Know What You Own: VDI Checks, Valuations, and Extended Details Explained
A well-kept logbook tells you what happened to a car. These three add-ons tell you what the car is — its hidden history, its market worth, and the full picture behind the registration. If you're buying, selling, or simply building a collection worth knowing, this is where Chariot Garage goes from record-keeper to research tool.
01 · VDI Check — Buy with Confidence
Every used car carries a past. Some of it is visible: service stamps, MOT certificates, a careful owner's receipts filed in a folder. Some of it isn't. Outstanding finance. A write-off marker. A clocked odometer. A plate that doesn't match the chassis.
A VDI check — Vehicle Data and Identity check — surfaces the parts a seller may not volunteer. Run one before you commit to a purchase and you're not taking anyone's word for it. You're reading the record.
For buyers of classic cars and higher-value vehicles, this matters more, not less. The older the car, the longer the chain of ownership, and the more opportunity for history to get murky. A quick used car background check before the handshake is the kind of due diligence that separates an informed collector from an expensive lesson.
In Chariot Garage, a vehicle data check is a single tap from the vehicle screen. Run it from the forecourt, from a classic car show, from the passenger seat while your partner drives you to view a car you've been watching for three months. The result is logged directly against that vehicle's record — so it's there when you need to refer back to it.
02 · Vehicle Valuation — A Confident, Data-Backed Number
What is it worth? It's the question every seller wrestles with and every buyer tries to answer before making an offer.
Guessing based on similar listings is a start. It's not a strategy.
Chariot Garage's Vehicle Valuation add-on gives you a data-backed figure for any vehicle in your garage — or any vehicle you're considering adding to it. For everyday drivers, that's useful context when renewal season comes around or when you're deciding whether to sell. For collectors, it's essential: classic car valuation is notoriously difficult to pin down, and having a reference point grounded in real data changes the conversation.
Know your number before you name one. Whether you're the buyer or the seller, that confidence is worth having in your pocket.
03 · Extended Vehicle Details — The Full Picture
Registration, make, model, year. That's the surface. Extended Vehicle Details goes further.
Engine specification. Colour history. Technical data that doesn't appear on a standard DVLA lookup. The kind of information that matters when you're sourcing parts for a restoration, verifying a vehicle's specification against what a seller has described, or simply building a complete record for something you intend to keep for a long time.
For classic car owners especially, this is the difference between knowing about a car and actually knowing it. A matching-numbers car is worth more than one that isn't — but only if you can verify the numbers. Extended details give you the foundation to do that properly.
Add it to any vehicle in your garage. It sits alongside your MOT history, service records, and insurance documents — one complete file, nothing missing.
Your Garage, Fully Informed
Chariot Garage was built to keep every record in one place. MOTs, services, insurance, accessories — logged, synced, and visible across every device you own. The add-ons extend that logic into research territory.
- VDI Check — uncover hidden history before you buy
- Vehicle Valuation — know what any vehicle in your collection is worth
- Extended Vehicle Details — surface the full technical picture behind every registration
Three additions. Each one optional. Together, they turn a car record keeping app into something closer to a proper intelligence file on every vehicle you own or intend to own.
One Tap, No Surprises
The best time to run a vehicle history check is before the deal is done — not after. The best time to know a car's value is before you name a price — not after the negotiation. The best time to pull extended details is while you're still deciding — not once you've already committed.
Chariot Garage keeps all of it within reach. Your garage, your records, your research — in one place, on whatever device is in your hand.
Log it properly. Know it completely.