One car is manageable. Two is where most people’s system, a mental note, a sticky note, a vague sense that “it’s due soon”, starts to break down. Add a teenager’s first car or a work van into the mix and it’s genuinely hard to keep straight.
The usual failure points
- Different MOT anniversaries for each car
- Different service intervals depending on age and mileage
- Insurance and tax renewals landing in different months
- No single record if one car is sold and a new one takes its place
Why a spreadsheet only half-works
It works right up until nobody updates it. A spreadsheet doesn’t remind you: you have to remember to open it, which is the exact problem you were trying to solve in the first place.
What actually helps
A system that’s built for more than one vehicle from the start, rather than a single-car tracker you’re duct-taping a second entry onto. That means:
- Separate reminder timelines per vehicle, not one blended list
- The ability to archive a car once it’s sold, without losing its history
- One login the whole household can rely on, instead of one person carrying it all in their head
Worth doing once, not every year
The setup cost, logging each car’s registration, current mileage, and last known service date, takes a few minutes per vehicle. After that, it runs itself.
Motorbook's free tier covers up to two vehicles, with premium unlocking unlimited vehicles for larger households, from £3.99/year.