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Standards

Editorial Policy

The route every article on carfixadvisor.com takes from idea to publication, and what we refuse to publish.

The promise behind the site

Everything published on carfixadvisor.com takes the same route from idea to page. This document explains that route so you can judge our work fairly.

Choosing what to cover

The list of what to cover writes itself from the inbox and from our own dead ends. When the same gap turns up a second or third time, it stops being a note and becomes an article.

From notes to published page

  1. Draft from experience, not from a page of search results.
  2. Underline every claim that rests on memory rather than a source.
  3. Support it or lose it. Each underline is backed by something we can name, or it comes out.
  4. A cold read by a second person catches the confident guesses the writer stopped seeing.

Publication dates

The date on an article is the date it was published. When a change alters the advice, we update the modified date and say what changed. Cosmetic edits do not reset the date, because pretending a page is fresher than it is helps nobody.

Accountability

Every article carries the name of the person who wrote it and links to their profile. We do not publish under a house byline, because a house cannot be asked to explain itself.

Warren Holt, Founder and lead mechanic. Warren ran a independent repair shop for twenty years before deciding that the most useful thing he could do was explain, in plain terms, what he was actually doing and why. He started this site after too many customers arrived having been told the wrong thing by someone who should have known better.

Sandra Park, DIY and maintenance writer. Sandra learned to maintain her own car after one too many repair bills she could not verify. She writes for people who want to understand what is happening before they hand over their keys, and she is honest about the jobs that are genuinely better left to a shop.

Greg Malone, Diagnostics and parts writer. Greg specialises in modern car electronics and has spent years explaining fault codes to people who have never used a scanner before. He writes about diagnostics, parts selection and the electrical systems that most DIY guides still treat as a black box.

The money side

Part of what keeps the lights on is commercial links. The verdict on a page is written first and does not bend to whether a link earns anything.

When a partner leans on us to bury a negative line, we keep the line and the email. The leaning tells readers something the original page could not.

Corrections

Corrections go to info@carfixadvisor.com. Include the address and the sentence. Anything factual is fixed without argument. Anything that changes what the article recommends gets a dated note underneath, so the change is visible.