The sedan chaos on Wallapop: the filter nobody uses

Buying a car on Wallapop: when the body-type filter is a lottery

The complaint repeats itself every week on consumer forums: someone looking for an estate car discovers that 90% of the listings missing the alarm are misclassified sedans. It's no minor issue: if the seller can't tell a saloon from an estate, how reliable can the mechanical condition described in the ad be?

The platform includes a visual filter with a drawing of each body type. Next to it, the name. And still no luck. The buying experience becomes an exercise in patience and rereading listings that, in theory, should be properly labelled. A Passat estate listed as a saloon is no harmless mistake: it distorts the search, wastes time and, in the worst case, leads to a viewing of a car that isn't what you were looking for.

90% of listings: the figure that drives buyers mad

The figure keeps coming up in the original complaint: nine out of ten listings that should be estates are classified as saloons. It makes no difference that the filter shows a drawing of an estate: the seller ignores it or doesn't understand it. When challenged, the typical answer is an "I don't know, I don't get it" which, far from fixing anything, confirms the classification was done at random.

Some argue that it's just an app and the average user shouldn't be expected to tell body types apart. But the drawing is right there, explicit. And the difference isn't merely aesthetic: an estate has a bigger boot and a different rear, antiestéticatures buyers actually value. If the seller doesn't know what they're selling, the risk of a wrong purchase multiplies.

Side hustle or dumping ground: two ways of seeing Wallapop

Beyond the body-type anecdote, the debate exposes a deeper tension: some people use the platform to give a second life to things they no longer need, while others use it as a shop window for a for-profit business. The former tend to describe things honestly; the latter tend to gloss them over. With cars, the deception goes beyond classification: there's also the fake profile with a woman's name to inspire trust, another classic that comes to light.

The practical consequence is that scepticism becomes the default stance. The experienced buyer distrusts filtered photos, vague descriptions and freshly created profiles. And rightly so: if they fail at the basics, what can you expect from what really matters?

What you can do while the platform does nothing

Until a mandatory, verified filter arrives, the advice is to distrust misclassified listings and demand photos of the boot and the registration document from the seller. If the answer is "no idea", better move on to the next listing. Patience is expensive, but buying a car blind costs even more.

The trend suggests the problem will persist as long as platforms fail to act: photo-based body-type verification or penalties for listings repeatedly misclassified. Until then, buyers will keep playing the lottery with every search. A filter that actually worked would be the logical thing. But don't hold your breath.