Finding car history

[jamesC.]

How does one go about finding out a bit more about the history of a car. For example previous owners. I’ve heard that the DVLA did it but won’t anymore because of privacy

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Pretend to be a parking company.

[timolloyd]

Depends on age of car, but options could be:

 

1. Previous owner listed on V5

2. Owner’s clubs can sometimes to heritage certificates based on old VIN records

3. If a garage serviced the car for years, they may have service records to share. I had some luck this way with a Land Rover main dealer

4. Reg number should give you an idea of where it was registered, and you might be able to determine the supplying dealership from this information

5. I Googled a car reg and found lots of photos of it on a track day, and mentioned in a club forum, which helped piece together some history

[HMC]

Do a DVLA V888. Oh hang on......

 

Go through any history you have carefully, it surprising what is squashed into unseen pockets of the vehicle pack, in between pagers of booklets, or under the seats etc. I’ve found out dates of previous sales, names addresses and th selling price even as I found receipts from then the vehicle was bought and sold in the past. Seemingly pointless expired motor vehicle warranty pamphlets often hand a paper insert glued in with previous keeper details on.

 

I believe using the current v5c doc ref number will allow the test centre locations on the MOT history. This will help locate where in the country it’s been every year since 2005. Depending on the test centre/garage in question it used to be possible to have them chat about the car (and possibly the prev owner?) but let’s assume that isn’t going to happen due to GDPR

 

As said, googling the vehicle reg often throws up stuff.

 

Some owners clubs keep a little database of the chassis numbers. Usually model specific clubs with cars more conventionally understood to be “classic” You will need to join the club usually.

 

Number plates- the rear plate is less usually replaced and often contains a postcode of either the number plate supplier (not so helpful with plates commonly bought online at distance) but garage details are often on there going back further in the car history than the front in lots of cases.

[jamesC.]

Problem is the car only has the service booklet, which lists the first owner, but not their address. Also no v5 and no Mot since 2003. Seems like I couldn’t have got a car with less history if I’d tried

[Pillock]

Is it a common name or a rare one? Directory enquiries if you know the first town of registration, but if the owner was Bob Smith you've got no chance.

 

But no, as discussed in one or two other threads th DVLA won't hand over names and addresses to you.

[jamesC.]

Is it a common name or a rare one?

It’s Emerson, which isn’t too common. Also the first stamp is from the export department. It had a service a few days after it was delivered but it’s next service is in Rintein, Germany. Someone on here suggested that it might be someone stationed at an army base.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Problem is the car only has the service booklet, which lists the first owner, but not their address. Also no v5 and no Mot since 2003. Seems like I couldn’t have got a car with less history if I’d tried

 

You're doing better than me. My CX came with no service history at all - one of the previous owners had lost the book, and the fella I bought it from mostly did his own servicing, so had no invoices or bills to fill in the gap. Apart from him, I have no idea who were the other five previous owners.