Looking on ebay during the past week or so for a low mileage run around. By using the MOT Vehicle history check facility/DVLA.....out of 10 cars checked there were 6 where the mileage claimed by the seller/dealer that were incorrect , some by quite a substantial amount.....one claimed only 86 miles on the clock.......it had in fact......12,964. Another with 12,000 miles , highlighted several times in the advert had 17,500 miles on the clock. I would recommend using this search facility if you are considering buying a used vehicle , as a first step to check the history it can show up some interesting results !!!

the history can be got at
https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/

the other site
https://www.vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/
just confirms it has a current mot & expiry date (but lots of other useful information too)

It's not just the mileage, you can often gauge the owners approach to maintenance as well. In my humble opinion, anyone who presents a car for MOT with a chip in the windscreen, worn out tyres or something significant broken (suspension spring anyone?!) should not be allowed to own a car.

I keep seeing adverts saying 'maintained regardless of cost', then they have failure and advisory sheets as long as your arm. Worst still, the pass mark then has the same advisories still on it!! If it's maintained regardless of cost, why weren't the advisories dealt with?

Oh yes, and on the subject of advisories, there are still people out there who are willing to put 'flew through MOT with no advisories', yet two minutes checking shows otherwise.

further to the above it can also show up potentially dodgy mots. I sold a car to a dealer with 11 months MOT and the checker showed it got a new MOT the day after I sold it where all the advisories disappeared and I really don't believe they would have been fixed as it would have been far more than the car was worth.