MOT Checkup vs Car Advert Check at a glance
Two tables, both read off MOT Checkup’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 |
| MOT Checkup | No | Yes | In part |
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 |
| MOT Checkup | £2.99 (Basic) or £3.99 (Premium, adds an AI vehicle Q&A chat) | Every MOT test with date, result and first mileage readings, plus an AI reliability score, specs, ULEZ status, CO2 band, VED estimate, insurance group, safety rating, recall lookup, running costs, tax status and MOT expiry; no card, no signup | None stated |
Prices and features checked on 17 September 2026, read off each provider's own site. Providers change them; tell us if one has.
Where MOT Checkup beats us
Cheapest paid tier in the set, publishes an annual MOT research report with a corrections policy, and has a named founder. It’s the one to buy for a cheap AI read of the MOT history with no provenance data.
MOT Checkup does one thing and says so: it takes the complete MOT history and has an AI look for pass and fail consistency, defect recurrence and mileage progression, then compares the car against known reliability data for the make and model. It names the model behind the analysis, has a named founder, and publishes an annual research report with a corrections policy, which is more editorial discipline than most of the field shows. Its free tier includes every test with the mileage readings and a reliability score, no card, no signup. Its "money-back guarantee" is a refund promise, not a data guarantee.
It isn't a provenance check and it doesn't claim to be: no finance, no theft marker, no write-off at any tier. So the fair comparison is with our free scan, which also reads the MOT history and also costs nothing, and which takes one more input, the advert. If you want finance, theft and write-off markers scored in too, that's our Provenance Check, and MOT Checkup has no equivalent.
What MOT Checkup 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
- Every MOT test with date, result and first mileage readings, plus an AI reliability score, specs, ULEZ status, CO2 band, VED estimate, insurance group, safety rating, recall lookup, running costs, tax status and MOT expiry; no card, no signup
- One full check
- £2.99 (Basic) or £3.99 (Premium, adds an AI vehicle Q&A chat)
- Multi-check or packs
- None advertised
- Data guarantee
- None stated
- Sources it names
- DVSA MOT API; DVLA Vehicle Enquiry Service; Euro NCAP; Anthropic's Claude for the analysis
What its pages describe beyond the lookup: About page: the AI analyses the complete MOT history for pass/fail consistency, defect recurrence and mileage progression, and compares it against known reliability data for the make and model. No repair costs described. No finance, stolen or write-off data at any tier.
Read off MOT Checkup’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 MOT Checkup.
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.
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 MOT Checkup 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.