Local business keeps car buyers safe nationally
It started, as these things often do, with a wild goose chase.
I had driven halfway across the country – satnav optimistically saying “1 hour 30 minutes,” real life making it closer to two – all to see what was, at least on paper, the perfect car. Low mileage. One careful owner. Looked flawless in the photos...
And yet, standing on the seller’s driveway, something didn’t sit right. The colour on the front wing seemed slightly off. A quick look underneath revealed some rather bent-looking suspension components. The seller became noticeably cagey when I asked, “Has it ever been in an accident?” or “Why does that suspension component look like someone’s tried to straighten it out with a hammer—and not done a very good job of it?”
So, I ran a quick history check. And bingo: the car had previously been written off — CAT S. Repaired (presumably on a budget of about 50p), resprayed, re-listed, and advertised as “immaculate.” It wasn’t immaculate. It was immaculate enough to take a good photo from the right angle. But that was it.
And that’s when the idea hit me.
Introducing VChecker.co.uk – a car history check tool built right here in Melton(ish)
After that little misadventure, I decided to build something that might save others from a similarly wasted journey — or worse. It’s called VChecker.co.uk: a tool that helps you check a vehicle’s mileage history, write-off status, outstanding finance and more, simply from its registration number.
Think of it as your digital mate who’s slightly obsessed with cars and doesn’t want you to get ripped off.
You pop in the reg, and in a few seconds, you’ll know whether the car you’re eyeing up is a peach… or a lemon.
Why bother with checks?
Mileage fraud is more common than you think. Cars get “clocked” to bump up their price. Others are sold with outstanding finance, meaning they technically still belong to someone else — or worse, a finance company. Then there are the accident-damaged ones: resprayed, polished, and hiding a sketchy past, like that Renault I saw...
VChecker helps you spot these red flags before you fall in love with a car that turns out to be a total disaster.
Built in Old Dalby, for anyone buying a used car
I built this in my spare time from my home in Old Dalby. It’s not a big corporate platform. Just me, a laptop, and a burning desire to stop people wasting their weekends driving to see dodgy vehicles. The data is sourced from government and large corporate APIs, then presented to the buyer in a clear, user-friendly way.