Trust & Methodology

Who runs DS Auto Labs

DS Auto Labs is an independent, free UK car tools website. It's built and maintained as a standalone project, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to DVSA, DVLA, TfL, SMMT, any local authority, or any car manufacturer. Every tool on the site draws on official or publicly available data, but the site itself is independent.

Where the data comes from

How each tool actually calculates its result

Road tax (VED) is calculated from the current published DVSA/DVLA rate tables for the relevant tax year, based on registration date, fuel type, and CO2 band or engine size where applicable.

Running cost estimates combine the exact VED calculation above with a live fuel price (or a recent snapshot for electricity, since no live UK electricity price feed exists) and published UK-wide averages for insurance and maintenance, clearly labelled as typical ranges rather than a quote for a specific car.

Used Car Score and the Compare tool use a fixed, published formula across six categories built from official DVSA and DVLA data: MOT pass history, current status, mileage, recalls, emissions standard, and depth of test history. It's a rules-based calculation, not AI or a subjective judgement, so the same registration always produces the same score.

The Car Value estimate is explicitly a rough ballpark, not a real valuation. There is no free, publicly available UK car valuation data source, every option is paid commercial data with no free tier, so this applies a published, industry-standard depreciation curve to an entered price, adjusted for mileage. It's framed throughout as a starting point for a conversation, not a number to price a sale against.

The Buyer Verdict (on MOT Check and Car Passport) looks for specific, checkable patterns in a car's own test history: repeated advisories, dangerous defects, recent failures, and mileage that drops between tests, and explains in plain language what it found and why it matters.

What isn't checked, and can't be for free

• Outstanding finance, held by finance companies, not DVSA or DVLA. No free source can check this; a paid check from a provider like HPI is genuinely necessary.
• Insurance write-off category (Cat A, B, S, N), held by the insurance industry, not government data. Same limitation as finance.
• Physical condition, service history, or anything not in the test record, an MOT test only checks specific safety and roadworthiness items on the day of the test. It isn't a full mechanical inspection.
• Whether a car is genuinely the right choice for you, every scoring and verdict tool here is a guide from official data, not a substitute for viewing the car in person and getting it independently inspected.

Freshness

MOT history, tax status, fuel prices, and EV charging data are fetched live on every search, so they're as current as the underlying government or partner API. Toll prices, green zone rules, VED rates, and MOT statistics are checked periodically rather than live, each of those pages states its data source and, where relevant, the tax year or dataset period it reflects.

Frequently asked questions