When a new car comes in, you don't have to type its specs out manually. Pistonlog hits the DVSA's public vehicle lookup with the registration and fills in everything it knows about that vehicle.
How to use it
Open New Vehicle
Click Add Vehicle on the Vehicles page, or New + on the vehicle field inline from the Create Jobcard flow.
Type the registration
Pistonlog uppercases it as you type. Hit Lookup (or press Enter).
Confirm the result
DVSA returns the vehicle. Pistonlog pre-fills: make, model, colour, fuel type, engine size, year of manufacture, and MOT due date. (DVSA doesn't expose tax status to this lookup, so tax isn't filled in.)
Save
Click Add Vehicle (or Create Vehicle from the jobcard flow) and the record is created. On the next jobcard you link it to a customer — vehicles aren't bound to a specific customer at the record level, the link is per-jobcard.
What you still need to fill in
DVSA gives you the official record but not the working detail you'd want:
- Mileage — enter it on the form, or record Mileage In on the first jobcard (which updates the vehicle automatically)
- Service reminders — scheduled automatically when you complete a jobcard containing a job tagged as a Service
- Transmission, drive type, more granular spec fields — see vehicle spec fields
When DVSA doesn't return anything
For pre-1960 vehicles, non-UK registrations, and a few edge cases, DVSA won't return data. Just fill the fields in manually — the lookup is optional, and the form works the same without it.