Editorial Policy — WheelsAI

Our editorial standard in one sentence

We only publish claims we can verify against a named, public data source — DVLA, DVSA, HMRC, or Companies House — and we update content when those sources change.

Authorship

Buying guides are written or reviewed by Dean Griffiths, founder of WheelsAI, against the primary data sources listed on each article. Where a guide covers a specialist area (finance, insurance, legal rights), we cross-reference against the relevant regulatory body's published guidance (FCA, CRA 2015, DVSA enforcement notices) before publication.

No guide is published by an AI without human review. AI tools are used to draft structural outlines and cross-check factual consistency; a named human author reviews and approves every final version.

Data sources

The factual backbone of every guide comes from one or more of the following:

DVSAMOT history, test records, mileage, advisories and failures since 2005. All data is publicly available under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
DVLAVehicle registration, tax status, SORN, colour, engine capacity, first registration date. Published under OGL v3.0.
HMRCVED (car tax) rates, BiK rates, fuel benefit charge. Published at gov.uk, updated each tax year.
Companies HouseDealer entity verification, trading names, registered addresses. All data is public under the Companies Act 2006.
Experian AutoCheckOutstanding finance, write-off category (Cat S/N/D/A), stolen-vehicle checks. Used on dealer-facing checks under licence.
WheelsAI inventory dataPrice ranges, days-to-sale, and market comparisons cited in guides are drawn from active listings on WheelsAI and anonymised for publication.

For a full technical breakdown of each integration, see our Data Sources page.

Fact-checking process

Before a guide is published, the author runs a three-step check:

Primary source verification: every factual claim is traced to a named URL (gov.uk, legislation.gov.uk, or our own platform data). Claims that cannot be sourced are removed or qualified.
Date-stamp check: regulatory content (tax rates, MOT fee, finance rules) is cross-referenced against the current tax year's HMRC or DVSA guidance to confirm the numbers are live, not historical.
Internal consistency check: cost estimates and price ranges are sense-checked against current WheelsAI listing data and, where applicable, independent valuation sources.

Update schedule

Guides that cover regulatory content (VED rates, MOT fees, finance regulation, ULEZ zones) are reviewed at the start of each new tax year (April) and updated when DVSA, HMRC, or the FCA publish material changes.

Market content (used car prices, depreciation, buying conditions) is reviewed quarterly. When we update a guide, we advance the "Last updated" date shown on the article and update the dateModified field in the page's structured data.

If you spot a factual error or an outdated figure, please email dean@wheelsai.co.uk with the page URL and the specific claim. We aim to respond and update within five working days.

Commercial relationships

WheelsAI earns revenue from dealer subscriptions, not from advertising or affiliate commissions on the content. We do not accept payment for editorial coverage, and dealers cannot influence guide content in exchange for listing fees. The dealer-facing section of the site is explicitly commercial; the buying guides are not.

AI-assisted content disclosure

WheelsAI uses large language models as a drafting and consistency tool. AI-generated drafts are treated as first drafts only — every guide undergoes human editorial review before publication. We do not publish AI output without a named human author reviewing the factual accuracy and approving the final version. AI tools are not used to generate the underlying data (MOT records, DVLA data, pricing) — only to assist in structuring and presenting it.