Quest TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On Quest Tonight

Quest is Warner Bros. Discovery’s free-to-air factual channel, built around cars, engineering and the kind of programming where someone always ends up covered in grease or sawdust. Channel numbers are further down the page.

Quest Schedule: Thursday 13 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Quest schedule for Thursday 13 August 2026, on Freeview 17.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Quest today

Thursday’s daytime keeps to Quest’s usual factual formula: doubled-up hours rather than single episodes. Salvage Hunters, Aussie Gold Hunters, Outback Opal Hunters and Shed And Buried each run in back-to-back pairs, broken only by a single hour of The Repair Shop at 1pm, before the evening line-up begins at 5pm. Full times are in the schedule table above.

Quest tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Quest primetime line-up for tonight, Thursday 13 August 2026.

The Yorkshire Auction House — Quest, 5pm & 6pm

Quest opens the evening with back-to-back Yorkshire Auction House. The 5pm sale is a first for the business: a gold disc going under the hammer, alongside items once belonging to a Ryder Cup referee. By 6pm the team are working through an oil-can hoard built up over one man’s lifetime, plus a haul of pub memorabilia sent in by a former landlord.

Antiques Road Trip — Quest, 7pm

At 7pm, Paul Martin and Margie Cooper take the Antiques Road Trip through Cornwall, turning up an old milking stool and a loud 1920s car horn before a detour for tea.

Outback Truckers — Quest, 8pm

Outback Truckers returns with a new episode at 8pm. Steve Grahame gambles on a punishing desert haul, Jim Foody tries to outrun monsoon rain, and Yogi hauls a million-dollar load across the Nullarbor.

Outback Opal Hunters — Quest, 9pm

A second premiere follows straight after at 9pm. This is the Cheals’ toughest opening to a season yet, hit hard by flooding, while the Whisperers go hunting for Yowah nuts and Slim Pickings race the clock to shift camp before their patch runs dry.

The Repair Shop — Quest, 10pm

The Repair Shop takes 10pm. A bookbinder works on a paper kite that’s survived fifty years, while another restorer brings a 1960s toy train back to life.

How Do They Do It? — Quest, 11pm & 11:30pm

A double bill of How Do They Do It? closes the night. The 11pm edition covers tank-rated emergency bridges, fade-proof marker pens and a 200mph superbike; the 11:30pm follow-up moves through crystal glassware, a deep dive pool and a ketchup bottling line.

What kind of shows are on Quest

Motoring, restoration and workshop shows

The backbone of Quest’s schedule is vehicles. Wheeler Dealers, Salvage Hunters, Shed and Buried and Chasing Classic Cars between them hold down most of the hours before mid-afternoon, all working the same basic appeal: someone spots value in a thing everyone else wrote off, then proves it by fixing it up or selling it on. It’s cheap to make and it repeats well, which is why there is so much of it.

Acquired documentaries and reality

The evenings lean on programming bought in from elsewhere. The Repair Shop is the obvious case, a series made for another broadcaster that has found a long second life here, but the later slots also take storm-chasing and survival documentaries such as In the Eye of the Storm.

How It’s Made and everyday engineering

How It’s Made is the odd one out on the schedule, a factory-floor staple that’s run in various forms for decades, taking a few minutes at a time to show how ordinary objects get manufactured. It’s exactly the sort of thing you leave running in the background, and Quest schedules it mostly in the early hours.

How to watch Quest

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find Quest across the main UK television platforms:

Quest moved from Freeview channel 12 to channel 17 in January 2026, so retune your box if you’re still seeing the old number. Virgin Media and Freesat numbers can vary slightly by region, so check your on-screen guide if these don’t quite match.

Streaming online

Quest streams live and free through discovery+, available as an app on smart TVs, phones and tablets, and via web browser at discoveryplus.com. Registering for a free account gets you live access to Quest and its sister channels, plus 30 days of catch-up, all supported by adverts. A paid discovery+ tier exists too, and comes free with Sky TV packages from £15 a month, but it isn’t needed just to watch Quest live.

Quest +1 and sister channels

Quest +1 repeats the schedule an hour behind, on Freeview channel 70 and Sky channel 244. It’s the one to reach for if you’ve missed the start of a Wheeler Dealers marathon, or want to catch The Repair Shop an hour later.

Quest sits inside a wider family of Warner Bros. Discovery free-to-air channels. Quest Red, on Freeview channel 40 and Sky channel 149, shares the reclamation-yard DNA but skews towards a female audience with reality and lifestyle shows like My 600-lb Life and Say Yes to the Dress. Really, another channel in the same stable, sits alongside it on the Freeview line-up with its own mix of true crime and factual programming.

Frequently asked questions

What’s on Quest tonight?

Thursday’s daytime runs through the usual factual mix before The Yorkshire Auction House opens the evening with a double bill at 5pm and 6pm. Antiques Road Trip takes 7pm, then two new episodes follow back to back: Outback Truckers at 8pm and Outback Opal Hunters at 9pm. The Repair Shop takes 10pm, and two episodes of How Do They Do It? close the night from 11pm. See the schedule table above for daytime listings in full.

What channel is Quest on Freeview?

Channel 17. It moved there from channel 12 on 13 January 2026 when Warner Bros. Discovery reshuffled its free-to-air channels. Retune your box if you’re still seeing the old number.

Is The Repair Shop a Quest original show?

No. It’s a BBC production made by Ricochet, first shown on BBC One. Quest broadcasts it in repeat, which is why it turns up so often in the evening schedule here.

Can I watch Quest online for free?

Yes. It streams live at discoveryplus.com and through the discovery+ app; a free account with adverts gives you the live channel and 30 days of catch-up.

Is Quest free to watch?

Yes, entirely free to air on Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat, with the usual advert breaks but no subscription fee.

Verdict

The two Outback shows are the only fresh runs tonight, and they sit back to back — a rare stretch of Quest that isn’t a repeat of something from the afternoon.

Regulars will know what to expect; newcomers are better served starting with Outback Truckers.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | Really TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide | Films on TV This Week