Terms and ground rules

WrenchRates collects what car owners say they paid, at which shop, on which car. It exists so you can see what people with a car like yours were charged nearby, and how the work went.

Everything you read here was written by another owner. It is their account of their experience, not ours, and not a recommendation.

We do not write the reports, we do not carry out the work, and we are not a party to anything you agree with a shop. In particular:

• Accuracy. People make mistakes, misremember prices, and occasionally lie. A price here is what somebody said they paid, not a quote and not a guarantee.
• The work itself. Choosing a shop is your decision. We do not vet, license, insure, or stand behind any business listed.
• Listings. Some shops are imported from public map data and some are added by users. A listing is not evidence that a business exists, is trading, or is any good. Listings we have not confirmed are labelled unconfirmed.
• Outcomes. If work goes badly, that is between you and the shop. Nothing here creates a warranty from us.

• Report only what happened to you. First-hand experiences, on a car you own or owned. Not hearsay, not someone else’s story.
• Real prices. Post what you actually paid, including whether it was parts, labour, or both.
• No made-up reports, either direction. Do not post about your own shop, pay anyone to post, or post to damage a competitor. This is the fastest way to lose an account.
• No personal attacks. Say the work was poor. Do not post accusations about named individuals, and do not post anyone’s personal details.
• Nothing unlawful. No harassment, no discriminatory abuse, nothing that infringes someone else’s rights.

You keep ownership of what you write. By posting it you give us permission to display it on the site.

Every report can be flagged. Flagged content is looked at by a person, and we remove anything that breaks the rules above. Shops can claim their listing and reply publicly to reports about them.

We can remove content or close an account that breaks these rules. Removing a report is not a judgement about the shop.

Receipts uploaded as proof are checked and then destroyed — they are never kept. That is set out in full in the receipt policy.

You can delete your account at any time from settings. Payments are handled by Stripe; we never see or store card details.

The software behind WrenchRates was written with substantial help from AI coding tools. We are saying so plainly because you are trusting the site with money questions, and you should know how it was made.

Most shop listings were bulk-imported from open map data rather than entered by hand, so a listing existing here is not a sign anyone has checked it. Some will be closed, misfiled or duplicated. Tell us and we will fix it.

Two things happen automatically rather than by a person. Receipts uploaded as proof are read by text recognition and compared against the shop name and total you entered, and posted text is screened for abuse before it appears. Both can get it wrong in either direction, and you can ask a person to look again.

What is never automated is the substance. Every price, rating and written report on this site came from a person who says they paid it. Nothing here is generated, inferred, estimated or filled in to make the site look busier than it is.