert Choice Awards — now also running in New Zealand — have recognised vehicles such as the Chevrolet Corvette, which took back-to-back Best Luxury Sports Car honours in 2025 and 2026, as confirmed in General Motors Australia and New Zealand's own release. The FDI Insider and Finder honours, however, are the first recent recognitions specifically for the dealer-funded buying operation itself. ³⁷⁵