Carpeep vs Car Advert Check at a glance
Two tables, both read off Carpeep’s own site. The first is the job we rank on: what the check does with the records. “No” means nothing on their site describes it, not that they can’t.
| Provider | Reads the advert | MOT advisory analysis | Known faults with costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car Advert CheckOur pick | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Carpeep | No | No | No |
Prices and features checked on 17 September 2026, read off each provider's own site: “No” means nothing on their site describes it. Providers change them; tell us if one has.
| Provider | One full check | Free tier | Data guarantee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car Advert CheckOur pick | See pricing | Free scan: reads the advert against the DVSA MOT history, verdict, risk score and biggest finding, no card and no password | None stated |
| Carpeep | £15 (single check) | A 'Free car check' and a sample report are linked from the footer (2026-10-23); what the free check shows was not read | A 'Report Guarantee': a full refund if the report cannot be produced or delivered (effective 22 October 2026). No cash data guarantee is stated any more |
Prices and features checked on 17 September 2026, read off each provider's own site. Providers change them; tell us if one has.
Where Carpeep beats us
Carries a stated £30,000 guarantee, which we do not. It’s the one to buy for a £30,000 data guarantee at a mid price.
Carpeep's offer is simple: a single check or a three-pack, a guarantee, and the usual registers, the DVLA, the MOT history, the police computer, the insurers' write-off records and the finance providers. Its blog holds one of the pages that ranks for "alternative" searches, which is partly why this page exists. What we couldn't do is see a report before paying: there's no free tier and no sample, so what the report looks like inside is something its site doesn't show.
On the records we're level, because everyone is. On what happens next, Carpeep's pages describe nothing beyond the lookup: no advert reading, no advisory analysis, no model fault data. Ours reads all three and gives one verdict. If the guarantee is what you're paying for, Carpeep has one and we don't. If it's the car you want read, start with our free scan on the advert.
What Carpeep describes on its own site
Straight from the pages listed under Sources, with nothing filled in from anywhere else. Where the site didn’t show something, the row says so rather than guessing.
- Free tier
- A 'Free car check' and a sample report are linked from the footer (2026-10-23); what the free check shows was not read
- One full check
- £15 (single check)
- Multi-check or packs
- £35 for three checks
- Data guarantee
- A 'Report Guarantee': a full refund if the report cannot be produced or delivered (effective 22 October 2026). No cash data guarantee is stated any more
- Sources it names
- DVLA records; MOT history; Police National Computer; insurance industry write-off records; finance providers
Read off Carpeep’s own site on 23 October 2026.
What Car Advert Check does with the same records
Start with what’s the same. Our outstanding finance, theft and write-off lookups come from the same places as everyone else’s: the lenders, the police and the insurers’ write-off register. Nobody holds a private source, and we’re not selling better records than Carpeep.
What’s different is what happens next. A plate lookup stops at the registration. Ours carries on and reads three things no lookup takes in: the advert you’re looking at, the car’s whole DVSA MOT advisory history, and our known-faults database for that model, with what each fault costs to put right. Then it gives you one verdict instead of a page of fields, and outstanding finance, a theft marker or a write-off sends that verdict straight to its highest risk rating, because none of those is something you negotiate around.
Where it earns its keep is a car that comes back clean on the registers. A standard check stops there and the car looks fine. Ours keeps going: if the advert says “full service history”, the MOT record shows the same suspension advisory three years running and the engine is one with a known fault at this age, the report says the description doesn’t match the car’s own record, what the fault would cost, and what to ask before you travel.
What it won’t do: we offer no data guarantee, we can’t see a car’s history from before it came to the UK, we don’t sell a car’s past adverts, and nothing we or anyone else sells can see accident damage that never became a claim or how well a repair was done. Those take your eyes and a ramp.
So which should you run?
You’ve got an advert open and you’re deciding whether it’s worth the drive. Run the free scan on that advert. It reads the wording against the car’s DVSA MOT history and tells you the biggest thing to worry about, with no card and no password.
You’re about to hand money over. Upgrade that report to the Provenance Check. It adds the outstanding finance, theft and write-off records, scores them in with everything else, and includes the Smart Check, so the seller questions and a figure to negotiate with come with it.
You need what Carpeep does that we don’t. Buy it. The section above says what that is, and we’d rather you had the right check than ours.
You lose nothing by starting free: the free report upgrades on the same link with no re-run, so you never paste the advert twice, and if the free scan already says walk away, you’ve saved yourself the rest.