We exist to protect you from losing thousands on a bad car.
IsItAGoodCar was built by a team of car enthusiasts and data engineers. One of us bought a "perfect" used estate that turned out to have £8,400 of outstanding finance. The dealer vanished. The car was repossessed. The bank kept the money. We decided that should never happen to anyone else.
The seller had full service history, a clean MOT, and the car looked immaculate on the forecourt. Only when the finance company contacted the new keeper — not the dealer — did the truth come out. The hire-purchase agreement had never been settled. Under UK law, the finance company had every right to take the car back. The buyer was left with nothing: no car, no refund, and no way to chase a dealer who had already shut up shop.
That experience made us look at the tools available to ordinary buyers. Existing vehicle check services charged £19.99 or more per report, hid their best data behind confusing upsells, and often used databases weeks or months out of date. The information existed — DVLA registration data, DVSA MOT records, police stolen-vehicle markers — but it was scattered across government portals, trade-only systems, and expensive third-party aggregators. We built IsItAGoodCar to bring it all together in one place, at a price that doesn't make you wince.
The gap between what buyers need and what they're offered
The UK used-car market is worth over £50 billion a year. Most buyers spend weeks researching models and prices, then hand over thousands of pounds with nothing more than a seller's word and a clean MOT certificate.
Traditional vehicle history checks — the ones most people know — were built for the motor trade. They were designed to be sold at trade volume, with trade pricing and trade jargon. When consumers started buying them directly, the pricing barely changed. A single HPI check still costs £19.99 or more, and if you want finance, stolen, and write-off data together, you're pushed toward a subscription or a "bundle" that includes information you don't actually need.
Meanwhile, the UK government publishes a huge amount of vehicle data for free. The DVLA's Vehicle Enquiry Service tells you tax status, MOT expiry, first registration date, engine size, fuel type, and emissions. The DVSA publishes full MOT history going back to 2005, including pass and fail results, advisory items, and recorded mileage at each test. What the free tools don't tell you is whether the car has outstanding finance, whether it's been reported stolen, or whether it was written off and categorised as Cat A, Cat B, Cat S, or Cat N.
Those are exactly the checks that cost people the most money. According to the Motor Insurers' Anti-Fraud and Theft Register (MIAFTR), nearly 390,000 vehicles are written off by UK insurers every year. The police record thousands of stolen vehicles on the Police National Computer. And the finance industry holds millions of active hire-purchase and lease agreements against registered vehicles. The data exists — it just wasn't being offered to consumers at a price that made sense.
Where our data comes from
We don't scrape forums or rely on crowd-sourced estimates. Every data point in an IsItAGoodCar report comes from official UK government databases or licensed commercial registers.
DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency)
Vehicle registration, make, model, colour, fuel type, engine capacity, CO₂ emissions, tax status, tax due date, date of first registration, and year of manufacture. Queried in real time via the official Vehicle Enquiry Service.
DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency)
Full MOT history from 2005 onwards: every test date, test result (pass/fail), recorded mileage at each test, advisory notices, failure items, and dangerous defects. Updated continuously as test stations upload results.
Experian Automotive
Outstanding finance agreements (hire purchase, PCP, personal loans secured against the vehicle), finance company details, agreement types, and agreement dates. Experian holds data from all major UK automotive lenders.
MIAFTR (Insurance Write-Off Register)
Category A (scrap only), Category B (break for parts), Category S (structurally damaged, repairable), and Category N (non-structurally damaged, repairable) records logged by UK motor insurers.
Police National Computer (PNC)
Stolen vehicle markers, police interest flags, and recovered vehicle records. Checked via licensed data feeds to ensure the vehicle has not been reported stolen or subject to police enquiry.
VIN & Plate Tracking
Historical registration marks (number plate changes), scrapped markers, exported flags, imported indicators, and color change history to detect vehicle cloning and identity fraud.
What happens when you enter a registration
From the moment you type a plate to the finished report on your screen takes under thirty seconds.
