Valuation — A field study
carvaluationfree.com exists because most UK buyers do not want to pay £20 to find out whether a car has tax. The free or low-cost summary here covers the questions that matter first, and only escalates to a paid report when the data behind it actually warrants one. Get a free car valuation estimate for any UK vehicle. Accurate market data. No signup required. What follows is the detail behind the lookup — sources, limits and the questions worth asking the seller.
Data sourced from DVLA, MIAFTR, contracted stolen-vehicle data and the UK lender register at lookup time.
Typical lookup completes in under one second from the UK.
Built and supported in the UK as part of the consumer side of the network.
A vehicle check returns information about the vehicle, not about people. Previous keepers appear only as a count and a sequence of dates; names and addresses are protected and are never returned. Your own search history is held against your account for support and dispute purposes and is not sold on.
Values are derived from a rolling window of UK transaction data — auction hammer prices, dealer trade-in figures and listed private adverts — not from a single annual reference book. The window is short enough that a sharp market shift, for example after a fuel duty change or a high-profile model recall, is reflected within days rather than months.
Convertibles and sports cars typically peak in late spring and soften from October. Four-wheel drives and estates tend to firm up over winter. The swing is commonly several percent on the same car in the same condition, so timing a sale within the year can matter as much as a modest mileage difference.
/ Brand consolidation
carvaluationfree.com has consolidated into Expert Car Check, the UK valuation and history service many of its users already cross-referenced. The data sources are unchanged: DVLA's vehicle record, DVSA's MOT history, MIAFTR for write-offs, contracted UK data providers for stolen-vehicle markers and the UK lender register for outstanding finance. The team and the support contact are the same. What's changed is that the work that was previously spread across several smaller brands now sits in one place, which keeps response times tight and the underlying registers maintained against current DVLA schemas. Bookmarks and historic links to carvaluationfree.com continue to resolve here. If you were referred to carvaluationfree.com by a previous report, broker or print listing, this is the right page — there is no further redirect to chase.
Visit expertcarcheck.com →/ Common questions
That is negative equity, and the shortfall has to be settled in cash or carried into the next agreement. Comparing your settlement letter against the valuation before committing is the most useful check near the end of a PCP term.
No. Private sale typically lands between private and retail. Trade value is the floor a dealer would offer, not the ceiling a private buyer would pay.
From a rolling window of UK transaction data: auction hammer prices, dealer trade-in figures and listed private adverts. Updated continuously rather than republished annually.
It's a forecast, not a guarantee. Confidence is high for high-volume models with thick transaction histories and lower for rare specifications. The forecast is shown as a range rather than a single number for that reason.
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One field. A typical lookup completes in under a second, using the same UK vehicle records relied on by trade buyers and insurers.