Developed from scratch here in NZ, Autocheck is a 100% Kiwi-owned vehicle data provider, delivering live, accurate data to help with vehicle trading. Autocheck Co-Founder Mike Harvey explains more.
“Autocheck is a vehicle data provider, providing solutions for predominantly vehicle traders and mainly franchise dealers. We help them find out the important information around a vehicle to help make informed decisions around trading or buying.”
He says the system can tell you all sorts of details about a car’s history and Autocheck also has a contract with NZTA to provide change of ownership, both into the dealer network and into a customer’s name.
“We provide vehicle documentation as well, so … CIN (Consumer Information Notice) cards and things to help with day-to-day trading.”
Mike says Autocheck can also tell customers what’s known about imported used vehicles once they arrive in the country.
The level of information on Australian imports is particularly broad, he explains: “If it’s a write-off we can actually tell you the type of damage – so, why was the car written off? – right down to specific panels, malicious damage, flood damage location and mechanical damage; all things like that.”
Mike says his extensive automotive background highlighted the need for an alternative vehicle data provider in the market and was the catalyst for Autocheck to be created.
“I come from a car dealing background and have been in the car industry since I was a teenager, so I have a pretty good understanding of the competition. I’m aware of the day-to-day needs of a car dealer, and maybe some of their pain points too.”
He says this knowledge helped him and his software engineer business partner, ‘the brains of the operation’ develop Autocheck.
“I identified that – especially in the franchise space – there was, need for more competition. I felt there was an opportunity to win some of those customers over.”
Mike believes Autocheck wins in every metric vs the major incumbent.
“It’s not just one thing. There’s obviously a financial saving, we can save the user significantly, but there’s functionality as well. We’ve created a pretty slick platform that is easy to use… It’s a website that’s very smartphone-friendly.”
Autocheck was launched in December 2021, however Mike says a lot of time and effort went into the system before they went to market.
“It took a long time to get access to the government and to get the contracts, but bear in mind that there’s only less than a handful of companies that can sort of do what we do online.”
He says Autocheck committed a huge amount of time and resources from the beginning – way before the push to market – and spent a lot of time making sure it was robust.
Autocheck is now at the point where it is reaching out to a wider audience, and it’s already got a fan base.
“I can tell you that since we launched in December 2021, year-on-year we’ve tripled our customer base and it’s not insignificant now. I’m happy to say we have over 200 dealer locations using us now.”
Autocheck is simple to use, gives access to a vast amount of vehicle data, is 100% Kiwi owned and created and is good for the finances too; seems like Mike has done his homework.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about the customer and giving them the best experience, and we feel that the incumbents have not been doing that.”
