How to Check a Car's Service History

Checking your vehicle’s service history is intact can seem like a boring, pointless process – but what if we told you that your car could be worth 10-20% MORE if you can provide a full service history?

That’s right, keeping track of all that paperwork is a very important part of owning a car. While it’s most important to do as you’re getting ready to sell your vehicle, it’s good practice to check it occasionally for peace of mind.

Here’s how to do just that and how to make checking your service history as easy as possible in future.

 

How to Check Your Car’s Service History

The first step to check your vehicle’s service history is to work out where the records are stored. These will either be digital, a collection of paperwork or a mix of both.

The easiest way to find your car’s service history is to check the physical service book that came with the vehicle. Most garages, especially franchised dealerships, update and stamp this book after every service.

If you don’t have this, try and find any paper invoices and receipts for the services your car has sat over the years. This may be a little scruffy but at least it’s physical proof that it has been well maintained.

Many modern cars no longer come with a service book as the information is stored digitally by the garages that complete the service. If you have booked all your car’s maintenance at the same garage every year, you can contact them and ask for the Digital Service Records for your vehicle.

If you can’t find any record of your vehicle’s service history through the above channels, you’re probably going to have to do a bit of detective work to recover your lost service history.

 

Is There Not an Easier Way to Check a Car’s Service History?

You would think so, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a car service history checker currently available in the UK.

However, if you’re fed up with sorting through paper records to keep track of your service history and are ready to take control of a Digital Service Record, our User Portal can help!

When you create a free BookMyGarage user account, you can add as many vehicles to your digital garage as you like. Then, every time you make a booking through our comparison site, the record is automatically stored alongside the details of what products you booked and with which garage.

This means you have a digital record to prove your car has been well maintained going forwards to back up the paperwork you receive after every job (and as security in case the hard copies go missing).

It takes seconds to create your BookMyGarage account through our User Portal. Follow the link to activate yours today!

 

Why is Checking My Service History Important?

It’s very important to have your car’s service history on hand when you look to sell it. After all, you wouldn’t want to buy a vehicle that you couldn’t guarantee was in good condition, would you?

A car’s service history proves that it has undergone regular maintenance and repairs at a qualified garage. It shows the date of each service, what service the vehicle sat, the mileage at the time of the service and which parts were repaired or replaced. There may also be additional notes about other repairs completed on the car at the time.

This information is vital to prove that you have looked after your car properly and booked a service at the correct intervals.

Whether you are looking to buy or sell a car, a vehicle with a full service history is often a much better option than one with a partial or no service history because it means there is concrete proof the vehicle has been looked after properly.

 

FAQs