Why we built this

Have you ever stood at a service counter, holding a quote that felt too high, and wished you had someone — anyone — to ask if it was fair?

Sat in a parking lot watching a warning light blink, wondering if it was safe to drive home or whether you should call a tow and brace for a bill you can't really afford?

Felt that pit in your stomach when "while we had it on the lift, we found a few other things…" turned into a number that made your throat tighten?

You're not alone. Most people don't have a trusted mechanic in their contacts. The lucky ones who do call them every single time something happens. The rest are left guessing — or worse, paying the difference because they didn't know what to push back on.

Here's the part that surprises most people: roughly 1 in 3 drivers don't trust the shop they are at right now — because they're not confident in the repairs they're being asked to pay for. And it's not because the shop is wrong, or trying to take advantage of them. Most of the time, the work is fine. What broke down is the explanation — nobody translated the diagnosis into language the owner could actually understand. So they leave uneasy. They drive across town for a second opinion — which typically runs $150–$500 in diagnostic fees alone, before any actual repair work — and walk out with the same conclusion they couldn't make sense of the first time. Same opinion. Twice the bill. Still no peace of mind.

That whole cycle goes away when you know the right questions to ask, and where to look for clarity before you authorize anything. That's the time, money, and headache Auto Advisor exists to save you.

Auto Advisor exists for exactly those moments. The one your gut tells you to call someone, but there's nobody to call. The one when you need an expert opinion in language you actually understand — not "your serpentine belt is showing micro-cracks consistent with thermal degradation," but "yes, that's normal wear, and the price they quoted is high for your area."

Whether it's deciphering a dashboard light at midnight, weighing whether a $2,400 repair makes sense on a 12-year-old commuter, quietly checking if a brake job sounds right for your vehicle and your zip code, or just figuring out what the shop actually means — Auto Advisor is the friend in your corner who knows cars and tells you the truth.

You don't need to be a "car person" to use it. You just need a question. We'll handle the jargon.

What the app does

• AI Advisor — ask any car question and get a clear, jargon-free expert opinion powered by education and decisions taught and executed by expert's experience in the automotive industry. Useful for "is this quote fair?", "what does this warning light mean?", "should I drive it home or call a tow?"
• Garage — track your vehicles, mileage, insurance, and service history in one place.
• Maintenance & Repair Log — log services, attach invoices, see what's been done and when.
• Fuel Mileage Log — track MPG over time. A sudden drop is often the first sign of a problem.
• Recall Alerts — checks your VIN against the NHTSA database for open safety recalls and notifies you when new ones are posted.
• Calculators — MPG, fuel cost, affordability — quick math without the spreadsheets.

What it isn't

Auto Advisor is not a replacement for a hands-on inspection. Think of it as the friend you call before you make a repair decision — not the mechanic who actually puts the car on the lift. For anything safety-critical (brakes, steering, airbags, anything making you nervous about driving), please get a licensed professional to physically inspect the vehicle before acting on advice you read here.

The cost estimator gives reference ranges to help you spot obvious overcharges, not a binding quote. Always get a written estimate from the shop doing the work.

Who built it

Auto Advisor is built by 2nd Opinion Automotive, LLC — a small, independent team based in Minnesota who genuinely care about helping car owners avoid getting taken advantage of. Every piece of feedback is read by a real person and shapes what comes next.

Get in touch

Email us at support@2ndopinionautomotive.com, or use Settings → Report a Bug or Settings → App Feedback inside the app.

For privacy and legal details, see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

1. Information you provide

When you create an account and use the App, you give us:

• Account information. Email address, password (or magic link sign-in), and a first name you provide during onboarding.
• Vehicle profiles. Year, make, model, trim, engine, mileage, color, license plate, VIN, state of registration, ownership status, driving climate, and use type for each vehicle you add. These fields are optional except where required by a specific feature.
• Insurance and ownership details (optional). Insurance provider, agent name and phone, policy number, policy expiration, and monthly costs (gas, insurance, payment, other) if you choose to enter them.
• Service and usage logs (optional). Maintenance log entries, fuel log entries (including odometer readings and gallons), cost log entries, and roadtrip log entries.
• Conversations with the Advisor. The questions you ask, any attachments you upload, and the AI's responses. If you've saved a session, the full conversation transcript is stored.
• Cost-estimate inputs and outputs. The repair topic, your ZIP code, vehicle context, and the estimate the App generates.
• Bug reports. When you submit feedback through the in-app Report-a-Bug form: what happened, what you were trying to do, and (optionally) your name and email so we can follow up.
• Onboarding responses. Whether you've indicated you're budget-constrained, lack a trusted shop, are new to car knowledge, or have had a prior bad shop experience. These are used to personalize the Advisor's responses.
• Liability acceptance. A timestamp and app version recorded when you accept the Terms of Service.

