Terms of use

1. Who we are

CarHindsight (carhindsight.co.uk) is run by the business that runs CarHindsight. You can reach us through our contact page. These terms apply whenever you use CarHindsight, with or without an account.

2. What CarHindsight is

CarHindsight helps you understand the physical car behind a used-car advert. You give us a UK registration and we show you what we have found about that car: the adverts we have seen for it at dealer websites, its asking prices and mileage readings over time, an estimated value and market information where a data provider supplies them, and our insight into the price.

CarHindsight is a research tool, not advice. It does not replace seeing the car, a test drive, an independent inspection, a history check with the DVLA or a finance and theft check. We are not involved in any sale between you and a dealer or seller, and we are not responsible for the car or the advert.

3. Where the information comes from, and its limits

• Adverts, prices and mileages are as dealers showed them when we last read their websites. Dealers can change or remove an advert at any time, and we may not see a change straight away.
• An advert being taken down does not mean the car has been sold, and a car we have not seen advertised may still be for sale somewhere we do not read.
• Vehicle details, valuations, market information and vehicle history depend on the data providers we use. Where a provider has nothing on a car, or is not connected, we say so and show what we have ourselves.
• A valuation is an estimate of what a car of that kind is worth, not an offer to buy or sell, and not a guarantee of what any dealer or buyer will accept.
• Market information and the CarHindsight insight are for information only. The insight explains the evidence it rests on, including when that evidence is limited. The CarHindsight Score and market momentum are still in development and are not shown as figures.
• Information may be incomplete, delayed or inaccurate. We work to keep it right, but we cannot promise it is complete or correct, and you should check anything important before relying on it.

4. Your account

You can look up cars without an account. To watch cars, save searches, receive alerts or buy anything, you need an account. Give us a working email address and keep your password to yourself; you are responsible for what is done with your account. We send alerts only to an email address you have confirmed. You must be 18 or over to buy a report or join Premium.

You can change your email address or password, and delete your account, from your account page. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms.

5. Free use

Free use has limits, which we may change. Without an account you can look up 3 different registrations a day. A free account can look up 10 different registrations a day, watch up to 10 cars and keep up to 5 saved searches. The current limits are always shown on our pricing page.

6. Buying a report

A vehicle report is a one-off purchase for one car, at the price shown when you buy it (currently £9.99). It includes the vehicle history our provider holds for the car, where available, together with every advert, price and mileage reading we have seen, and you can read it in your account and download it for as long as you have an account.

We request the history from our provider only after you pay. If the provider has nothing on the car, or does not answer, we refund the payment (or give back the report credit) in full, automatically. Reports are not on sale until a history provider is connected.

A report is digital content supplied straight away. By buying it you ask us to supply it at once, and you accept that you lose the legal right to change your mind once we have started, except where this section gives you a refund. Your other statutory rights, including the right to content that is as described and of satisfactory quality, are not affected.

7. Premium

Premium is a subscription, currently £6.99 a month or £47.99 a year, at the price shown when you join and on our pricing page. It renews automatically at the end of each month or year you have paid for, until you cancel. Payment is taken by card through our payment provider when you join and at each renewal.

• You can cancel at any time from your account. Premium stays on until the end of the period you have paid for, you are not charged again, and you then return to the Free plan.
• You can switch between paying monthly and yearly from your account. The switch takes effect at your next renewal.
• Premium includes 1 full report every 3 months (4 a year), as report credits counted from the day you joined, each given once the payment covering it has gone through. Unused credits roll over while Premium lasts, up to 4 at a time, and end with it. Further reports can be bought at the price shown.
• If a renewal payment fails, we try again and Premium stays on meanwhile. If we cannot take payment, Premium ends and you return to the Free plan.
• When Premium ends, your reports and watched cars stay. If you watch more cars than the Free plan allows, you cannot add more until you are within its limit.
• If we change the price, we tell you before it applies to a renewal, so you can cancel first.
• If you are a consumer, you can cancel within 14 days of first joining Premium and receive a refund, less a proportionate amount for the days you have had it. Contact us through our contact page to do so.

8. Refunds

Refunds we make automatically are described above. Otherwise, if something you paid for was not provided as described, contact us through our contact page and we will put it right or refund you as the law requires. Nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights.

9. Watching cars, saved searches and alerts

When you watch a car, we follow it through the adverts we read and tell you when its price changes, it appears in a new advert or it is back on sale. A saved search tells you when cars matching it come up for sale at the dealers we read. We do not promise how often we check, that we see every change, or that an alert reaches you at a particular time. You can change or turn off alerts from your watchlist, your saved searches and your account.

10. Acceptable use

Use CarHindsight for your own research into cars you might buy. You must not:

• copy, scrape or collect our content or data by automated means, or resell or republish it;
• get round the limits on free use, for example with several accounts;
• try to access someone else's account, or interfere with how the site works;
• use the contact form or your account to send abusive, unlawful or misleading content;
• use CarHindsight for anything unlawful.

11. Intellectual property

CarHindsight, its name, design, software and the way we present information belong to us or our licensors. Advert text and photographs belong to the dealers and others who published them; we show them as evidence about the car, with a link to where we found them. You may use reports and the site for your personal, non-commercial use only.

12. Provider data

Vehicle details, valuations, market information and vehicle history that come from our data providers are supplied under their terms. They are for your personal use in researching a car and may not be stored, redistributed or used to build other datasets or services. We may change providers, and what each can supply, at any time.

13. Availability and changes

CarHindsight is a new service and we improve it all the time. We may change, suspend or withdraw features, and the site may sometimes be unavailable. Where a change affects something you have paid for, section 7 applies. We may change these terms; the date at the top says when they last changed, and continuing to use CarHindsight after a change means you accept the new terms.

14. Our responsibility to you

We do not exclude or limit our responsibility where it would be unlawful to do so, including for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or under your statutory rights as a consumer. Otherwise, because CarHindsight is a research tool that depends on information from others, we are not responsible for decisions you make based on it, for any loss that was not a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms, or for business losses. Where the law allows, our total responsibility to you for anything arising from your use of CarHindsight is limited to the amount you have paid us in the twelve months before the event.

15. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales can deal with any dispute. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also rely on the consumer protections, and bring a claim in the courts, of where you live. If you have a problem, contact us first through our contact page and we will try to sort it out.