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Shane Teskey (Co-Founder, Motorcheck.ie) is profiled in the Sunday Business Post's "People in business" section.

Shane Teskey had an unusual introduction to the motor sector – the Trinity College drama graduate can be seen throwing petrol bombs in the film, The Boxer.

The Limerick native went on to work in the sales and car rental sector, before setting up Benchmark Fleet Services with Michael Rochford six years ago. Benchmark offers leasing services to corporate customers, provides valuation and replacement car services to insurance companies and operates a series of fuel-card schemes for private individuals nationwide.

In the last two years, Teskey and Rochford, who has a background in web design, have focused their attention on Motorcheck.ie, a division of Benchmark that provides online vehicle history checks for second-hand cars. The company employs eight people.

‘‘In our business of supplying cars, it became obvious that it’s very difficult to get the details or history of second-hand cars,” said Teskey. ‘‘A lot of the time, it is hard to get your hands on log books - quite often they get lost. We thought we could enrich the current national vehicle registration file database and began compiling a more comprehensive database.”

Internationally, about 30 per cent of cars that change hands are the subject of a vehicle history check, but that percentage is much lower in Ireland, according to Teskey.

‘‘We’re way off that and it’s something we thought we could change,” he said. ‘‘With our service, second-hand car buyers can avoid being caught buying stolen cars, or cars with outstanding finance and can confirm the prospective car has not been declared a write-off.”

Motorcheck has three different reports available for every make and model of vehicle in the Irish market. The service, which is aimed mainly at private consumers, cross references a number of government, trade and international databases to provide the history of a used car.

The firm has also established a vehicle mileage database, called the Irish national car history (Inch) database.

‘‘In Ireland, we don’t have a national mileage register, so clocking has always been a concern for Irish motorists. That’s why we established Inch and now, when Motorcheck runs vehicle registration checks, we can cross-reference the readings,” said Teskey.

Next month, the firm will launch Textcheck, a mobile phone version of the online service. People buying used cars will be able to text the registration number of the car they’re interested in purchasing and receive a hi story report through their mobile.

‘‘It’s going to be great for those about to strike a deal at a car dealership,” said Teskey. ‘‘They can send a text off - at a normal rate, not premium rate - and get a reply in seconds.”