CarExpert survey finds most of its buyers spend three months or more researching before purchase

What the new research found

Almost two-thirds of recent new-car buyers surveyed by CarExpert spent at least three months researching before they bought, according to new research from the publisher. The research drew on responses from more than 5400 CarExpert website visitors and a separate survey of 643 customers and audience members, including 500 recent new-car purchasers. CarExpert says the findings reflect the experiences of its own users and are not a nationally representative sample of Australian buyers. The findings were first presented at the company's RevUp industry events earlier this month, as reported by AutoTalk. ¹

More than half of the surveyed purchasers said CarExpert influenced the car they bought. CarExpert has also partnered with Nielsen for the past three years on its Road to Purchase research, which it says has consistently found automotive review sites to be the most used and trusted source for new-car buyers, AutoTalk reports. ¹

Commercial director of media Maddie Harris told AutoTalk that much of the decision is made well before buyers contact a dealer. "People are researching for months. They're discovering new brands, watching videos, comparing cars and changing their shortlists. If you're only reaching them when they're ready to enquire, you've missed a huge part of the opportunity," Harris said. ¹

The 2025 Road to Purchase benchmark

The new survey lands against CarExpert's own earlier benchmark. The Road to Purchase 2025 study, conducted with Nielsen and presented to more than 150 industry leaders at CarExpert's RevUp events, found the average Australian car-buying journey had shortened to about four months, down 18% year on year, with the research phase averaging three months, Paint & Panel reported. Buyers were considering just 2.2 brands on average, down from three the year before, while 71% said they remained open to brand influence during the consideration phase. ⁴³

That study also found almost half of buyers, 47%, received their new car within one week, twice as fast as 2024, and that 67% of buyers were open to considering electric vehicles and advanced driver assistance features, Paint & Panel reported. It also noted awareness of Chinese brands varied widely between 3% and 27% among respondents. Dealerloop, citing the same 2025 study, reported the surveyed population as Australians aged 18 to 70, with new-car buyers having an average household income 30% higher than used buyers, at $150,000 or more. ⁴³

CarExpert chief executive Damon Rielly said at the time that the buying journey had compressed at a speed the company had not seen before. "What used to be a six-month decision is now closer to four, so if you're not in the consideration set early, you're really not in it at all," Rielly told the RevUp audience, as quoted by Paint & Panel. ⁴

How the buyer journey shapes CarExpert's business

AutoTalk's reporting of the RevUp 2026 presentations says CarExpert's research shows buyers spend months researching across search engines, reviews, video, manufacturer websites and AI tools, and that 54% of surveyed purchasers said CarExpert influenced which car they bought, with one in four buying a vehicle they had not initially considered. CarExpert says it reaches 1.28 million Australians a month, according to AutoTalk. ²

"People might start with two or three cars in mind, spend weeks researching, change their shortlist and eventually buy something they hadn't originally considered," co-founder and co-chief executive Alborz Fallah told AutoTalk. Fallah and fellow co-founder Paul Maric have run the business as co-chief executives since Damon Rielly left in September, AutoTalk reports. ²

CarExpert's new-car buying service works with more than 1200 dealers to compare offers for customers, AutoTalk reports. CarExpert's corporate newsroom separately describes the service as matching buyers with a dedicated New Car Specialist who coordinates with dealers, with the dealer paying CarExpert a procurement fee once the vehicle is collected. ²⁵

RevUp 2026: AI visibility and 2027 plans

CarExpert used its RevUp 2026 events in Sydney and Melbourne to set out 2027 plans, AutoTalk reports. The company will continue testing vehicles at a dedicated proving ground, expand its Megatest segment comparisons, launch a video advertising format called Expert Stories and develop CarExpert CAPI, an attribution tool intended to show partners how campaigns perform across platforms. It is also expanding contextual advertising. ²⁶

The company also cited September data from AI visibility platform Profound, reported by AutoTalk, showing CarExpert was the most-cited automotive publisher in Australian AI-generated answers, with an 8.2% share of citations, ahead of YouTube, carsales and Drive. CarExpert says it is restructuring how its content is distributed, including updates to its digital vehicle showrooms that combine pricing, specifications, variants and reviews for each model. ²

Where the findings sit

The two research sets are not directly comparable and CarExpert does not claim they are: the Road to Purchase 2025 study measured an average journey length among Australians aged 18 to 70, while the newer survey covers CarExpert's own visitors and audience, for which the publisher says three months or more of research applies to almost two-thirds of respondents. The consistent thread across both, as CarExpert presents it, is that research happens over months and largely before a buyer contacts a dealer, and that review websites remain the most used and most trusted information source in its data. ¹⁴³

For buyers, the practical picture painted by the research is of a compressed decision window with a narrow shortlist: about four months end to end and 2.2 brands considered on average in the 2025 study, with most buyers still open to influence before committing. What the newer survey does not establish is how the wider Australian market's research habits have shifted since that 2025 study, as it is drawn from CarExpert's own audience rather than a national sample. ⁴¹³