Every answer resolves to the same structure
What is it, how serious, what happens if you wait, what should prove it, could you DIY it, what gets added alongside, what to ask, what to say, what a good or bad answer sounds like, what to do next, and how confident we are. We call it a Defense Card. If a workflow cannot fill that in, it tells you what is unknown rather than guessing.
Confidence labels
- Verified — confirmed by an authoritative source or a measurement.
- Strongly supported — multiple reliable sources agree (manufacturer programs, recalls, settlements).
- Likely — the most common explanation given what we know.
- Possible — one of several explanations.
- Needs inspection — cannot be settled without a technician.
- Unknown — we do not have enough to say.
Source classes
- Government: NHTSA vPIC (vehicle identity), NHTSA recalls, NHTSA complaints.
- Manufacturer: service bulletins, warranty programs, owner manuals.
- Consumer guidance: the FTC's auto repair and car-buying advice.
- Technical: general automotive service knowledge.
- Owner reports: reviewed, widely documented patterns — a pattern is never a diagnosis.
- You: what you entered. Taken at face value and labeled as yours.
- AI interpretation: a model read your text or document. It cannot inspect anything, and it never overrides the structured facts above.
What we never do
- Invent a price, a "national average," a labor time, a recall status or a statistic. If no verified source is configured, we say "no pricing data" and mean it.
- Call a shop or dealer a scammer because a price is high. We say "worth asking about," "needs clarification," "above the expected range."
- Tell you a vehicle has a model-wide problem because similar vehicles do. We say "documented pattern; watch for these symptoms."
- Encourage you to drive when the evidence suggests it may be unsafe.
- Paywall emergency guidance or recall information.
- Let any shop, dealer, parts seller, warranty company or product influence a verdict. There is no paid placement. Any affiliate link is labeled.
Where the model-specific library comes from
Each entry in the judgment library names its year range, engine or transmission where relevant, the symptoms to watch, the likely mechanism, the evidence level, the source classes behind it, and the date it was last reviewed. Entries are only published with documented support. When we have nothing for your car, the report says so.
Limits
This is an information and preparation tool, not a diagnosis. A qualified technician's inspection decides what is actually wrong with a specific car.