Check my car.
Yours, and fully legal.
When you think “I should check my car”, this is the place: enter your own registration to see your MOT and tax dates, last test advisories and recall status in one free view.
To check my car, an owner needs only the registration. This free check shows your car’s current MOT status and exact expiry date, its tax position and due date, whether it is on SORN, the advisories recorded at its last test, and whether it has an outstanding safety recall. It is your own car’s official record — the same one the police ANPR system reads.
Check my car: the five things every owner should see
Most owners check their car for one date and miss the four other facts sitting beside it. A complete “check my car” review covers:
- MOT expiry date. Not “some time in spring” — the exact day. Driving without a valid MOT risks a fine of up to £1,000, and unlike most motoring offences it needs no bad driving at all, just a forgotten date.
- Tax status and due date. Tax runs on its own cycle, separate from the MOT. The check shows whether the car is taxed, untaxed or SORN, and the date the current period ends.
- Last test advisories. The notes your tester left last time are next year’s repair list, written in advance. They are in the result, word for word.
- Outstanding safety recall. If the manufacturer has an open recall on your car, the record flags it. The repair is free — more on this below.
- Your car’s recorded details. Colour, fuel, engine size and the date the last V5C was issued. Owners are sometimes surprised to find the record wrong — usually after a move, a plate change or a colour change nobody reported.
MOT advisories: your repair budget for the year ahead
Advisories are the tester’s professional early warnings — items that passed, but will not pass forever. Typical entries include tyres approaching the legal tread limit, brake pads wearing thin, slight play in suspension bushes, minor oil leaks and early corrosion. Read them as a budget, not a scare story. Safety-critical wear items — tyres and brakes — deserve prompt attention and are usually inexpensive. Slow-burn items like light corrosion are worth monitoring and comparing year on year, because your check shows the full history: if the same advisory has appeared three tests running and worsened each time, it has stopped being a note and become a plan.
The habit that saves money: after every MOT, spend two minutes on this check, note the advisories, and deal with the top one or two while they are still cheap. A tyre changed at 3mm of tread is a planned expense; the same tyre flagged as dangerous at the next test is a failure, a retest and a day of disruption.
Check my car: tax, SORN and the rules that catch owners out
Three rules generate most owner fines, and all three are visible in your check. First: tax does not transfer with the car. When you buy a vehicle you must tax it yourself before driving it, even if the seller’s tax had months to run — the seller automatically receives a refund of the whole remaining months once the DVLA is told of the sale. Owners who assume “it came taxed” are driving untaxed from the first minute.
Second: a car kept off the road still needs a status. If you are not using the vehicle, declare it SORN — it is free, takes minutes, and any full remaining months of tax are refunded. A SORN car must be kept off the public road entirely: garages, driveways and private land are fine, the street outside your house is not. Third: insurance and SORN are linked. Under continuous insurance enforcement, a vehicle must either be insured or declared SORN; records are compared against the Motor Insurance Database, and an uninsured, un-SORNed car can draw a penalty even if it never turns a wheel.
Recalls: the free repairs owners miss
Safety recalls are the best-value item on this page. When a manufacturer discovers a safety defect — anything from an airbag batch to a fuel-line fault — it issues a recall, registered keepers are contacted, and the repair is carried out free at franchised dealers, however old the car is. Yet large numbers of recalled cars are never brought in: letters go to old addresses after moves, and second or third owners may never hear about the campaign at all.
That is why the recall flag in your check matters. If your car shows an outstanding recall, book it in with a franchised dealer for that make and quote the recall; the work is free, and you will usually be told honestly how long it takes. If you have recently bought the car, check for a recall before anything else — previous owners ignoring recall letters is one of the most common reasons campaigns stay open for years.
The owner’s annual routine
Good owners run the same simple calendar. Anchor everything to the MOT, because it never moves: you can have the test done up to a month (minus a day) before the expiry date and still keep the same renewal date the following year, so book inside that window and the test can never creep earlier. On test day, run this check, save the new advisories, and budget the top item. Separately, note the tax date in the same diary — the check shows both, precisely because they drift apart.
Two admin jobs belong in the same routine. If you move house, update the address on your V5C log book straight away — you can be fined up to £1,000 for failing to tell the DVLA about changes to your details, and log-book address errors are exactly how recall letters and tax reminders go missing. And once a month, give the car itself the two-minute version of this discipline: tyres (tread and pressures), lights all round, and oil, coolant and screenwash levels. The online check guards the paperwork; those five physical checks guard everything else.
Sample result — this is what your data looks like
Your two legal dates up top, and your tester’s own to-do list underneath — everything an owner needs, on one screen. (Sample data shown for illustration.)
Frequently asked questions
How do I check my car for free?
Enter your registration at the top of this page. The check reads your car’s official DVLA and DVSA record and shows its MOT status and expiry, tax position, last test advisories and recall flag — free, with no account and no documents needed.
How often should I check my car?
At least twice a year: once when the MOT is due (book the test up to a month minus a day early and keep your renewal date) and once mid-year to confirm the tax position and chase any advisories. Add a check whenever you move house, change plates or buy the car.
Can I check my car without the V5C log book?
Yes. The check needs only the registration number. The V5C reference number is needed for other tasks — taxing the vehicle online, for example — but not for viewing its status and history here.
My car is on SORN. What should the check show?
The tax position will read SORN (declared off the road) rather than taxed, and the MOT record still shows the last test and its expiry. Remember a SORN vehicle must be kept off the public road, and if the MOT has expired it may only be driven to a pre-booked MOT test once you are ready to return it to use.
The check shows a recall on my car. What do I do?
Contact a franchised dealer for your car’s make and tell them the vehicle has an outstanding safety recall. Recall repairs are free, even on older cars and even if you are not the first owner. You do not need to have bought the car from that dealer.
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Dates and advisories in hand