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We know that buying a used car can be a stressful and sometimes risky experience and we are working hard to make Motors.co.uk a safer place to find your next car by giving cars a history check before we list them. Our Basic history check ensures that we never list any car that is recorded as either stolen with the police, or scrapped with the DVLA.

Registered users can also take advantage of our upgraded history check process which makes further checks on the history of the vehicle. For stock from our premium dealers, history checking also assesses whether the price seems reasonable when compared to similar stock from other dealers.

The meaning of each of our various history checking icons is:

Registered Users

This car is advertised by one of our premium dealers, has no history alerts and appears to be reasonably priced

This car is advertised by one of our premium dealers, has no history alerts but looks a little pricey (see further notes below)

Our check found no history alerts but we have not checked the price of this car as it is not advertised by one of our premium dealers but there are no history alerts

There is at least one history check alert on this car; if the car is advertised by one of our premium dealers you can hover your mouse over the icon to see details of the alert

Unregistered Users

This car is not advertised by one of our premium dealers, please register to check for history alerts

This car is advertised by one of our premium dealers and has no history alerts; please register to see if we think the price is reasonable

There is at least one history check alert on this car; if you register you can hover your mouse over the icon to see details of the alert

Keep reading if you want to know more about how our history check works...

When vehicles are first listed with us, we check their history so we can warn you about areas of potential concern. Some information is provided to all users of the site but to get the full details you need to register (don't worry, registration is free).

Any vehicles that are listed as stolen on the Police National Computer or that are recorded by the DVLA as scrapped are never listed on the site.

We also check to see whether a vehicle has ever been "written off" by an insurance company; it gets a bit complicated here but bear with us. There are different write-off categories and cars in "Category A" or "Category B" should never be re-sold, so we never list them on the site. Cars in write-off Categories "C" & "D" can be repaired and re-sold but we think you should know about the write-off history. Some people are happy to buy such cars as long as they are roadworthy and the history is reflected in the price.

Imports from outside the European Union are increasingly common (lots of right hand drive cars are now imported from Japan for example) and we think you should know if this applies, so we check with the DVLA. More importantly perhaps, we also check with the DVLA to see whether vehicles have been exported; you should check the history of such cars very carefully.

Finally, we thought you might want some reassurance about the advertised price of a car. This is tricky to do but we use industry "book" prices to come up with a mileage adjusted retail price for each car listed by our premium dealers and then compare that price to the advertised price. We then highlight those cars (the top 15% to be precise) that appear to look a little pricey compared to average dealer prices. A word of warning though; these cars often turn out to be fairly priced as we can take into account factors such as non-standard options (e.g. SatNav) or better than average extended warranties offered by some dealers don't dismiss these cars before checking with the dealer to see what included in the price.

Important Notes:

It costs us money to history check each car for you and some history check results are only displayed for our "premium" dealers (those with whom we have a full advertising relationship).

Please do not rely solely on our history check; we only check cars when they are first listed with us, not every day.

Even our history check does not check for outstanding finance and othe key risk factors so unless you are buying from a dealer who provides you with a current Experian, Autocheck or HPI certificate you are strongly advised to carry out a full history and provenance check just before you buy.