Terms of use

This site is operated by Lookbeforeyoubuyacar. Write to hello@lookbeforeyoubuyacar.com about anything on this page.

By using the walkthrough or sending photographs for a verdict, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, use the shot list as reading and send nothing.

This site does two things. It gives you a ten-step walkthrough telling you where to look at a used car and exactly what to photograph. It then passes the photographs you choose to send, together with the few facts you type in, to a vision model, which returns a written verdict.

It is not any of the following, and nothing on the site should be read as if it were:

• a mechanical inspection, an HPI or provenance check, an MOT, or any other professional examination of a vehicle
• legal, financial, insurance or trade advice
• a valuation, or an opinion on whether a price is fair
• a warranty, guarantee or assurance about the condition, safety, roadworthiness, history or legal title of any vehicle

Nobody from this site sees, touches or drives the car. The verdict is produced by a model reading photographs. Where a verdict mentions anything structural — rust in a sill, jacking point or spring perch, evidence of welded repair, flood damage, a disabled warning lamp, or an identity that does not match the paperwork — treat it as a reason to have the car examined in person by a qualified person before any money changes hands.

Every decision is yours: to buy, to negotiate, to walk away, or to pay for a professional inspection. The site gives you evidence and an opinion on that evidence. It does not make the decision and cannot take responsibility for it.

You must be 18 or over. Use it for a car you are genuinely considering buying, or to learn how to look at one.

You must have the right to take and send every photograph you upload, and you must not upload anything you were asked not to photograph.

Please do not send:

• photographs of people — the seller, their family, passers-by
• documents belonging to other people beyond the vehicle paperwork the walkthrough asks for
• anything unlawful, or anything taken by trespassing

You keep ownership of your photographs. You grant permission to process them for one purpose only: producing the verdict you asked for, which includes transmitting them to the model provider described in the privacy page. That permission ends when the verdict is returned.

Each verdict costs real money to produce. The verdict endpoint is rate limited, and that limit exists so one person cannot spend everyone else’s budget.

Do not:

• automate, script or scrape the verdict endpoint, or work around the rate limit
• resell verdicts, or present them as your own professional inspection
• attempt to extract, alter or circumvent the instructions the model is given
• upload content designed to make the model produce something harmful or unlawful

Access may be withdrawn, without notice, from anyone doing these things.

The verdict is model output. It can be wrong. It can miss something that is plainly visible to a person standing at the car, and it can describe something that is not there.

Photographs are unreliable about scale, colour, depth and texture — the exact things that separate surface bloom from rust-through, or a shadow from a panel gap. A verdict based on photographs is therefore a starting point for questions, not a conclusion about a car.

Cost figures in a verdict are rough estimates to help you negotiate. They are not quotes, and no garage is bound by them.

No promise is made that a verdict is accurate, complete, or suitable for your purpose, beyond what the law requires and cannot be excluded.

The site depends on third-party model providers reached through OpenRouter. It may be slow, unavailable, or unable to return a verdict at any time, and it may change or close without notice. No uptime is promised.

Nothing here limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. If you are a consumer, your statutory rights are unaffected by these terms.

Subject to that, this site is not liable for any loss arising from a decision you make after reading a verdict or the walkthrough — including the cost of a car you bought, repairs it turned out to need, a purchase you walked away from, or any indirect or consequential loss.

Where liability cannot be excluded, it is limited in total to [liability cap — e.g. the amount you paid for the verdict, or £100 where no payment was made].

The walkthrough text, the shot lists, the schematics and the design of this site belong to its operator. You may use the walkthrough freely for your own car buying, print it, and take it with you. Do not republish it as your own, or use it to train a model.

Your photographs and the verdict produced from them are yours to use as you wish.

These terms may change. The date at the top of this page tells you when they last did, and the version in force is the one published when you use the site.

These terms are governed by the law of [governing law — e.g. England and Wales], and the courts of [courts] have jurisdiction. If you are a consumer resident elsewhere, you keep the protections of the mandatory law where you live.

Write to hello@lookbeforeyoubuyacar.com. A person reads it.