In the confusing world of buying and selling used cars, one of the most powerful commodities that you can own and control is your car’s service history. To showcase and prove that your vehicle has been well cared for, with its routine check-ups done and MOTs completed, could massively impact a car’s resale value and market price. But, trying to catalogue a car’s maintenance records the old-fashioned way and sorting through a bunch of papers is hardly a pleasurable or easy-going task. It’s no surprise then, that most car owners often opt to simply neglect or ignore keeping track of their car’s service history. Do this, and you’re leaving money on the table.
Thankfully, all that hassle may finally be behind us, thanks to the ease and convenience that PitStop now offers. PitStop is a brand-new service that brings to the forefront a safe and secure way of keeping track and sharing your car’s maintenance records and MOT check-ups with other people. In essence, PitStop helps you to digitise your car’s entire maintenance records and ownership history. The app is also compatible with motorbikes and trucks, in fact, it works with any vehicle registered in the UK.
Right now, the service itself is still in Beta, and it’s free of charge to register an account and use it. Already, even with the somewhat limited functionality PitStop offers at the moment, I can see immense potential once it’s out of Beta.
Simplifying The Chore Of Keeping Track Of Paperwork
To begin, you’ll need to register for an account on PitStop, which will require your driver’s license. Then, you’ll have to register your car in there, too. For the latter, PitStop asks that you provide your car’s V5C logbook to prove your ownership of the car in question. Aside from that, you’ll have to provide the registration number, as well. Once all that’s done, PitStop will automatically pull up your car’s recent MOT history, so you can quickly check to make sure that nothing is wrong with it, and that everything is in good order.
The MOT section here summarises the basic details of the MOT checks. It also includes telling you whether there’s an anomaly with the mileage reading, as well as the date it was tested on, the test number, the MOT expiry date, and the odometer reading at the time of the MOT inspection. Additionally, you could preview, on the PitStop homepage, how many past owners your car had in the past. It would even show you how long they’ve owned the car.
For instance, my 2016 Bentley Continental GT Speed, Motor Verso’s recent-most project car, has had three past owners, according to PitStop. Here, you’ll be able to find other simple details and specs about your car, such as the vehicle type, year of manufacture, paint colour, fuel type, and registration plate number. You’d also be able to swap out the placeholder photo preview of your car for a different picture. For example, you can swap it out for a real-world photo of your car – like the Bentley here – instead of a generic placeholder image.
Jotting Down Your Car’s Service History, Made Simple
While all of this looks pretty straightforward so far, the unique selling point of PitStop can be found as you scroll further down, to the ‘Maintenance History’ section. In this section, you’re able to continually update and keep track of your car’s service history. The goal here, as mentioned earlier, is for you and other car owners to more effortlessly keep track of all your check-up receipts and maintenance records. And, you can do all of this without needing to stow away an entire file folder of documents, bills, and paperwork.
Once you’ve completed a routine service and check-up of your car, for example, you can take a snapshot of the receipt, and then upload it onto PitStop. There, the maintenance records are linked to each specific vehicle, as it carries to and is kept in good order as the car ages and changes hands. Over time, and particularly if you own a car for longer and service it regularly, this section will get populated rather quickly, showcasing the convenience and ease of tracking your car’s service records digitally, instead of keeping bits of paper around.
It doesn’t take too long to do this either, as I’ve experienced when filling in my Bentley’s service records and its maintenance history. Your mileage may vary, especially with older cars that might’ve gone through umpteen different visits to the service centre or local workshop. The more receipts you have to deal with, the more time you’ll need. However, for most car owners, I reckon you’d be able to complete the profile for each car in mere minutes. For context, this only took me 30 minutes for the Bentley Continental GT.
Sharing Around Your Car’s Service History Safely & Securely
Okay, so now that your car’s regular servicing and maintenance are tracked digitally on PitStop, how can you share it with others? This is another noteworthy selling point of PitStop, which is the ability to safely and securely share your entire car’s service history and maintenance records with other people. To do this, head to the upper right of the homepage, and under your car’s registration plate number, there’s a button there that says ‘Action’. Pressing it unveils two actions you can take, including being able to transfer the vehicle or passing it on to a new owner.
Alternatively, this is where you could beam over and share your car’s service history and maintenance records with anyone out there, so long as they have an email address. Just type in your recipient’s email address, and they’ll get an email prompting them to sign up to https://www.getpitstop.co.uk/. Upon doing so, they’ll be able to open the same interface that I’m looking at right now, where they can preview a car’s ownership history, the receipts of recent check-ups, and the maintenance records for any specific car.
So, you might be asking, ‘What’s even the point of needing to share my car’s service history with other people’? Well, as we highlighted way earlier, one great use case for PitStop is when you’re trying to sell off your car, and would-be buyers would like to check the MOT and service history to ascertain that it’s been well cared for by you. You can now use PitStop as a way to catalogue your car’s maintenance records and its MOT history beforehand, and then share it with prospective buyers.
PitStop makes sharing all this information effortless and super easy, whereas folks in the past may not have bothered, due to the many risks of sharing personal information with random strangers. Going through all this could help make your car far more appealing when you’re trying to sell it, and it may even help increase its resale value and market price. Remember, a possible buyer is oftentimes willing to pay way more for a car that they can see for themselves has been cared for properly.
Inversely, if you’re trying to buy a car, there’s an added sense of peace of mind knowing that you could securely and transparently take a peek at how well the previous owner has cared for the car. Have they changed the oil regularly, or were the spark plugs swapped out when they were supposed to? On PitStop, you can now decide for yourself if a car is worth looking into, based on its condition and maintenance history, and whether or not you should pull the trigger on the purchase.
A New Way To Catalogue & Share A Car’s Service History
Of course, it’s worth bearing in mind that the depth of the information you have is dependent entirely on how diligent the owner of a particular car has been with keeping track of all those service records and receipts. But, if you’re trying to buy and sell pricier, more complex cars, like the Bentley Continental GT, and the many expensive things that could go wrong with it, it pays to know how well it’s been cared for. Or, whether the previous owner has kept up with servicing and maintaining it regularly.
For cars like these, it’s always wise to ensure that moving parts and internal components which need to be replaced have already been swapped out and verify that the past owner hasn’t neglected to care for them. Aside from that, there’s immense value in being able to securely share all these details remotely to anyone around the world, without the risk of your personal information being leaked or compromised. Of all the many services and methods that I’ve used to try and achieve similar results before, PitStop is by far and away the best tool I’ve found so far to help you record your car’s ownership and maintenance history, and safely share it with others. If you want to simplify tracking your car’s service records too, it’s worth trying it out.
Introducing AI to PitStop
PitStop is set to revolutionise vehicle maintenance with its upcoming artificial intelligence feature. Soon, users will be able to upload their vehicle invoices to the platform, where the AI will meticulously analyse them. This innovative tool not only calculates a comprehensive maintenance score for your vehicle but also provides tailored advice on how to enhance this score. This addition promises to simplify vehicle upkeep, making it more efficient.
