You've found the car. It's the right colour, it's roughly the right price, and there's a voice in your head asking whether you're about to do something daft. The good news is that most of the answer is already sitting in the advert and the car's own records, and reading them takes about ten minutes. The bad news is that most people skip straight to arranging a viewing.
This is the ten-minute version: the four questions that decide it, the answers to the specific worries people type into Google at eleven at night (high mileage, no service history, too many owners, finance, ex-lease, ex-Motability), and the handful of things that mean you should stop reading and walk away.
Should I buy this car?
Buy it if the advert's claims survive the car's own records, the price makes sense once you've read them, and nothing in the seller's behaviour says otherwise. You can settle the first two from your phone before you speak to anyone: the MOT history holds every mileage reading and every advisory the car has ever had, and the known faults for the model tell you what the advisories are likely to turn into.
"Should I buy this car" is really four smaller questions, and none of them needs a viewing:
- Does the mileage claim fit the record? Every MOT test records the mileage. A sequence that climbs steadily is a car that's been used normally; a dip, a flat spot or a jump is the thing to chase.
- What does the MOT history say it needs? Advisories are the tester's notes on what's wearing out. The same advisory on three consecutive tests is a job nobody has done.
- What does this model go wrong with, and is the advert hinting at it? Every model has a short list. "Just needs a sensor" on an engine known for something expensive is not a coincidence often enough to trust.
- Does the price make sense for the answers? Cheap for a reason you've found is a negotiation. Cheap for a reason you can't find is a warning.
If you'd rather have those four done in one go, that's what the free scan exists for. Either way, the rest of this guide takes the specific worries one at a time.
Should I buy a car with high mileage?
Yes, if the miles were gained steadily and the car was maintained for them. Mileage on its own tells you much less than how it got there. A car that has done 20,000 motorway miles a year for six years has had an easier life than one that's done 4,000 miles a year of cold starts and school runs, and the MOT history shows you which one you're looking at, because it records the mileage at every test.
What high mileage actually changes is the list of jobs that fall due:
| Component | Why mileage matters | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Timing belt, or wet belt | Limited by miles as well as years, and invisible on inspection | A receipt with a date and a mileage. No receipt, price it in. Wet belt replacement cost has the figures for the engines that matter |
| Clutch and dual-mass flywheel | Wear items on a manual | A high biting point or a judder on take-up |
| Suspension bushes, drop links, springs | Wear with distance, and they're common advisories | The same suspension advisory repeated across MOT tests |
| Diesel particulate filter | Motorway miles keep it clear; short trips clog it | A high-mileage diesel from a motorway life is the good kind |
| Turbo | Life depends on oil changes, not miles alone | Service invoices at the right intervals |
The combination to avoid is high mileage and thin evidence: no service invoices, a belt nobody can vouch for, and an advert that leans on "drives spot on". Priced as though all of those jobs are due, a high-mileage car can be the best value on the page. Priced as though they've been done, with nothing to show for it, it's the worst.
Should I buy a car with no service history?
Only if you price it as though nothing has ever been done, and then only if the timing belt question has an answer. Buying a car with no service history goes through the sums in detail, so here's the short version: the risk concentrates almost entirely in the belt, because it's limited by both age and mileage, nothing on a test drive reveals it, and when it goes it takes the engine with it. Every other missed service is a cost you can see coming. That one isn't.
Should I buy a car with lots of previous owners?
Depends on why. The V5C log book shows the number of previous keepers, and a car that's had five in six years has usually been passed on because something about it kept disappointing people. But keeper count is a blunt tool. An ex-lease or ex-fleet car can show one former keeper and have been driven by a dozen people; a well-loved car can show four because a family kept re-registering it between them.
The number to weigh is short ownerships in a row. One keeper for eight years then two in the last eighteen months is a car that changed, or a fault that surfaced, around the time the first owner sold. Ask the seller how long they've had it and why they're selling, and compare the answer with the acquisition date printed on the V5C.
Should I buy a car with outstanding finance?
Not until the finance is settled, or you've seen the settlement figure and know exactly how it's being paid. The car isn't the seller's to sell while a lender still owns it. If you buy privately, in good faith and without knowing, Part III of the Hire-Purchase Act 1964 passes good title to you and the lender's argument becomes theirs to have with the seller; outstanding finance on a used car explains exactly how that protection works and where it stops. But relying on it after the fact means solicitors, and a seller who didn't mention the finance has usually not mentioned other things either.
A private seller won't always know what's recorded, so if they say it was settled recently, ask for the settlement letter. Nothing free tells you whether finance is on the register. The Provenance Check does, from the same industry data every paid check uses, and folds the answer into the verdict rather than leaving it as a line for you to weigh.
Should I buy an ex-lease or ex-fleet car?
Usually yes, and it's often the best-kept car at its price. A lease or fleet car is serviced to the manufacturer's schedule because the lease agreement requires it, it's normally on a single keeper, and it tends to have done motorway miles, which is the easy kind. Dealers know this.
The two things to check are the ones a lease life leaves behind. First, ask for the service invoices, not the book: a lease company services on schedule, so if the paperwork is missing the seller has lost something that should exist. Second, look for the wear that comes from a car nobody owned: kerbed wheels, a scuffed rear bumper from loading, a driver's seat bolster worn through by a hundred different drivers. None of it is mechanical, all of it is negotiable.
