Free checks cover more than the paid-check industry likes to admit: MOT history, mileage readings, tax status and unfixed safety recalls are all on gov.uk, free, no account needed. What no free check can show is outstanding finance, an insurance write-off or a stolen marker: those live on industry databases that cost money to query. Here's exactly where the free layer stops, and what each tier of paid check actually adds.
What can you actually check for free?
The official record, more or less. The government's MOT history service shows every test since 2005: passes, fails, advisories and the mileage recorded at each one. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) vehicle enquiry service confirms tax and SORN status, MOT expiry, first registration date, engine size and CO₂. And the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) runs a free recall checker for safety recalls that were never fixed. Our own free tools pull the same official data with less form-filling. Most bad cars die right here, for nothing; knowing how to read an MOT history properly does the heavy lifting.
What does a paid check show that free ones don't?
Three flags, and all of them live on private industry databases. Outstanding finance is reported by lenders to a small number of licensed data providers; there's no public register, which is why a seller's unpaid finance can follow the car into your ownership. Insurance write-offs sit on the industry's anti-fraud and theft register, MIAFTR (held since late 2025 on the Navigate data platform run by the Motor Insurers' Bureau), and you can't search it yourself. Stolen markers come from the Police National Computer, which isn't public either; without them, checking a car isn't stolen means verifying its identity the hard way. Querying those databases costs money, so the flags are never genuinely free, whatever a banner ad promises.
What's the logbook-loan trap?
A logbook loan is cash borrowed against a car the borrower already owns, secured with a bill of sale, so the lender owns the car until the final repayment, whatever the V5C says. Sold mid-loan, the debt stays bolted to the car, and the lender can repossess it from the new keeper's driveway. Nothing about the car, the seller or the paperwork gives it away, and no free check will ever surface it: it exists only on the finance databases. It's the single strongest argument for paying for a finance check before serious money changes hands with a private seller.
How do free, £5 and £20 checks compare?
Line by line, including the gaps in our own product, since we sell the middle column:
| What's checked | Free (gov.uk + our tools) | Our £5 report | £20 premium brands |
|---|---|---|---|
| MOT history | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tax status | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Outstanding recalls | ✓ (DVSA) | ✗ | Varies |
| Full spec | Partial | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mileage record | ✓ raw readings | ✓ plotted, dips flagged | ✓ |
| Outstanding finance | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Insurance write-off | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Stolen marker | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Plate changes | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
The bottom four rows are the entire case for paying anyone anything, and the bottom three are the case for the £20 tier. Our report costs £5 because we don't pay to query the industry databases, so we don't charge as if we did.
Is a £19.99 HPI check worth it?
On the one car you're about to buy: yes. HPI's full check costs £19.99, and the flags that justify it come from the same industry registers whoever retails them: even HPI's own £9.99 basic tier queries the finance and theft data, the extra tenner buying write-off detail, mileage checking and a £30,000 guarantee if the data proves wrong. What's rarely worth it is running one on every car on your shortlist. Filter with the free layer first, then spend the £20 once, on the car that's survived everything else.
So what should you actually pay for?
Pay in the order the risk arrives. Free checks on everything; they kill most bad cars in minutes. A £5 report when you're down to one or two: it puts the whole official record on a single page, from every MOT and advisory to the mileage timeline with dips flagged, plus tax, full spec, previous keepers, plate and colour changes. It doesn't include finance, write-off or stolen data, and we'd rather say that plainly than sell you a "free HPI check" that isn't one. Then, for the car you're actually buying, the HPI-style £20 for the three flags nothing else shows. Under £30 all in, set against a four-figure mistake.