2. Information collected automatically

• Technical information. Your IP address (recorded by our authentication provider for security), user agent string (browser, operating system, device type), and app version.
• Usage events. Anonymized events about how you use the App: account creation, onboarding completion, advisor queries submitted, paywall views, install prompts shown or dismissed, and similar product-analytics signals. These events do not include the text of your questions or the AI's responses.
• Error reports. When something goes wrong in the App, we collect a stack trace, the URL where the error occurred, and limited app state. Form inputs and conversation content are masked.
• Session recordings (masked). We record anonymized session replays for usage analytics. All form inputs, conversation text, and personal fields are masked before the recording leaves your browser.

3. Information we do NOT collect

To be explicit about what we don't touch:

• We do not collect or store your payment card information. All billing is processed directly by Stripe; we only receive a customer ID and subscription status.
• We do not collect your precise location. ZIP code is the only location data, and only when you enter it.
• We do not scan your contacts, calendar, photos, or other device data.
• We do not sell your personal information to third parties.

4. How we use this information

• To provide the App. Sign you in, sync your vehicles and logs across devices, generate Advisor responses, and process payments.
• To improve the App. Identify bugs, understand which features are used, and improve the Advisor's quality. Saved Advisor conversations may be used to train and refine the Advisor in the future — see Section 8.
• To communicate with you. Send transactional emails (password resets, billing receipts, important account notices), respond to support requests, and follow up on bug reports if you provided an email.
• To enforce limits. Track per-user daily query counts to enforce free-tier and paid-tier rate limits.
• To comply with the law. Respond to lawful subpoenas, court orders, or other legal obligations.

5. Where your information is stored and who processes it

We use the following third-party services to operate the App. Each only receives the information needed for its specific purpose.

• Supabase (Supabase, Inc., USA) — Hosts our database and authentication. Stores your account, vehicle profiles, logs, saved Advisor conversations, bug reports, and subscription status. Data is encrypted at rest. Database access is restricted by row-level security policies — only you can read your own data.
• Anthropic (Anthropic PBC, USA) — Provides the AI model that powers the Advisor. Your question text and conversation context are sent to Anthropic to generate a response. Under Anthropic's commercial API terms, your data is not used to train their models.
• Stripe (Stripe, Inc., USA) — Processes payments and manages subscriptions. Stripe receives your payment card information directly when you check out; we never see or store it. We receive a Stripe customer ID and your subscription status.
• Sentry (Functional Software, Inc., USA) — Captures error reports when something breaks in the App. Receives stack traces, error context, and browser/device info. Conversation text and form inputs are masked.
• PostHog (PostHog, Inc., USA) — Captures product-analytics events and masked session replays. Used to understand how the App is used so we can improve it. Conversation text and form inputs are masked before leaving your browser.
• jsDelivr and Google Fonts — Content delivery networks that serve the App's libraries and typefaces. They may log your IP address when serving files.
• EmailJS (EmailJS LLC, USA) — Sends bug-report emails from your browser to our inbox.

Several of these providers may store data outside the United States. By using the App, you consent to your information being transferred and processed in the countries where these providers operate.

6. Cross-device sync

The App syncs your vehicle profiles, logs, settings, and saved Advisor conversations across your devices through our database. This means:

• When you sign in on a new device, your information is downloaded so you don't have to start over.
• Changes you make on one device are reflected on others after a short delay.
• Your information stays on our servers as long as you have an account.

If you'd prefer not to sync, the App still works on a single device — but you'll lose your data if you switch devices or clear your browser storage. To stop syncing, delete your account (Section 9).