Should I buy an ex-Motability car?
Yes, with two specific checks. Motability Scheme cars are leased for three or five years, and during the lease the scheme arranges the insurance, covers regular servicing and routine repairs and provides breakdown cover, so the car has usually been maintained on schedule whether or not the customer cared about cars. Mileage is capped by the lease: for orders placed before 1 July 2026 the allowance was 60,000 miles over three years or 100,000 over five, and for orders from that date it's 30,000 over three years or 50,000 over five. The customer can't buy the car at the end of the lease, so it goes back to the scheme and is sold on, which is why so many turn up at dealers with low miles and a full history.
The two checks. First, adaptations: a car that had hand controls, a steering ball, a swivel seat or a boot hoist fitted will have had them taken out before sale, so look at the steering column, the seat rails and the boot floor for the holes and the trim that doesn't quite match. Second, the wear pattern can be unusual: a Motability car may have done very few miles but had a wheelchair or a scooter lifted in and out of the boot every day, so the load lip, the boot carpet and the rear bumper tell you more than the odometer does.
Should I buy a car with lots of MOT advisories?
Yes if they're the kind that get fixed, no if they're the kind that get repeated. An advisory is the tester telling the owner what's wearing out without failing the car for it. One that appears once and is gone at the next test was fixed. One that appears on three consecutive tests was not, and the seller who says the car has "just passed its MOT" is telling you the truth while leaving that part out.
The advisories to weigh most heavily are corrosion, because rust doesn't get better and structural corrosion is an expensive fail waiting for a tester in a worse mood, and anything on brakes, steering or suspension that has been noted more than once. The full history, with every advisory and every failure, is free from GOV.UK with the registration. Our free scan reads the same record, but alongside the advert and the known faults for the model, which is how "slight play in steering rack" becomes a specific question about a specific documented fault rather than a line in a list.
Why is this car so cheap?
There's a reason, and your job is to find it before you pay. Well under the going rate is one of five things: a history the advert doesn't mention (a write-off category, finance, a theft marker), a fault the seller knows about, a seller who needs the money this week, a mistake in the advert, or an advert that isn't real. Only two of those are good news for you.
The history you can check. Cat N and Cat S cars are legitimately cheaper and legitimately sellable, but a car sold as "HPI clear" that turns out to be a Cat S is a different conversation. Finance and theft show up on a Provenance Check and nowhere free. The fault you can often infer from the MOT history and the model's known faults: a cheap Ford Focus with a "slight judder" is a different proposition once you've read what that engine and gearbox are documented for, and the same goes for a bargain Vauxhall Corsa that "just needs a service". And the advert that isn't real usually gives itself away: a price that's too good, a seller who's abroad, a courier who'll deliver, a deposit to "hold" it. How to check if a car is stolen covers the ways that one goes wrong.
When should you walk away?
When the record and the advert disagree, or the seller won't let you check. In particular:
- The MOT mileage sequence contradicts the advert. Not "a bit off". Contradicts. A reading that goes backwards, or a "genuine 60,000" on a car the record put at 90,000 two years ago. How to spot a clocked car shows you how to read the sequence.
- The seller isn't the registered keeper and can't say why. "Selling for a friend" is one of the classic cover stories.
- There's finance and no settlement plan.
- It's a Cat A or Cat B. Neither should be back on the road as a car at all.
- They won't give you the registration. On a private sale, treat a refusal as an answer.
- They want a deposit before you've seen it. No legitimate private seller needs one.
Everything else is a negotiation. A repeated advisory, a missing service, a high mileage, a Cat N with an honest description and a price to match: those are reasons to pay less, not reasons to leave.
Can a check actually answer "should I buy this car" for you?
Most of it, and here's the honest line on where it stops. We don't hold records nobody else has. The MOT history is free to anyone with the registration; finance, theft and write-off data come from the same industry registers every paid check draws on. What we do differently is read them together with the one thing no plate lookup has ever seen, the advert, and turn the lot into a verdict rather than a list.
That's the actual job. A free MOT lookup gives you a table of readings and advisories and leaves you to work out what "genuine mileage" plus a flat spot in the sequence plus a repeated oil-leak advisory add up to. The scan does that reading, checks the seller's phrasing against 2,259 advert phrases that turn up on documented faults, and scores the car on the same rubric every time, so the verdict doesn't change with your mood.
| Your question | What answers it |
|---|---|
| Does the mileage claim fit the record? | The free scan, from the DVSA history |
| What does this model go wrong with, and is the advert hinting at it? | The free scan names the biggest finding; the Smart Check explains every one with repair costs |
| What should I ask the seller, and what should I pay? | Smart Check: seller questions, a viewing checklist and a negotiation figure |
| Is there finance, a theft marker or a write-off? | Provenance Check, which includes the full Smart Check |
| Does it drive right? Has it been crashed and quietly repaired? | Nobody's database. You, at the car |
For the person who's just typed "should I buy this car", the free scan is the answer to start with. It's the verdict, the risk score and the biggest single reason, and it costs nothing and needs no account.
So what should you actually do? Before you message the seller, run the free scan on the car you're looking at, with the advert and the registration. If the verdict's good and you want every finding explained, with the questions to ask and a figure to open with, the report upgrades on the same link with nothing re-run. And if the verdict's "walk away", you've spent ten minutes instead of a Saturday.
