About us

Published · Last reviewed · OBDCode UK editorial

OBDCode UK is a UK fault-decision site for drivers: what a warning light or fault code is pointing at, what official MOT records actually show, and what to ask a garage before you pay. It is operated by people at RETRETO NEXT LIMITED, not by a nameless pipeline. The company is approved by DVSA to use the MOT History API — the official UK government interface for a vehicle’s MOT record.

Official MOT History API

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has approved RETRETO NEXT LIMITED to use the MOT History API. That is the official UK government interface for a vehicle’s MOT record — the same source as the GOV.UK service Check MOT history.

When you look up a registration on OBDCode UK, the result is fetched live from that API. We do not store, log, or share the registration number. You can always check the same record on GOV.UK.

OBDCode UK is not affiliated with DVSA or DVLA. API access is not a government endorsement of this site. It is the official MOT record, through an approved connection.

Who we are

We trade as RETRETO NEXT. The legal company is RETRETO NEXT LIMITED, a private limited company registered in England and Wales. Companies House records it as Active, incorporated on 26 September 2023, Company No. 15166864. VAT GB 493 7070 67 (check a UK VAT number). Registered office: Office 8929, 182-184 High Street North, East Ham, London E6 2JA.

Where this started

The team behind this site has been making facts that a person or a model can actually check — annotation for AI in the strict sense: each claim pinned to evidence, nothing published that cannot be verified. The public account of that work is hongzhizuo.com (红制作（厦门）品牌管理有限公司 / Hong Zhizuo (Xiamen) Brand Management Co., Ltd.).

Their line is that the web is filling with text that looks plausible and points at nothing, so what is running out is verifiable data. They do not scrape a story into existence and they do not synthesise one. In their words, they annotate China’s real industrial supply chain: specifications with units, standards and a source. OBDCode UK is how that same habit is written for UK drivers.

That is why this site is written the way it is. MOT figures come from the DVSA open extracts. A registration lookup uses the official MOT History API. A claim we cannot pin to a source stays off the page. RETRETO NEXT LIMITED is the UK company that operates this site. hongzhizuo.com is the team’s public story, not a second shop and not a government source.

Public profile and open source

The organisation is listed on Crunchbase as OBDCode UK.

The driver-help layer — from a warning lamp to a garage-ready card — is open source on GitHub as obdcode-uk-fault-intake (github.com/hongzhizuo). It understands the lamp, what to take to a garage, and how a documented repair keeps the car’s value. It is not a fault-code dictionary, and it is not the product shelf. The site generator itself is not in that repository.

The same company sells on TikTok Shop as store name RETRETO NEXT, store code GBLCL97LES. That is a live shop identity, not a sponsored link on this page.

The same group runs small UK studios with their own sites and YouTube channels. Those channels are ours. This page names them so you can see who stands behind the work. It does not claim a public video library on any channel, and it is not a shop directory.

Corrections and questions: hello@obdcode.co.uk

Independence & commercial links

Some pages link to diagnostic tools we sell through shops run by the same company (RETRETO NEXT LIMITED, Company No. 15166864). Those links are labelled “Sponsored” before you follow them. They never change our data or the order of what we recommend you check first (which is usually the free thing). List and company details: about our shops.

Where the numbers come from

How pass rates are calculated

Pass rate = (passes + passes after rectification at the test) ÷ all completed initial tests, per make/model, rounded to one decimal. Models need at least 1,500 tests in the year to get a page, so small samples don't produce misleading figures.

How prognosis follow-up is calculated

Each vehicle’s earliest 2024 normal test (test type NT) is the index. Advisory pages report what happened to cars that passed with a given certificate line; repair pages report whether cars that failed on a line failed on it again. Wording is pooled across reason-for-rejection codes that print the same line. Full method, including Wilson intervals and age-standardisation: how these figures are calculated. Registry: MOT prognosis registry.

How “years to avoid” rankings are calculated

Older cars naturally fail more often, so raw pass rates cannot fairly rank registration years. Our age-adjusted index compares each model-year cohort with every UK vehicle registered in the same year and tested in the same calendar year. An index of 100 equals the same-age baseline. Each registration-year page needs at least 1,500 tests; lower-scoring years are associations for closer inspection, not proof of a design defect.