7. Cookies and local storage

The App uses your browser's local storage (not traditional cookies) to keep you signed in and cache your data for faster loading. We also use a minimal cookie-equivalent set by our authentication provider to maintain your sign-in session.

PostHog sets a first-party identifier in local storage to track product analytics events. You can disable this by clearing your browser's site data for our domain.

8. Advisor conversations and AI training

Saved Advisor conversations are stored in our database with the vehicle context that produced them. We may use this data, in aggregate and after review, to improve the Advisor — including training future models, building a knowledge base, or refining the system's responses to common questions. We do not sell this data, and we do not allow third parties to train their models on it.

If you don't want a particular conversation retained, delete it from within the App (Saved Sessions). If you want all your conversation history removed, delete your account (Section 9).

Anthropic, the provider of the underlying AI model, receives your question text to generate responses. Under their commercial terms, they do not use your data to train their models.

9. Your rights

You have the following rights over your information:

• Access. You can see most of your data directly in the App. For anything else, email us at support@2ndopinionautomotive.com and we'll provide a copy within 30 days.
• Correction. Edit your vehicle profiles, logs, and settings directly in the App. For other data, email us.
• Deletion. Delete your account from within the App (Settings → Account → Delete My Account). This permanently removes your account, vehicle profiles, logs, saved conversations, and analytics events tied to your account. Stripe payment records and Anthropic API logs are retained per those providers' own retention policies. Allow up to 30 days for full deletion to propagate.
• Portability. Email us and we'll provide your data in a machine-readable format.
• Objection. You can disable analytics by clearing site data, though some features may not work without local storage.

California residents have additional rights under the CCPA, including the right to know what categories of personal information we collect and the right to opt out of sale of personal information. We do not sell personal information.

EU and UK residents have rights under the GDPR/UK GDPR, including the rights above plus the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

To exercise any right, email support@2ndopinionautomotive.com with the request. We may ask you to verify your identity before fulfilling it.

10. Data retention

• Account data (email, vehicles, logs, settings) is retained as long as your account exists. When you delete your account, this data is removed within 30 days.
• Advisor conversations are retained as long as your account exists, unless you delete them individually.
• Subscription and billing records are retained per legal requirements (typically 7 years for tax purposes), even after account deletion.
• Analytics events are retained by Sentry and PostHog per their default retention policies (typically 30–90 days).
• Server logs that record IP addresses for security purposes are retained for 90 days.

11. Security

We protect your information with industry-standard safeguards:

• All data is transmitted over HTTPS.
• Data is encrypted at rest in our database.
• Database access is restricted by row-level security — even with our anonymous client key, your account data cannot be accessed by other users.
• Sensitive API keys are stored server-side and never shipped to your browser.
• We regularly review our infrastructure for vulnerabilities.

No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a breach affecting your information, we'll notify you within 72 hours and report to the appropriate authorities where required by law.

12. Children's privacy

The App is not intended for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us information, contact us and we'll delete it.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the App evolves. When we do, we'll update the "Last updated" date at the top and, for material changes, notify you via email or an in-app notice. Continued use after a policy change means you accept the updated policy.

14. Contact

For privacy questions, data requests, or concerns:

2nd Opinion Automotive, LLC
Email: support@2ndopinionautomotive.com
Location: Minnesota, USA

1. Acceptance of these Terms

By opening, installing, or otherwise using the App, you agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the App.

These Terms form a binding agreement between you and 2nd Opinion Automotive, LLC.

2. What the App is — and isn't

2nd Opinion Auto Advisor is a consumer automotive advisor web app built on years of real-world service-advisor experience. It helps car owners understand shop recommendations, ask better questions, and make informed decisions about repairs and maintenance.

The App is not a substitute for hands-on inspection by a qualified technician, and it is not legal, engineering, medical, tax, financial, or insurance advice. The App cannot physically inspect your vehicle, perform a test drive, put it on a lift, or verify what a shop is actually doing. Its suggestions are informational and educational only.

You remain fully responsible for any decisions you make about your vehicle, including whether to authorize repairs, drive the vehicle, or continue using a particular shop.