Instant DVLA & DVSA lookup
We validate the registration format, normalise the plate, and simultaneously query the DVLA and DVSA databases. Within seconds, we confirm the vehicle exists, pull the core specification, and retrieve the full MOT history including all historical test records and recorded mileages.
Mileage analysis & anomaly detection
Our system plots every recorded MOT odometer reading chronologically. If mileage drops between tests — a classic sign of 'clocking' — the system flags it immediately. We also compare the car's annual mileage against the UK national average (roughly 7,400 miles/year) to identify unusually heavy or light usage.
AI-powered defect & advisory breakdown
Raw MOT advisories are full of tester shorthand and technical jargon. Our AI analysis translates those advisories into plain English, categorises them by vehicle system (brakes, suspension, tyres, emissions), estimates likely repair costs, and predicts what is most likely to fail on the next test.
Provenance & finance check (Premium report)
When you choose a full check, we query Experian's automotive database and the Police National Computer to verify outstanding finance, insurance write-off categories, stolen markers, previous registration plates, and scrap/export status. The result is backed by our Experian Data Guarantee.
Make professional-grade vehicle data affordable for every UK buyer
HPI charges £19.99. Garages charge £30+. We price our focused UK buyer report at £8.99 because access to solid vehicle history data shouldn't be a luxury.
Official and licensed data
We combine DVLA, DVSA and licensed third-party datasets to build a report aimed at the checks UK buyers usually need most.
Data guarantee
Eligible premium reports include an Experian Data Guarantee with cover up to £20,000.
No upsell theatre
One transparent price. No subscriptions. No hidden tiers. No fake countdowns.
Who we are
We believe a company selling trust should be completely transparent about who runs it.
Company Information
- Trading Name:
- IsItAGoodCar
- Registered Company:
- Matter Logic Limited
- Company Number:
- 16768499 (England & Wales)
- Registered Office:
- 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ
- ICO Registration:
- ZC100345 (Data Protection Register)
Standards & Compliance
We process vehicle data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. Vehicle registration data is processed under legitimate interest for vehicle verification, crime prevention, and consumer protection.
We do not display registered keeper names or personal contact details. Our reports focus exclusively on vehicle history, provenance, and condition.
How we operate
Three rules that guide every product decision we make.
1. The free check must be genuinely useful
We will never hide MOT results, tax status, or mileage history behind a paywall. If the government provides it for free, we provide it for free — cleaned up, beautifully presented, and easy to understand.
2. No dark patterns or deceptive pricing
No auto-renewing subscriptions disguised as one-off purchases. No countdown timers telling you the price will double in three minutes. No "free trial" that quietly bills your card £29.99 a month later. What you see is what you pay.
3. Data accuracy above all else
If we aren't confident in a data point, we don't show it. We clearly distinguish between official records (DVLA/DVSA), licensed trade data (Experian/MIAFTR), and our own AI estimates (valuations and failure predictions). You will always know the source and confidence level of every fact on screen.
Frequently asked about IsItAGoodCar
How does IsItAGoodCar compare to an HPI check?
Our Full Premium Vehicle Check uses Experian data — the same data provider used by HPI, the AA, and RAC. You get the same finance, stolen, write-off, and mileage anomaly checks, backed by an Experian Data Guarantee up to £20,000, at a fraction of the cost.
Is the basic check really 100% free?
Yes. Enter any UK registration number and you get instant access to make, model, year, fuel type, engine size, tax status, MOT expiry, complete MOT pass/fail history, recorded advisories, and the mileage timeline without paying anything.
How quickly is MOT data updated after a test?
When a garage completes an MOT test, they upload the result to the DVSA database. We query DVSA directly, so results typically appear on IsItAGoodCar within minutes of the tester completing the test.
Can I check commercial vehicles, vans, and motorbikes?
Yes. Any vehicle registered with the DVLA — including cars, vans, light commercial vehicles (LCVs), motorbikes, and motorhomes — can be checked using its UK registration number.
Ready to check a car?
From £8.99. Results in under 30 seconds.