10:21 am, July 11, 2017
LOOK UP the word ‘provenance’ in any dictionary and you’ll come across a definition along these lines: ‘a record of ownership, used as a guide to authenticity or quality’.
Nowhere is the all-important ‘p’ word more important than the motor trade, where, as we all know, looks can be deceiving and unpleasant surprises are all too common.
Checking the history of every vehicle you buy has become second nature for most dealers, but perhaps there are occasions when time is short, you’re happy to trust your instincts, or you feel you’d simply like to save a few quid.
The risk then, of course, is that you could be left with a lemon or write-off; perhaps even a car with adjusted mileage or outstanding finance against it or worse…
It’s time to consign those issues to the past. A new arrival in the provenance-checking world can deliver all the data you could need about any car you’re thinking of buying, quickly, accurately – and perhaps most importantly, cheaply.
The company we’re talking about is MotorCheck, a ‘trade-only’ car history check service that’s exclusively for the UK motor trade.
The company was co-founded by Shane Teskey, an expert in automotive data with a huge amount of experience in the industry. He and his founding team have already conquered the Irish market with MotorCheck.ie and Teskey believes that UK car dealers are crying out for some healthy competition here.
‘We have only been active in the UK for seven months now and we’re absolutely thrilled at just how positively the service has been received,’ he says. ‘The months of tireless research and development undertaken by our UK team prior to launch meant that we were a little later arriving than originally intended, but it’s this attention to detail that’s making all the difference now.’
Indeed, the company is fast developing a reputation for having a keen understanding of the provenance market and delivering a quality service that gives the car dealer access to this vital information quickly and affordably.
Everyone who works at MotorCheck is highly experienced in the industry and the technologies the company employs as it goes about its business.
Nihal Collins, MotorCheck’s sales director, is a familiar face to UK dealers. She has worked in the provenance sector for 10 years and is excited about the cost savings that MotorCheck is generating for its clients.
‘The systems we’ve developed to generate and deliver a car history check are built on the most modern and efficient technologies available today,’ says Collins. ‘This means that we’re able to deliver savings of up to 40 per cent along with one of the most comprehensive checks available in the market.’
Price is certainly one of MotorCheck’s major attractions. Enquiries on the service start at an incredibly low £2.50 per check, without any fixed minimum commitments.
Lower tariffs are available for larger users and MotorCheck offers one of the fastest sign-up processes for a trade provenance service.
‘It takes less than five minutes to open an account and start running checks,’ says Collins. ‘Users then have the option of staying on a no-obligation ‘‘pay as you go’’ basis or moving on to one of our competitive monthly plans.
‘We’re very flexible in that regard.’
One of the most detailed checks available
After price, MotorCheck’s users are astonished with the detail and usability of the history checks. According to Teskey, ‘the usability and detail of our service is something we’ve worked extremely hard on. It’s a very nice modern website, not the standard boring reports that dealers have had to put up with in the past.’
There’s no doubt that the detail offered in a MotorCheck report is impressive! As part of its check, MotorCheck returns all of the MOT information as well as the current MOT and tax status for a vehicle by default.
It is also able to show you the current status of the manufacturer’s warranty for the vehicle, so you’ll know if it has any outstanding cover left on it from the manufacturer.
Common queries such as insurance write-offs, stolen cars and plate changes are all answered, and dealers can retrieve a range of used car valuations too, which includes data from Glass’s Guide with cash offers also available.
Every check comes with a detailed mileage history for the vehicle you’re checking too.
It doesn’t cost anything extra and with MotorCheck’s 500+ million mileage readings, the coverage is more than double that of other providers.
Mileage investigation services are offered directly from the check where previous owners, service histories and other records can be validated and confirmed.
Of course, MotorCheck will inform you if the car has an active finance agreement in place, and the excellent MotorCheck support team will even verify this for you directly with the reporting bank too, if it’s required. A quick glance at the check will allow you to see how many previous owners the vehicles has had and how long each of them owned it for, as well as what cherished plate transfers the car may have had in the past.
No unnecessary charges or licence fees
Another feature of the MotorCheck business model is the company’s no-nonsense approach to hidden charges or licence fees.
‘We’ve introduced some clever money-saving innovations on MotorCheck that our customers love. For example, we don’t charge for duplicate checks.
‘If you’re sitting in a garage and your colleague has checked a car, and you type in the same registration number, MotorCheck will bring up an alert saying you’ve already run the check on this car in the past three months, do you want to use the previous check or run a fresh one?
‘That alone can save a garage 30 per cent on their car history check bill. It’s just one of the many simple ways in which we help our customers to save money.’
MotorCheck offers you highly detailed automotive data via a transparent service on a user-friendly website, all run by a team with vast experience in the industry. So, the next time you find yourself in need of information about a vehicle’s history, you know where to go. Sign up today at MotorCheck.co.uk or call 0330 331 0150.
Pictured at top: Motorcheck co-founder Shane Teskey and sales director Nihal Collins
