Check a used car's background — HPI checks, outstanding finance, stolen-car checks, keeper history, and service records.
Check any UK car before you buy — free.
Six checks for a former taxi or private hire car: the MOT mileage pattern, the V5C keepers, the physical signs, the licence checkers and your rights.
A car on hire purchase belongs to the lender until the last payment. How to check for finance before you pay, what the free checks miss, and your rights.
The write-off categories A, B, S and N in plain words, what the GOV.UK checks do and do not show, and the questions to ask before you pay for a repaired car.
How often an MOT fail is fixed on the spot and recorded as a pass, by car age: more than 1 in 4 non-passes at three years, fewer than 1 in 5 at fifteen.
What pass after rectification (PRS) means on an MOT history, how often it happens (about 1 in 19 tests in 2025), why GOV.UK counts it as a fail, what to ask.
Essential Pack £5.99 or Essential Protected £7.49? What the Experian Data Guarantee on a car check pack is, what it is not, the conditions Experian publishes, and how to decide.
What the Experian Data Guarantee adds to the Full Provenance Report from £9.99: three cover levels, six listed inaccuracies and the published conditions.
What the £5.99 Full Provenance Report shows: finance, stolen, write-off, mileage, keeper and plate history in one Experian-sourced report, and its limits.
What the £2.99 Keeper & Owner History check shows: previous keeper count and date of the last change, where the data comes from, and how to use it.
What the £2.99 Mileage & Clocking Check shows: recorded odometer readings in date order with an anomaly verdict, its sources, and what to do if they drop.
What the £7.99 per-record OE Service History report shows, where the Ezyvin manufacturer data comes from, and how to check it against the service book.
What a £3.99 Outstanding Finance Check shows, where the data comes from, what it cannot tell you, and what to do if a used car has money owed on it. With sample report screenshots.
What the £1.99 Plate change and £1.99 Colour change history checks show, where the Experian data comes from, and how to trace a car's past under an old plate.
What the £3.99 Safety Recall Check shows: open manufacturer recalls matched to the chassis number, its data source, and what to do if one is outstanding.
What the £1.99 Taxi & Private-Hire Check shows, where the CarGuide licensing data comes from, and how to spot an ex-taxi before you pay for one.
What the Write-off & Salvage Check shows: a £1.99 salvage auction marker and a £2.99 MIAFTR damage history, and what Cat A, B, S and N mean.
6 keepers in 5 years? That's not necessarily bad. Learn what keeper changes mean, when they're a red flag, and how to cross-reference keeper history with MOT data.
Every used car carries a record: how many keepers it has had, whether its number plate has changed, whether an insurer has ever written it off, whether it's recorded as stolen, and whether there's outstanding finance secured on it. None of that is visible from the driver's seat, and the cars with the most to hide are often the ones presented best. Frequent keeper changes, a plate swap timed suspiciously close to an insurance claim, or a gap in the MOT record are all questions worth asking a seller directly — and the answers are usually revealing.
Outstanding finance is the risk buyers underestimate most. If a previous owner's loan is still secured on the car, the finance company can have a claim on it — meaning you can pay in full, in good faith, and still not own the car outright. Write-off history matters too: a properly repaired Category S or N car can be a fair buy at the right price, but only if you know about it and the price reflects it.
Start with our free car check — DVLA and MOT data, including mileage history that makes clocking visible. When you're serious about a specific car, a full provenance report adds the finance, stolen, write-off and mileage checks that the free data can't cover. The guides below explain how to read what you find.
Check any UK car before you buy — free.