Vehicle timeline

The timeline is the story of the vehicle, in order. It pulls the events that tell you how a car has been used and looked after into one place, so you can read its history without cross-referencing separate records.

What is on the timeline

• First registration, the start of the record.
• MOT tests, with the result, date, recorded mileage and any advisories or failures. Drawn from official testing records, this is also the spine of the mileage history.
• Keeper changes, when the registered keeper changed.
• Plate changes, when the registration mark changed, with the previous mark.
• Listings, each time the vehicle was advertised for sale.

Reading it

The mileage readings on the MOT events are the clearest signal of how a car has been used, and they are what a mileage discrepancy is measured against. A run of listings in a short space of time, or a keeper change soon after a sale, is the kind of pattern the timeline makes obvious.

On a past listing you can reveal the advert text to see exactly how the vehicle was described at the time, including its specification and any work mentioned.

For how listings feed the valuation, see the market overview.