Acceptable use

In force from 9 September 2026.

This policy forms part of the terms of use. It applies to everything you put here: pages, photographs, timeline entries, club names and logos, events you list, messages, and what you write to other people.

1. Publish your own car, not somebody else’s

Make a page for a car you keep. Do not make one for a car that is not yours, do not put somebody else’s car in a club or at a meet, and do not present yourself as somebody you are not — an owner, a workshop, a club, or us.

When a car changes hands, hand the page on. Keeping a page for a car you sold means a stranger’s car points at you, which is a problem for both of you.

2. Do not use DRIVE LOOKUP to find people

This one matters more than the rest of the list. A sticker on a car connects a physical object in the street to a page on the internet, and that is only a good idea while it cannot be run backwards.

You must not:

• use this site to work out where a car or its keeper can be found;
• collect registrations, VINs, locations or owner details from pages, whether by hand or automatically;
• use scans, meets, clubs or messages to track a vehicle’s movements or a person’s.

Our search cannot match a registration or a VIN, deliberately and by design. Do not try to reconstruct that ability by other means.

3. Upload only what you have the right to upload

Photographs somebody else took, club badges, manufacturer marks and sponsor logos all belong to somebody. Use them only if you may.

If you run a club, its name and its logo are your responsibility. By putting a logo on a club you confirm that you have the right to use it, and that responsibility passes to whoever takes the club on after you. A logo on a car page says that club has accepted that car — do not use one to imply an approval that has not been given.

4. Be accurate about work and history

Do not invent service history, mileage, or work that was not done, and do not put a workshop’s name on something it did not confirm. People buy cars on the strength of this.

5. Messages

Messaging is for talking to an owner about their car. No advertising, no bulk sending, no abuse, and no repeated contact once somebody has asked you to stop. Owners can turn messages off entirely.

6. The obvious ones

Do not post or send anything that is:

• unlawful, or that encourages something unlawful;
• abusive, harassing, or hateful towards anyone;
• sexual, or otherwise plainly not what this site is for;
• somebody’s personal information published without their agreement;
• a scam, a phishing attempt, or a link to either.

7. Leave the service alone

No scraping or automated access without our written agreement. No attempting to break, overload, or get around the limits of the service, and no accessing accounts or data that are not yours. If you find a security problem, tell us at contact@drivelookup.com before telling anyone else, and we will not come after you for having looked.

8. Reporting something, including a copyright or trademark complaint

Every published car page, club page and profile has a Report link at the bottom. That is the quickest route, it needs no account, and we do not tell the subject who reported them.

For anything with no report link — a message, or a complaint that something here infringes your rights and needs a rights holder named — email contact@drivelookup.com with:

• the address of the page;
• what is wrong with it;
• if you are complaining about a mark or a photograph, who owns it and your relationship to the owner.

We will look at every report. What we promise:

• We acknowledge it within 2 working days, so you know a person has it and are not left wondering.
• We reach a decision within 20 working days, and usually much sooner. The outer figure is deliberately honest rather than flattering: this is a small company, and a deadline we would miss while somebody is away is worth less than one we will always meet.
• Where a complaint is about rights in a mark or an image, we may take the content down while we work out who is right, rather than leaving it up for the whole of that period. That is not a judgement about whoever posted it, and they can put their side by reply.

Working days are Monday to Friday excluding bank holidays in England. If a complaint is urgent — a safety matter, or something unlawful — say so in the subject line and we will not wait.

9. What happens if this is broken

Depending on what happened, we may remove the content, hide a page, suspend the account, or close it. A suspended account stops being visible to anybody. We will tell you what we did and why, and you can reply to contact@drivelookup.com. Where something looks criminal we may pass it to the police.

10. Selling on DRIVE LOOKUP

You can advertise a car for sale and list parts. Two things are true of both and are worth saying before the list: DRIVE LOOKUP is not a party to any sale — we advertise, and the deal is between you and the other person — and we take no payment for a car or a part. Nobody here will ever ask you to pay through this site. Anyone who does is not us.

What must not be listed

• Anything you do not own or have the right to sell. That includes a vehicle with outstanding finance on it, unless the finance company has agreed to the sale and you say so in the advert.
• Stolen vehicles or parts, or anything you have reason to think is stolen — including catalytic converters and modules with no account of where they came from.
• Counterfeit parts, or parts described as a brand they are not.
• Safety-critical parts misdescribed. Brakes, seatbelts, airbags, steering, suspension and tyres sold as something they are not is the case where being wrong hurts somebody. Airbags and seatbelt pretensioners are pyrotechnic and cannot be posted as an ordinary parcel; do not list one you are not able to send lawfully.
• Anything whose purpose is to falsify a record — mileage correction offered to change what a car appears to have done, cloned registration plates, or documents made to look like somebody else’s.
• Emissions defeat devices — DPF removal, AdBlue emulators and the like — offered for a vehicle used on the road. A car with its emissions equipment removed does not pass an MOT and is not legal to drive.
• Registration plates, unless you are a supplier registered with the DVLA and doing the identity checks that requires.
• Somebody’s paperwork. A V5C, an invoice or a service record belongs with the car and with the person named on it.

Saying what a part fits

Every fitment claim on a listing carries where it came from — confirmed by the manufacturer, said by the seller, or reported by other owners — and none of them is a guarantee from us. Do not mark a claim as manufacturer-confirmed unless the manufacturer actually lists it. That one is the difference between a buyer checking and a buyer trusting.

If an advert looks wrong

Every advert and every listing has a report link, and no account is needed to use one. The reasons include the things that actually happen — a deposit asked for before you can see the car, payment moved off this site, photographs taken from another advert, mileage that does not match the history on the page. Section 8 applies: we acknowledge a report within 2 working days and decide within 20.

We can suspend an advert or a listing without touching the car’s page or the seller’s account, and that is usually what we will do first. A suspended advert cannot be put back up by relisting it.

11. Events

List an event you are organising, or one you have the organiser’s permission to list. Do not list somebody else’s meet to claim it, to advertise around it, or to send people somewhere they are not welcome.

Be accurate. The date, the place and the times should be what you actually mean, and you should take the listing down or correct it when they change — people travel on the strength of it. Do not list the same event repeatedly to keep it near the top.

A venue and a town, never a private address. If an event is at somebody’s home or on private land, you need their permission before it goes here, and you still do not publish the address. Rule 2 applies to events exactly as it does to everything else.

Do not use an event listing to organise anything illegal. Street racing, speed trials on a public road, trespass, and gatherings arranged to evade a police order or an injunction are all out, and so is a listing that is really an advert for one. Being responsible for the event itself — permissions, licences, insurance and safety — is covered by section 10 of the terms.