How to Track Used Car Price Gaps Across Latin America using Apify
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If you're in the business of sourcing or moving vehicles across LatAm markets, you already know that the same car can have a dramatically different price depending on which country you're looking at it from.
A 2021 Toyota Corolla listed in Mexico City today might be priced very differently from an equivalent unit in Santiago or Buenos Aires. The gap isn't random, it's driven by import duty structures, currency fluctuations, local demand, and the simple fact that these markets don't talk to each other efficiently.
Kavak is the largest used car marketplace in Latin America, operating across Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and the UAE. It's one of the few platforms where you can see structured, comparable used car inventory across multiple countries — same brand, same model, standardized data. That makes it an unusually useful signal for anyone making cross-border sourcing decisions.
This post shows you how to pull that data systematically and what to do with it.
Why the price gaps exist
Used car pricing across LatAm markets is shaped by several forces that don't equalize quickly:
Import duty structures vary significantly. Chile operates under broad free trade agreements and has zero tariffs on vehicle imports - one of the most open automotive markets in the world, with around 60 active brands competing. Mexico by contrast has significant protections for its domestic auto industry, which produces over 3 million vehicles annually. These structural differences create persistent price floors that differ by country.
Currency volatility creates windows. Argentina's peso situation is well-known. Brazil's real has had significant swings. When a currency depreciates faster than Kavak's pricing team adjusts listings, gaps open between what a car costs in local terms and what it's worth in USD-equivalent across the border. These windows are narrow and close, but they're real.
Inventory depth isn't uniform. Mexico has Kavak's largest inventory. A model that's abundant in Mexico may be scarce in Chile, and scarcity pushes prices up. That supply imbalance is data you can see if you're looking at both markets simultaneously.
The used car market is huge and largely informal. Latin America sold approximately 18.5 million used cars in a single year, with nearly half transacted through B2B and B2C channels. The market is dominated by physical dealerships and private sellers with limited price transparency across borders. That information asymmetry is the opportunity.
What Kavak data actually shows you
Kavak standardizes its listings across countries, which is the key thing that makes cross-market comparison tractable. Every listing includes:
Make, model, year, trim level
Mileage in kilometers
Current price (in local currency)
Previous price if discounted
Location (city/region)
Condition, transmission, seller type
When you pull this data via the Kavak Car Listings Scraper on Apify, you get clean JSON you can drop directly into a spreadsheet or analysis tool. Running the Actor for Toyota Corolla across Mexico and Chile takes about two minutes and costs a few cents.
Here's what a real cross-country pull looks like in practice:
Example: Toyota Corolla 2021–2022
Toyota Corolla is a good benchmark model for this kind of analysis because it's present in all Kavak markets, sells in volume, and comes in consistent trims across countries.
Mexico (MXN): A 2021 Corolla LE CVT sedan with around 27,000–55,000 km on Kavak Mexico is currently listed in the range of MXN 305,000–372,000. At an exchange rate of roughly 17–18 MXN/USD, that puts the USD equivalent at approximately $17,000–$21,500.
Chile (CLP): Chile has no domestic vehicle production and imports everything. The absence of tariffs creates a competitive market, but also means Kavak Chile pricing is more directly tied to import costs plus reconditioning. For comparable year and trim Corollas, you're typically looking at pricing in the range of 9–12 million CLP — around $9,500–$13,000 USD at current rates, notably lower than Mexico for comparable units.
Argentina (ARS): Argentina is the most volatile. Official exchange rate pricing versus the parallel rate creates situations where Kavak ARS listings appear extremely cheap in USD terms — but the complication of actually getting money out of Argentina means the "gap" is often illusory for practical arbitrage purposes. Useful for monitoring, but handle with care.
UAE (AED): Gulf-spec Japanese vehicles (Toyota, Nissan, Lexus) from Kavak UAE are a legitimate sourcing reference for LatAm importers. Low mileage, good condition, AED pricing is stable. The UAE → LatAm corridor is a real trade route used by mid-size importers.
Note: The price figures above are illustrative ranges based on publicly visible Kavak listings and current exchange rates as of April 2026. Run the Actor yourself for current data — prices change daily.
How to pull this data yourself
You don't need to know how to code. The Kavak Actor on Apify runs in a browser interface.
Step 1: Go to the Actor
Open Apify Kavak actor and click "Try for free." You'll need a free Apify account.
Step 2: Set your inputs
To pull Toyota Corolla data from Mexico:
{
"country": "mx",
"make": "toyota",
"model": "corolla",
"maxRequestsPerCrawl": 3
}
For Chile, run again with "country": "cl". For UAE, use "country": "ae".
Step 3: Export and compare
Download each run as CSV. Open in Google Sheets. Add a column converting local prices to USD using current exchange rates. Sort by year and mileage range to find comparable units.
You now have a side-by-side price comparison across markets that would have taken hours to compile manually.
What to do with the data
Sourcing decisions. If you're regularly moving vehicles into a market, knowing Kavak's pricing tells you where the ceiling is. Kavak is the price-setter in many LatAm used car markets — if Kavak lists a 2022 Corolla at X, independent dealers in that city generally can't go much higher. That sets your maximum buy-in for sourcing.
Market timing. Track the same make/model over weeks. Kavak updates pricing dynamically. If you see consistent discounting (the price_was field populating across multiple listings in a country), that signals softening demand in that market — potentially a good time to source locally and hold for another.
Competitive benchmarking. If you're a dealer in one of these markets, Kavak is your biggest competitor. Running the Actor weekly gives you a live view of exactly what they're pricing your inventory against, by make, model, year, and location.
UAE sourcing intelligence. For importers bringing Gulf-spec vehicles into LatAm, pulling Kavak UAE data alongside Kavak Mexico or Chile gives you a quick read on whether the margin exists to justify the logistics. The Actor runs both in the same interface.
The practical limits
Cross-border vehicle arbitrage in LatAm is not frictionless. A few honest notes:
Shipping costs are real. Container shipping from Mexico to Chile or from UAE to Brazil adds $1,500–$3,000+ per vehicle depending on route and volume. The price gap needs to be wide enough to absorb this.
Import duties vary by vehicle age and category. Chile's zero-tariff regime has conditions. Brazil has significant import taxes on used vehicles. Always verify current duty schedules with a customs broker before making sourcing decisions based on price data alone.
Argentina is complicated. Kavak Argentina data is useful for understanding the market, but ARS-denominated pricing should be treated carefully given the exchange rate environment. Don't model arbitrage into or out of Argentina without local expertise.
Kavak's inventory turns fast. A listing you see today may be gone in 48 hours. The data is useful for trend analysis and market-level pricing intelligence, not for tracking individual vehicles.
Getting started
The Actor costs a few cents per run. Start with one country and one make/model filter to validate the output, then expand.
For ongoing monitoring, Apify's built-in scheduler lets you run the Actor on a weekly cadence automatically — you set it once and get fresh data in your spreadsheet every Monday morning without touching anything.
Kavak Car Listings Scraper: Apify Kavak actor
If you're already doing cross-market sourcing and have questions about specific corridors or models, the Issues tab on the Actor page is the right place to ask.