Why CAR Confidence exists

When I was looking for a second-hand car, I nearly got scammed. Twice. By the time I found one I actually liked, those two near misses had taken up so much of my attention that I wasn’t properly prepared for the one that mattered.

I travelled 200 miles to see it. The reality was I didn’t know much about cars. I’d been looking through MOT history and vehicle reports I barely understood, pretending I knew what I was doing. When you’re about to spend thousands of pounds, that’s a stressful place to be.

I bought the car and drove it home. Then I found a problem that could have been spotted before I paid. I’d bought a lemon. Straight away I was £500 out of pocket.

The reports I’d read weren’t short of data. What they didn’t do was explain what any of it meant or tell me whether I should actually buy the car.

With everything AI can do now, I thought there had to be a better way. And I couldn’t be the only person this had happened to.

That’s where the idea for CAR Confidence came from. We wanted to make buying a used car simpler and less stressful. Above all we wanted to give ordinary people the confidence to make a better decision.

Ultimately, we’re building something I wish I’d had that day, standing there 200 miles from home, trying to work out whether I was buying a decent car or an expensive mistake.