Free · no sign-up · no card
Free car check by registration number
Most car checks tell you when your MOT runs out. This one tells you what your car is about to cost — every advisory translated into a repair with a price for your exact model.
Official DVSA and DVLA dataReport in about 30 secondsEvery repair priced
Enter your registration and we build a free Car Health Report: your MOT status and due date, every open advisory from your last test translated into a repair with a price for your exact model, and the jobs your car’s age and mileage predict. No account, no card — we earn a commission only if you go on to book through a partner.
376
days is the median gap between an advisory and the failure it turns into — almost exactly one MOT cycle
18.7%
of suspension advisories come back as a failure, the highest of any group we’ve measured
145m
advisories tracked from one test to the next, so the odds on your report aren’t guesswork
What your report shows
Six things, none of which need an account, an email address or a card.
MOT status and due date
The valid-until date from official DVSA records, plus a free reminder four weeks before it falls due.
Advisories, priced
“Brake disc worn, pitted” becomes a repair with a price range for your model. Plain English, real numbers.
The odds it becomes a failure
Each advisory carries the rate at which its category came back as a failure, measured from the national test record rather than estimated.
What’s coming next
Jobs predicted from your car’s age and mileage, like a cambelt due by schedule — clearly marked as predictions, not findings.
Your total, with savings
Everything due added up, plus what you save by bundling repairs into one garage visit instead of three.
Independent versus dealer
Both ranges for common repairs on your exact car, not a vague UK average. Main dealers typically charge around 50% more.
Price ranges are estimates — final quotes come from garages.
What a free car check usually gives you, and what we add
The raw MOT record is public, so plenty of sites will show it to you. Almost none answer the question you actually have, which is what it means and what it costs.
| What you get | Typical free car check | Here |
|---|---|---|
| MOT status and expiry | Yes | Yes, plus a free reminder |
| Full test and advisory history | Yes | Yes |
| What each advisory means | The tester’s wording, unchanged | Translated into the actual repair |
| What it costs to fix | Not shown | Priced for your exact make and model |
| How likely it is to fail next time | Not shown | Measured from 145 million tracked advisories |
| What’s due next | Not shown | Predicted from age and mileage, labelled as such |
| Sign-up required | Often | No account, no card |
Why the odds matter more than the wording
An advisory is a note, not an instruction. Your car passed and nothing obliges you to act — which is exactly why most people do nothing, and why the useful question is not “what does this mean” but “what happens if I leave it”.
We can answer that, because we have followed every advisory in the national test record forward to the same vehicle’s later tests. Across 145 million of them, the median gap between an advisory and the failure it predicts is 376 days. Not eighteen months, not two years — one MOT cycle, almost to the day, and the figure barely moves between categories.
That is not a fact about how parts wear out. Rubber, steel, brake fluid and a bulb have nothing mechanically in common, yet they all convert at the same moment. It is a fact about people: drivers do not book the repair when they read the advisory, they wait for the next test to force it.
The rates themselves vary sharply, and that is where your report earns its keep. Suspension advisories come back as failures 18.7% of the time — the highest of anything we have measured. An oil leak comes back 1.3% of the time. Both look equally serious in the tester’s language. Only one of them is worth booking this month.
Calculated from the DVSA MOT testing bulk dataset. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The full breakdown by category and vehicle age is on our advisory decoder.
How it works
- Enter your reg That is the only thing we need. No name, no email address, no account, and nothing to unsubscribe from later.
- We read the official records Your car’s details and full MOT history come from DVSA and DVLA services — the same data the test centres use. Nothing is estimated at this stage.
- You get a priced report Advisories mapped to repairs, prices for your model, the odds from the national record, and predictions for what is due next. If you want something fixed, one click compares quotes from local garages.
No garage pays to appear in your report and none can pay to be recommended. We may earn a commission when you book through a partner comparison service, at no cost to you — the price you pay is the same either way.
That is the whole business model, and we would rather write it here than bury it. How we make money explains it in full.
No account, no card, no marketing emails. Just the report.
Car check FAQ
Is the car check really free?
Yes — the report is completely free and there is no sign-up. We only make money if you later choose to book a repair through one of our partner comparison services, and that never changes the price you pay.
Where does the data come from?
Official government sources: DVSA MOT history records and DVLA vehicle data, the same records garages and test centres use. The failure rates come from our own analysis of the DVSA bulk dataset. We don’t guess, and anything predicted from age or mileage is clearly labelled as a prediction.
Is this the same as the government’s free MOT history check?
It reads the same official records, so the history itself matches. The difference is what we do with it: each advisory is translated into the repair it predicts, priced for your exact model, and shown alongside how often that category came back as a failure. The government service shows the record; we show what it costs.
What is an MOT advisory?
A note from the tester about something wearing out that is not yet bad enough to fail. Your car passed and nothing obliges you to act. But the median gap between an advisory and the failure it becomes is 376 days, so most of them are next year’s bill arriving early. Our advisory decoder covers the sixteen most common phrases.
Do you store my registration number?
Lookups are cached briefly to keep the service fast, and that is it. We only keep your reg and email address if you ask for the PDF report or an MOT reminder, and unsubscribing deletes them. See our privacy policy.
Is this the same as an HPI or vehicle history check?
No. Those check finance, theft and write-off records. Our report is about the car’s condition and running costs: MOT status, advisories, what they cost and what is due next. Before buying a used car, doing both is the sensible combination — see our used car check guide.
Does it work on any UK car?
Any UK-registered vehicle with an MOT history, which means most cars over three years old. Newer cars have no test record yet, so the report shows vehicle details and predicted service items rather than advisories.
Will you send me marketing emails?
No. If you request a report or a reminder you get exactly that — the report, and one reminder before your MOT is due, with an unsubscribe link on every email. Nothing else, ever.