Why we built this
Buying a used car means trusting a lot of things you can't see: whether the mileage is genuine, whether the seller is telling you the full story, whether the car has a history it isn't advertising. We built Motoble so anyone can check the parts of that story that are actually on official record, in plain language, before handing over any money.
We've chosen not to run ads or take paid referrals on Motoble. Nothing you see is there because someone paid to put it there - we'd rather you trust what you're reading than wonder whether it's sponsored.
Where our data comes from
Motoble's free vehicle lookup and Data Lab are built on official UK government records: MOT test history from DVSA, and vehicle registration, tax and SORN data from DVLA. We don't collect or estimate this ourselves; we read it directly from the same public records a garage or the DVSA website would show you, and explain what it means.
Every statistic on our Data Lab and in our written content is checked against a real, citable source before it's published - we don't estimate or round up for effect.
We don't invent scores. Motoble's MOT signals and comparisons come from the statistics of more than a billion lines of real MOT data, not a formula dreamed up to look decisive. Where the record can't support a conclusion, we say so. In a Confidence Report, the paid checks and the official MOT and DVLA record are read together, as one story about one car. See a sample report.
MOT history
DVSA's official MOT test record - every test, every result, every defect.
Registration & tax
DVLA's licensing, SORN and vehicle registration data.
The government's records are only the starting point. Turning them into something you can actually use takes a lot of work behind the scenes, so you don't have to do it yourself. Some of it comes from feeds built for approved developers, not for the public, but we believe in transparency and over-delivering.
Matched
Government sources describe the same car in different ways. Over the decades, make and model names have been mistyped, shortened and left out by the many people who register and test vehicles. We go to great lengths to rebuild and match them up with proprietary Motoble intelligence, so your car is compared with the right ones, and meaningful information isn't accidentally missed.
Cleaned
Impossible figures, placeholder records and mileage in the wrong units are filtered out or flagged, so they can't unfairly count against a good car, or flatter a bad one.
Compared
Your car's record is set against other cars of the same make, model and age, wherever there's enough real MOT data to do it fairly. It wouldn't be fair or accurate to benchmark a Renault against a Rolls-Royce, so we don't. If you're searching a rare model, we widen the comparison to the whole make, and if needed to similar vehicles overall.
Checked every day
The data is updated daily and watched by automatic quality checks, and a real person reads the alerts (yes, really!), so anything odd gets noticed. Did you know that on the busiest days we add more than 200,000 new MOTs?
Who's it for?
You don't need to know a camshaft from a crankshaft to use Motoble, but if you do, you're just as welcome here, because you'll know some things never show up under the bonnet, however good you are with a spanner.
Viewing a used car can feel like being shoved into the Colosseum with no shield and a crowd waiting to see which way the thumb goes. Motoble is built both for the person wishing they'd brought a mechanic friend, and just as much for the mechanic friend themselves, who still can't see a car's finance or write-off history by popping the bonnet.
Mechanic or not, we do the reading. You make the call.
Every check, every card, every explanation on this site is written in plain English: whether you've never opened a bonnet in your life or you could rebuild an engine blindfolded, nothing here assumes you already know the answer. No jargon left unexplained, no "you should probably already know this," no gatekeeping.
Still got a specific question? Our FAQ covers the ones that come up most.
Who's behind it
Motoble started with a favour. For over 20 years, our founder has been the mechanic friend: the person friends, family and more vulnerable relatives call when a car, or the jargon around it, just doesn't make sense.
Then a family friend came round with a thank-you gift. They'd been helped to avoid one particular car, and to find one they're really happy with for their baby. It got our founder thinking: in all that time, they'd never come across a genuinely consumer-focused tool made for everyone, not just people who already know cars.
So the team built one. It took months of listening to normal people, not car people, about what confused them and what they needed. The mission was to make Motoble the most comprehensive it could be, using more data than any of them had ever seen computed, to find facts that really mean something, dispel myths, and put it all in plain English, to tip the scales back towards the buyer. A technical background and years at major global technology companies proved a real help.
Motoble itself was born in 2017 as a consumer automotive website, where the plain-English voice and the brand were built. After years inside a wider portfolio, it relaunched in 2026 as a standalone brand. Today it draws on over 800 million MOT records, boiled down to one question: what does this mean for me, on this exact car? The Data Lab shows a small slice of that, and it's what makes Motoble, we believe, the most comprehensive and most plainly written vehicle lookup there is.
Who you're dealing with
UK law says a business selling online has to tell you who it is. We do, on every page: company name, company number, VAT and ICO registrations, registered office. Checking cars is our whole focus, not a side line. And if something's wrong with your report, there's a real human team and a real transparent company on the other end of the email.
See it for yourself
The best way to understand how Motoble works is to try the free lookup on a car you already know.