What Is an HPI Check? A Complete Guide for Car Import
What is an HPI Inspection?
An HPI check is an invaluable report as it provides a detailed picture of the vehicle’s history, revealing what has happened to the car before you buy it. You will be able to find out whether the car has been stolen, been involved in an accident and written off, has finance outstanding, or whether the mileage has been tampered with. So if you’re buying a used car, especially if you’re importing one from the UK, it’s one of the most important steps that you can take before deciding to buy it.
What Does HPI Stand For?
HPI stands for Hire Purchase Investigation. The organisation was founded in 1938 but has now become a generic term for the vehicle history check.
What Does an HPI Check Cover?
An HPI inspection covers varying amounts of data points depending on the price you pay for your check. Below details a full list of the checks you can request on a vehicle using the service:
Stolen vehicle check
The system cross-references the car with the national police records to verify whether it has been stolen at any point. It also makes your purchase very precarious, as the card can be seized even after you’ve made the purchase.
Outstanding finance
Find out if the car is currently paid for using finance by the previous owner. The finance company, therefore, will own the car until the finance has been cleared. Essentially, you will inherit somebody else’s debt if you buy the car without the financing being cleared.
Insurance write-off status
A vehicle categorised as category A or B (CAT A/ CAT B) should never be on the road. And a vehicle categorised as S or N (CAT S / CAT N)can be repaired, but this must be declared in transactions and adverts.
Mileage discrepancies
Managing discrepancies is a hot topic in car importing, so the reassurance this gives you is invaluable. In the UK, there is a national mileage register which holds over 200 million readings, and the system cross-checks a car’s readings versus previous declared readings to look for anomalies.
Scrapped vehicles
If a car has been declared as scrapped, then legally it should not be allowed to be sold. Walk away from this car.
Number plate changes
Changes in number plates can mask a vehicle’s history, so tracking the changes is very helpful to understand where the car has been and for how long. The changes are allowed, but it’s always sensible to verify them.
VIN/chassis number check
A mismatch in a VIN number or Chassis number for a vehicle is a serious red flag and may be indicating that a car has been cloned or has been known as a ‘cut and shut’. Verifying the chassis number is a fundamental part of any car verification check.
MOT history
An MOT inspection is a mandatory annual road worthiness check in the UK, and any failures or advisories that are given would be noted in the system. Revealing when you’re looking at a car’s maintenance history and understanding its health and the servicing and maintenance patterns that have gone before you.
Number of previous owners
What you are really looking for is any discrepancies between the seller’s version of history and the history that is revealed in the inspection report.
Import/export status
When a car is exported from the UK, it has to be registered as permanently exported. Part of the inspection checks to see if the vehicle has already been permanently exported. If it has, it raises questions about its provenance, as it should not be available for sale in the UK.
Safety recall history
This will tell you if a car has been recalled for any kind of problem by the manufacturer or safety defect. Also, prudent to know what it has been recalled for and how that has been addressed.
Logbook (V5C) verification
There are over 200,000 stolen V5C log books in circulation in the UK. This makes it critical to cross-check the V5 logbook to ensure that it is the original V5 and that the car has not been cloned or stolen.
What an HPI Check Won’t Tell You
Whilst it may feel very reassuring to receive such a detailed amount of critical information, it is important to bear in mind that there are some pieces of information equally as important that you won’t be able to see in an HPI check.
- Undeclared accident damage: if an accident was declared to an insurance company, then it will appear on the HPI. However, if the accidental damage was repaired privately without using insurance, then there will not be any record of it. So it’s always advisable to have a third-party vehicle inspection before purchasing from somebody like the AA, for example. These are relatively inexpensive for the reassurance that they offer.
- Full Service History: This information is not passed on to HPI. Instead, it is very important that you do check either the physical service book or the digital service book to ensure that the car you are considering has been maintained in the way that the manufacturer has recommended.
- The current mechanical condition: again, there is only the reported information that can be gained from HPI, so a prudent step is to have a third-party independent vehicle inspector inspect the car for you. This is very easy to arrange, and it is something that we regularly do for clients who are exporting.
- Private buyer contact information or previous owner details: whilst this won’t tell you anything about the car’s history, you might want to cross-check your vendor’s details to just verify their own authenticity before any money changes hands.
Why an HPI Check Matters Even More When Importing
Most export buyers are not able to visit the UK and physically see the car themselves, so the peace of mind that an HPI inspection offers is significant. Buyers also take up the opportunity for a third-party physical inspection, too, as the relative cost of this is very small relative to the overall investment that the purchaser is making.
Finding out about finance on a call is still relevant if the car is going overseas. The authorities do have the power to trace and recover vehicles that have been sold illegally. So to avoid this added headache, the HPI is a very small price to pay.
Buyers are often keen to purchase their cars from the UK because of the detailed records that are available regarding the car from its registration to the present day. This level of information isn’t available in many other countries and so is highly valued, particularly for prestige vehicles where the financial exposure is typically between £30,000 and £80,000.
Whilst an HPI report isn’t a guarantee, it really eliminates the common problems you are likely to encounter when buying a car. Coupled with a physical independent inspection, you are buying peace of mind at a relatively small expense. At MHH, every car we purchase has an HPI inspection carried out upon it before the deposit is sent. And this way, we can confirm that the car you are importing is of the quality and provenance that we would expect.
How Much Does an HPI Check Cost?
HPI inspections vary in cost according to the amount of detailed information you would like to see. Below breaks down the different options you might consider when buying an HPI inspection.
| Inspection Type | Price | What’s Included |
| Basic | £9.99 | Stolen, write-off, finance, scrapped |
| Full | £14.99 – £19.99 | All of the above + mileage, owners, MOT, VIN |
| Multi-check | £25-£30 | Full check for 3–5 vehicles |
Please note that it is possible to have free checks done, but these provide incomplete data, which, in our opinion, is not worth the risk on a car upwards of £30,000 or more.
Where to Get an HPI Check
- HPI Check (hpicheck.com) — the original, most comprehensive
- RAC Vehicle History Check
- AA Car Check
Summary
In short, we believe that running an HPI check is a non-negotiable step before buying a used vehicle, either domestically or overseas, to ensure that it is free of any unwanted history. Coupled with an independent mechanical inspection, you can buy peace of mind for a very small additional fee relative to the purchase price and import costs of any vehicle. And when you overlay that with the strong service history records, the case for importing a UK car is very compelling versus buying local cars or Japanese cars, which have less well-maintained records.
This is why at MHH, every car we source is HPI checked before we allow you to buy it. If you have a specific car in mind, get in touch, and we’ll run the checks as part of your import assessment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Just the vehicle registration number is needed to run an HPI check.
HPI checks are instant. The website provides the information immediately online and emails the report to you too.
HPI clear means the vehicles has no recorded issues versus the level of inspection you have purchased. No theft, no outstanding finance, no write-off status.
Yes — HPI is the most recognised brand; “vehicle history check” is the generic term.
Yes — arguably more so than buying locally, because you can’t inspect the car in person and the financial risk is higher.
Yes — it covers recorded data only. It won’t flag unreported accident damage or mechanical issues. An independent inspection covers those.
Yes — every car we source is checked before it’s presented to a client.
