Help & Support

When you purchase a Gold or Silver vehicle check you’ll receive a vehicle check code. This is a unique 16 character sequence of letters and numbers resembling —

UCCG-6464-Y2WE-MP7B

You need to redeem this code to check a vehicle. If you’re logged in to your Ultimate Car Check account, you can select either the ‘Silver’ or ‘Gold’ buttons to redeem a pre-purchased vehicle check code from your account.

Your unused vehicle check codes are available immediately after purchase in your account and can be redeemed for an instant vehicle check on any UK registered vehicle.

To redeem a vehicle check code, go to “Redeem a check code”, enter the details of the vehicle you’d like to check and redeem for an instant report.

Your vehicle report is generated instantly and is available as soon as you redeem a vehicle check code.

No, you will not receive a copy of your vehicle report by post. Your report will be displayed to you on screen immediately after you redeem your vehicle check code. We’ll also send you an email with a direct link to your report for future reference or if you need to update the vehicle identity check.

View a sample vehicle report

You can check any vehicle registered in the United Kingdom which has a DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) issued registration/number plate.

No, you can only check vehicles which are registered with the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) in the United Kingdom.

We may be able to provide some historical information and data for vehicles that were previously registered with the DVLA but have since been exported from the UK.

The information in your Ultimate Car Check vehicle report comes from a number of data sources including: the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) , Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT), the Police, The Association of British Insurers, and numerous finance companies.

We monitor vehicle prices and use industry data that is updated monthly and collated from multiple sources, including car auctions, dealer forecourts and classified adverts to indicate the current market value (where available) of the car you’re interested in buying so you know whether you’re getting a good deal, or you need to walk away.

We will provide details of any companies that have a financial interest in the vehicle you have checked, and give you a reference number so you can contact them directly to get further information on the outstanding finance agreement.

A vehicle with outstanding finance means the lender/finance house owns the vehicle until the agreement has been repaid and settled in full, including any final “Option to Purchase” fee.

Before purchasing this vehicle from the current keeper, ensure the lender has confirmed they have “No Financial Interest” in the vehicle.

When buying a vehicle with outstanding finance, it is common place to work with both the seller and finance house to agree a settlement for the outstanding finance where either the seller settles the outstanding finance, or the buyer settles the outstanding finance agreement and pays the remainder of the vehicle asking price to the seller.

Unit stocking finance is a form of credit used by motor traders to help them purchase stock vehicles for resale. These are usually short term loans which are generally settled when the motor trader sells the vehicle.

Before buying a vehicle with outstanding unit stocking finance, make sure the motor trader confirms (by putting it in writing) that they’ll settle the outstanding unit stocking finance completely before you take ownership of the vehicle.

We check multiple data points with each vehicle check to reveal any past or current history which may either affect the value of a vehicle, or pose a financial risk to the buyer.

Our vehicle report uses the traffic light system to highlight these issues and bring them to your attention before you purchase a vehicle.

We use 3 status alerts for our Gold vehicle report – ‘Pass’, ‘Fail’ and ‘Review’.

Vehicle’s with a “Fail” status have one or more flags of what we deem to be major issues which could pose a financial risk to you the buyer. A few examples of these are

• Outstanding finance (where money is still owed on the vehicle)
• A vehicle has been reported stolen.
• A vehicle has been recorded as exported.
• A vehicle has been scrapped or had a certificate of destruction issued.
• A vehicle has been written off by an insurer.
• Mileage of a vehicle has been altered or reduced (commonly known as clocking, this is a practice done by unscrupulous traders to potentially increase the value of a used vehicle).

A report status is set to “Review” where there are some minor issues (things to be aware of) that have been flagged, or the ‘Extended ID’ check has not yet been completed.

Some examples of minor issues would be

• MOT due to expire soon
• Change of odometer unit in mileage history. This is common with vehicles that have been imported from an area that uses the metric system — Kilometres.
• Any verified ownership, reliability or service details we know about a specific vehicle.

Minor issues don’t necessarily pose a financial risk but could highlight any unexpected additional costs the buyer might be faced with after purchasing a vehicle, such as MOT, tyre replacement or servicing/repair costs.

A “Pass” status is only achievable by completing our extended vehicle identity check (Extended ID) which can only be done by the owner/purchaser of the vehicle check.

The ‘Extended ID’ check is a manual process where a buyer can verify that the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) displayed on the vehicle they’re looking to buy and also printed within the vehicle’s logbook matches what is held on record by the DVLA and the motor manufacturer for that particular vehicle.

You’ll need to be logged in to your account to complete the ‘Extended ID’ check.

A pass status means the vehicle checked has no ‘At Risk’ issues which have been flagged. Our vehicle check does not verify the structural and mechanical condition of a vehicle.