How do I check a car’s mileage history?

Enter the registration. The check pulls every mileage reading recorded at MOT tests and plots them, flagging any reading lower than the one before it and any interval that is implausible against the vehicle’s own history.

Reducing the mileage shown on a vehicle’s odometer so it appears to have travelled less than it has. Higher mileage means lower value, so the incentive is straightforward. Selling a clocked vehicle without disclosing it is an offence.

Does a mileage discrepancy always mean fraud?

No. Typing errors at the test station, readings entered in kilometres, and replaced instrument clusters all produce discrepancies innocently. This check tests each drop against those explanations before reporting it as unexplained.

Can mileage be checked before the first MOT?

No. There is no recorded reading until the vehicle takes its first MOT, which for most cars is three years after registration. Nothing covers that period, and no check can honestly claim to.

Is the mileage check free?

Yes. The full reading history and the analysis of it are free, with no account required.

Mileage check

Every MOT records the mileage on the day of the test, which makes the MOT history the closest thing there is to an official record of how far a vehicle has travelled.

This check plots all of it and examines the gaps. A reading that goes backwards is the obvious signal, but the more common ones are subtler: a year where the mileage barely moved, or a jump no ordinary use would produce.

Free, and no account needed.

What you get

Every mileage reading held against the vehicle, plotted over time
Any reading lower than the one before it, flagged
Jumps too large to be explained by ordinary use
Average miles a year, and how the pace changed
Readings recorded in kilometres, converted and marked
Tests where the odometer could not be read

Why a backwards reading is not automatically clocking

A mileage that drops between tests looks damning, and sometimes it is. But there are several ordinary explanations, and a check that reports every drop as fraud is one you will learn to ignore, which is worse than useless, because you will then ignore the real one too.

Each drop is tested against the ordinary explanations first, in order, and reported as unexplained only when none of them fit:

A retest after a failure, where the second reading was taken days later and one of the two was mistyped.
A reading entered in kilometres when the previous one was in miles, or the reverse.
Two digits transposed, so 47,512 is entered as 45,712.
A dropped digit, so 120,450 is entered as 12,045.
A difference small enough to be ordinary imprecision rather than a change.

The pattern that matters more than the drop

Clocking done carefully does not produce a reading that goes backwards. It produces a reading that goes forward too slowly, once, and then resumes a normal pace.

So the check also looks at rate. It works out the vehicle’s own typical daily mileage from its history, deliberately excluding the interval under examination so an anomaly cannot be used to justify itself, then asks whether each interval is plausible against that baseline. A car that averaged 40 miles a day for six years and then covered 300 miles in a year is telling you something, even though no reading ever went down.

Where the record has holes

MOT readings only exist where there were MOTs. A vehicle’s first three years have no readings at all, and any period off the road has none either. Mileage covered in those gaps is invisible to any check, including this one.

Sometimes the tester records that the odometer could not be read, perhaps because of a broken display or a digital cluster that would not power up. That is recorded as unreadable, not as zero. On the chart the line breaks at that point rather than joining across it, because drawing a straight line through a missing reading would show you a mileage the vehicle never recorded.

What to do if the mileage looks wrong

Adjusting an odometer is not in itself illegal in the UK, and there are legitimate reasons a cluster gets replaced. Selling a vehicle without disclosing that its recorded mileage is not its true mileage is a different matter, and it is an offence under consumer protection law.

If a check turns up a discrepancy, ask the seller directly, and ask for the answer in writing. A replaced instrument cluster has paperwork behind it. An honest seller will have that ready. A vague one has told you what you needed to know.

Common questions

How do I check a car’s mileage history?: Enter the registration. The check pulls every mileage reading recorded at MOT tests and plots them, flagging any reading lower than the one before it and any interval that is implausible against the vehicle’s own history.
What is clocking?: Reducing the mileage shown on a vehicle’s odometer so it appears to have travelled less than it has. Higher mileage means lower value, so the incentive is straightforward. Selling a clocked vehicle without disclosing it is an offence.
Does a mileage discrepancy always mean fraud?: No. Typing errors at the test station, readings entered in kilometres, and replaced instrument clusters all produce discrepancies innocently. This check tests each drop against those explanations before reporting it as unexplained.
Can mileage be checked before the first MOT?: No. There is no recorded reading until the vehicle takes its first MOT, which for most cars is three years after registration. Nothing covers that period, and no check can honestly claim to.
Is the mileage check free?: Yes. The full reading history and the analysis of it are free, with no account required.

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