Editorial policy
Who writes what you read here, how the numbers are checked, and what happens when one of them turns out to be wrong.
Authorship
Who writes this
Everything on this site is written by Sardar Arslan. Pricing pages are generated from researched data by code that is also written and reviewed by the same person.
No page here is generated and published unread. Where text is assembled from data, the template is written by hand and the sentences it can produce are fixed and reviewed. The numbers vary; the claims do not.
Sources
How prices are checked
Every price traces to a named, dated, published source. Two rules do most of the work.
Nothing is adjusted to look current
Source figures are stored exactly as published. We do not uplift an old survey by an assumed rate of inflation, because that produces a number the publisher never stated while still carrying their name. Where a figure is old, the page says how old it is instead.
Our arithmetic is labelled as ours
Some working is unavoidably ours: converting inc-VAT figures to ex-VAT, and grouping postcode areas into regions. Both are stated on the methodology page. Where we hold a projection of our own, it is flagged in the data as unpublished and cannot be rendered onto a page at all.
Checks that run on every build
Some of this is enforced rather than remembered. Automated checks fail the build if a price is stored as a decimal rather than whole pence, if a figure would be presented as a firm price when the job is quoted, or if an unpublished figure is attributed to a publisher.
Currency
How often this is updated
Prices are recalculated whenever their underlying research changes. There is no fixed publication schedule, because a schedule would encourage republishing unchanged figures with a fresh date on them.
Instead, age is shown. Every rate carries the date its source was published, and after 24 months a page says plainly that the figure is old and that current rates are likely to be higher. That notice appears only when it is true: a caveat printed on everything stops being read.
The national benchmark we use for context is held to the same threshold, so it cannot quietly become stale while being used to describe today’s market.
Independence
What money cannot buy here
No advertiser, garage or supplier sees a page before it publishes, and none has ever asked us to change a figure. If one did, the answer would be no and the request would be described on this page.
Garages pay to be listed and that payment does not affect any price or any ranking. The full explanation, including where the tension in that model actually sits, is on how we make money.
Corrections
Reporting an error
If a figure looks wrong, it might be. Tell me and I will check it against the source.
Email hello@carrepairlabs.com, with the page address and what looks wrong. A quote you have been given for the same job, with the make, model and rough location, is the single most useful thing you can send.
What happens next
- I check the figure against the source it came from, and against the calculation.
- If it is wrong because the data is wrong, the data is corrected and every page built from it changes with it.
- If it is wrong because the method is wrong, the method changes and the methodology page changes with it.
- If the figure is right and reads as though it is not, that is a writing problem and the page gets rewritten.
A correction that changes what a page claims is noted on that page. A site that silently edits its own numbers is asking to be taken on trust, which is the opposite of what this one is for.