Print the FTC Buyers Guide for a car
Print the FTC's own Buyers Guide from a car's page before it is offered for sale, in English, Spanish or both, with your warranty answers filled in.
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The FTC's Used Car Rule asks for a Buyers Guide on every used car before the car is offered for sale. You print it from the car's page, with no deal started. The page that prints is the FTC's own form: AutoDealer.io writes the car, your warranty answers and your dealership's details into its blanks and marks its boxes, and changes nothing else on it.
The Buyers Guide carries the warranty terms and no price. Your own sheet with the price, the mileage and the features is the window sticker: see Print a window sticker for a car.
Set your dealership's answers once
Most dealerships give the same answer on every car. Set it once and every car starts from it.
- Go to Settings, then Car paperwork.
- Under Warranty, pick one:
- As is, no dealer warranty: you do not pay for repairs after the sale.
- Implied warranties only: no written dealer warranty, and the implied warranties of your state law still apply.
- Dealer warranty: you pay for repairs to the systems you list, for the time you list.
- For a dealer warranty, choose Limited warranty or Full warranty. A limited warranty needs the percent of labor and the percent of parts you pay. Then list up to four systems and how long each is covered, for example "Engine" and "30 days or 1,000 miles". Also choose which form it prints on: the one headed "As is" or the one headed "Implied warranties only".
- Tick any of the three boxes under Other warranties on the vehicle that apply to most of your cars, and the Service contract box if you offer one for an extra charge.
- In Who a buyer contacts with a complaint, type a name or a position and a phone number. It prints on the back of every guide.
- Choose the Language to print: English, Spanish, or English and Spanish.
- Click Save Buyers Guide answers.
Owners and admin managers can change these answers. Everyone on the team can read them.
The FTC does not allow "power train" or "drive train" as shorthand for the systems a warranty covers. Name the parts, such as "Engine" or "Transmission".
Print the guide for a car
- Open the car from Inventory.
- Click Print at the top of the page, then Buyers Guide.
- The sheet opens with your dealership's answers already filled in. Change anything for this car only, for example tick Manufacturer's warranty still applies on a late-model car, or give one car a dealer warranty on an as is lot.
- Choose the language.
- Click Print Buyers Guide. The guide opens in a new tab. Print it from there, two-sided, in black ink on white letter paper, at 100% size.
Save without printing keeps this car's answers for later without recording a print. Use the dealership's answers puts the car back on your standing answers.
The guide has two pages, the front and the back. Printing in English and Spanish gives four pages: the English guide first, then the Spanish one.
The systems and durations print exactly as you type them, on the English guide and on the Spanish one. For a sale in Spanish, type them in Spanish on that car's sheet, for example "Motor" and "30 días o 1,000 millas".
Print guides for several cars at once
A lot full of cars needs a guide on every one. Print them as one job from the Inventory list.
- Go to Inventory and tick the cars. Up to 50 print at a time.
- Click Print Buyers Guides in the bar above the list.
- Choose the language and click Print Buyers Guides. One PDF opens with each car's guide in turn, front then back. If your browser blocks the new tab, click Open the guides.
Each car prints with its own warranty answers, or your dealership's when it has none of its own. Nothing about a car's answers changes here. To change one car's answers, print that car from its own page.
A car on a lot in Maine or Wisconsin is left out, and the sheet names it.
What prints where
| On the guide | Comes from |
|---|---|
| Make, model, year and VIN | The car. The trim prints with the model when the two fit the blank. |
| The warranty boxes, percentages, systems and durations | The answers on the print sheet |
| Dealer name | Your dealership's name |
| Address, telephone and email | The car's lot. A car with no lot uses your main lot. Set these in Settings, then Locations. |
| Who to contact with a complaint | Settings, then Car paperwork |
If the complaints contact or the address is missing, the print sheet says so and links to where you add it. The guide still prints, with that line blank.
The Paperwork for this car card
Every car's page has a Paperwork for this car card. It shows when the Buyers Guide was last printed, who printed it, which warranty it carried and in which language.
If the warranty answers change after a guide was printed, the card says the guide on the window is out of date. That happens when you change this car's answers, and when you change your dealership's answers for a car that follows them. Click Print again and replace the guide on the car.
What your state adds
Some states limit or bar as is sales, or set a dealer warranty by price or mileage. Where we know of a rule, a note appears beside the warranty choice in settings and on the print sheet. A dealership in a state that bars as is sales starts on the Implied warranties only form.
The note is our reading of your state's rule, not legal advice, and it does not stop a print. The choice of warranty is yours. Check your state's rules before you post a guide.
Maine and Wisconsin use their own guide in place of the federal one. AutoDealer.io does not print those yet, so the Buyers Guide is not available for a car on a lot in either state.
After the sale
Give the buyer the Buyers Guide from the car, or a copy of it, showing the warranty terms you agreed on. On a retail deal, the copy is on the deal's Review step: the Documents to print & download card has an FTC Buyers Guide section with View and Download. It is the same page the car's Print menu makes. If the warranty you agreed on differs from the guide on the window, change the answers on the car's page first.
Your Bill of Sale already carries the sentence the FTC requires in a contract of sale, which makes the window form part of the contract.
A dealership created before October 10, 2026 may still have the FTC Buyers Guide (Draft) in its Retail Sale pack. That draft is a plain starter, not the FTC's form. You can take it out of the pack under Forms.