In the UK the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency or more commonly known to you and me as the DVLA is the agency that hold the registration information for all registered cars in the UK. Foreign cars on UK roads do not have to be registered unless they remain in the UK for a certain amount of time. After this time they have to be legally registered as a UK vehicle.
As part of a car registrations check the car data checking company will use the DVLA to retrieve certain facts about the car you are checking. They will also check the police national computer and the association of British insurers for all the additional information they need to provide you with the report. The combination of all this information on a car will allow you to make a definitive decision about the vehicle you are deciding on whether or not to buy.
Most of the time you will want to do a car registrations check or car reg checks on a vehicle that you are interested in buying. The reason you should do a check is to discover the history of the car in case there are any hidden surprises. If you buy a car with a hidden history you could end up with it costing you money or even end up losing the car with no compensation.
Almost one fifth of cars checked are found to have been previously written off, if you had brought and paid for one of these cars you could be driving around a death trap. At the very least it is going to cost you an arm and a leg to get it fixed up so that it is road worthy. You may not even find out until you take the car for its MOT.
There are generally two options when it comes to getting a car data check, each option is useful for different circumstances. The first is the car registration text check, this basically involves you testing the registration number and getting a brief text report back about the car. The benefits of this method is that it is convenient and costs less than a comprehensive online check. The downside is that it is not as comprehensive as an online car data check.
The second option is an online car reg check, you type in the car details and get back a comprehensive report that you can pint out and keep. Whilst this costs more than a text check it is more comprehensive and provides you with a report you can keep. What people tend to do is do a text check when they are out and about. If the car looks good they do a comprehensive check when they get home.