As for write-offs, if the vehicle has been satisfactorily repaired and undergone an inspection, this information will be provided.On top of that they (like the AA) supply a Glass's Guide valuation indicating what the car is actually worth. If for some reason the information is wrong you can get up to £10,000 compensation. Both RAC (£24.99, www.rac.co.uk) and AutoTrader (£24.99, 08701 993 192) checks use HPI data, but do not provide mileage or valuation. With both HPI and the AA Data Check you get a very comprehensive consultation of the important databases, but some companies seem to offer the same sort of service for considerably less.At just £4.50 I was tempted to use Reg Check (08707 800 507, www.regcheck.co.uk) whom I could text and contact online. It was easy to do and the response was instant, but, although they identified the car correctly, they had no information about the category-C write-off status of the BMW Compact I was interested in.. The Jebel Hafeet mountain road in the United Arab Emirates is the greatest driving road in the world.

Stretching for 7.3 miles and climbing nearly 4,000ft, it boasts 60 corners and a surface so smooth it would flatter a racetrack You could almost call it the eighth wonder of the world. The road is cut into the Jebel Hafeet mountain, which lies on the border with Oman, about 90 minutes' drive south-east of Dubai. It looks down upon a dusty, desert landscape that belies a nation of astonishing wealth. For the next two days, we will explore this mountain in a Mini Cooper S Convertible. This £17,935 soft-top is ubiquitous in the UK, but it's a novel sight in the Middle East, where big is beautiful. In the UAE, the Mini is sold only to the very young or the very old. Maybe that's why the locals find us so amusing.The view could have been plucked from a computer game.

Three lanes of immaculate highway are carved into the limestone mountain in one, continuous squiggle. Short, rapid straights merge seamlessly with sweeping curves.On these roads, the Mini is a superb companion. BMW's engineers did a fine job of decapitating the popular hatchback without removing its soul. The soft-top isn't quite as good to drive - that would be expecting too much - but it's still great fun. Little wonder that it was the UK's best-selling convertible last year.We park and look down on a vast sweep of tarmac. The Jebel Hafeet road must have cost £50m to build, but its origins remain shrouded in mystery. You can buy a guidebook detailing the hydrogeology of the local spring, or the DNA of the resident butterflies, but information on the road itself is almost impossible to find.Desperate to know more, I seek out the manager of the Mercure hotel that opened at the top of the mountain three years ago.

Rajesh Kapoor reckons the road "was completed a dozen years ago. I think the architect was Swedish because we had a Swedish guest to stay who claimed her husband was responsible for it." But that contradicts a claim made in a history guidebook that the road was built in 1987.Official sources suggest it was built as a honeypot for tourists, who travel from nearby cities to sample the mountain air. But with the exception of the hotel, there's almost nothing here. The road culminates in a huge car park, but the tatty caf?s unworthy of custom.Perhaps the real, unspoken reason for the road's existence is to be found a mile from the hotel. There, sitting on top of the mountain, is a huge palace that belonged to Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, who died on 4 January. His face also adorns a huge banner announcing the entrance to the road and it's under his watch that it was built.