Who builds carFlippy
carFlippy is made by Sandbanks Digital, a small UK software studio. It exists because working out what a second-hand car really costs — and what it is really worth — takes an afternoon of tab-juggling that almost nobody does before handing over the money.
Where the numbers come from
The four kinds of figure below are kept apart on purpose, and every result says which kind it is showing. Mixing a regulated rate with a guess is how a confident-looking total ends up wrong, so an estimate is never allowed to quietly replace something that can be looked up.
Taken directly from DVLA and DVSA records — registration identity, tax status, and the full MOT test history. Nothing is inferred and nothing is smoothed.
Derived by fixed UK rules rather than judgement: VED from a dated rate table, MOT fees, fuel from distance and consumption, insurance pro-rated across the holding period, and platform selling fees.
Where a human would have to form a view — condition, risk, likely resale — the estimate is labelled as one and carries a stated confidence. It never overwrites a calculated figure.
Assumptions and costs you record yourself. Where you have set a value explicitly, it wins over everything above.
The road tax correction
One thing worth stating plainly, because most published tables get it wrong: the headline road tax figure you usually see is the first-year rate, paid once by whoever registered the car from new. An owner buying that same car used pays the ongoing rate instead, which is frequently a fraction of it. Engine size decides the rate only for cars registered before March 2001 — applying an engine-size band to a modern car is the single most common error in circulation. carFlippy publishes the full band table for the current tax year, generated from the same rate table the product calculates with, so the two cannot disagree.
Who writes the guides
Elliot is the architect behind carFlippy. With a background in data science and a passion for automotive markets, he focuses on making car flipping accessible through data.
Dan has been buying and selling used cars on the side for several years, with around 8 successful flips under their belt. They share practical tips on sourcing good deals and negotiating with private sellers.
What carFlippy will not tell you
Nobody here inspects vehicles. carFlippy cannot tell you whether a car is mechanically sound, and it is not a provenance or finance check — it does not report outstanding finance, insurance write-offs or theft markers, and it should not be treated as though it does. Valuations and condition judgements are estimates about a car nobody has driven. Treat them as a reason to go and look, not a substitute for looking.