Cars.com is a website which was launched in June 1998. It is the second largest automotive classified site. Its headquarters are located in Chicago, Illinois.

A 2003 Library Journal survey of automobile-related websites described cars.com as "the most complete car sales megasite", noting staff-written reviews that "are signed, dated, detailed, and richly illustrated". In 2004 the website announced a partnership with Kelley Blue Book and commenced national advertising. In October 2007, it announced plans for its largest marketing campaign ever in early 2008. In the same month, Yahoo! announced plans to receive listings from Cars.com for their Yahoo! Autos service.

Cars.com was previously owned by Classified Ventures, LLC, a joint venture between Gannett, The McClatchy Company, Tribune, Graham Holdings, and A.H. Belo. On August 5, 2014, Gannett announced that it would buy out the remaining stakes in Classified Ventures it did not already own, for $2.5 billion.

Cars.com was included in the spin-off of Gannett's broadcasting properties as Tegna, Inc. On May 4, 2017, Tegna shareholders approved a plan to spin off Cars.com as a new, publicly-traded company; they received a share of the new company, which began trading on the NYSE beginning June 1, 2017, for every 3 Tegna shares they owned.

Cars.com has regularly advertised during the Super Bowl, screening adverts in consecutive years.

Since July 1998, Cars.com has been in partnership with Tom and Ray Magliozzi of Car Talk and the website includes a Cartalk advice section.

Cars.com also partners with MotorWeek on PBS to provide online access to MotorWeek reviews.