3. AI-generated content and accuracy

The advisor, cost estimator, and invoice auto-extraction features generate responses using the Anthropic Claude API applied to our proprietary system prompt. AI models can produce content that is incorrect, incomplete, outdated, or otherwise wrong — sometimes confidently so. Do not rely on any single response as the final word on a safety-critical repair.

For anything that affects vehicle safety, emissions compliance, or significant expense, you should verify the App's guidance with a qualified technician, the vehicle manufacturer's service documentation, or another independent source.

Cost-related output from the App is descriptive and regional in nature. It is not a binding quote, not a promise of what any particular shop will charge, and not a substitute for a written estimate from that shop.

4. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of legal majority in your jurisdiction if older, to use the App. By using the App, you represent that you meet this requirement and that you have authority to act with respect to any vehicle whose information you enter.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the App for any unlawful purpose, or in violation of any applicable law or regulation.
• Attempt to extract, copy, or otherwise reverse-engineer the proprietary system prompt, the advisor logic, or the knowledge base behind the App.
• Use automated means (bots, scrapers, headless tooling) to generate advisor responses at scale, resell App output, or build a competing service on top of it.
• Upload malware, viruses, or content that you do not have the right to share.
• Impersonate anyone else, misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity, or submit a bug report using false identifying information.
• Interfere with, probe, or attempt to disrupt the App, our third-party service providers, or other users of the App.

6. Your content and license

You retain ownership of the information, photos, invoices, and other content you enter into or upload to the App ("Your Content").

By using the App, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use Your Content solely for the purpose of operating the App for you — including sending it to the Anthropic Claude API to generate responses, storing it locally on your device and syncing it across your devices through our database, and, as described in the Privacy Policy, retaining saved Advisor conversations to help improve the Advisor, including using them in aggregate (and after review) to train and refine future versions of the advisor system.

You represent that you have the right to share Your Content with the App and that doing so does not violate any third party's rights.

7. Paid features and subscriptions

The App offers three paid options through our payment processor, Stripe:

• Monthly subscription — $19.99 per month
• Annual subscription — $119.99 per year
• 7-Day Trial Access — $9.99 one-time

Renewals. Monthly and Annual subscriptions auto-renew at the listed price until you cancel. 7-Day Trial Access is a one-time charge that does not renew. All prices are shown at checkout in USD and may change from time to time; the price displayed at the moment of purchase is the price you pay.

Cancellation. Cancel a subscription anytime from Settings → Account Management → Manage subscription, which opens a secure Stripe-hosted page where you can cancel, switch plans, update your card, and download invoices. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period — you keep access through what you've already paid for.

Refunds. One-time 7-Day Trial Access purchases are not refundable. Subscription payments are also non-refundable except where required by law.

Promotional codes and credits. Coupons or promotional codes the App may offer at checkout are subject to their individual terms (validity period, applicable products, redemption limits) and may be modified or discontinued at any time. The App may also automatically credit a 7-Day Trial Access purchase toward an upgrade to a Monthly subscription — the specific terms of any such credit are shown to you at the moment of upgrade.

Saved payment methods. By completing a purchase, you authorize us to securely save your payment method via Stripe so future purchases can use it without re-entry. You can remove saved cards anytime from the Stripe-hosted Customer Portal accessible via Settings → Account Management → Manage subscription, or from inside the checkout form on a future purchase.

How payment data flows. Card details are entered into a secure form provided directly by Stripe and are sent from your browser to Stripe; they never touch our servers. Stripe's handling of payment information is governed by its own terms and privacy policy at stripe.com/legal. We store only your subscription status and a Stripe reference ID on our side — see the Privacy Policy for the full breakdown.

California subscribers (Automatic Renewal Law disclosures)

If you live in California, or in another U.S. state with a similar automatic-renewal disclosure law (including New York, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, Connecticut, Colorado, and a growing number of others), the following terms apply specifically to subscriptions:

• Auto-renewal. Monthly subscriptions automatically renew every month at $19.99 USD, and Annual subscriptions automatically renew every year at $119.99 USD, until you cancel. Each renewal is billed to the same payment method you used at signup.
• Promotional pricing. If you upgrade from an active 7-Day Trial Access to a Monthly subscription, your first month is billed at $10 (your $9.99 7-Day Trial purchase is automatically credited toward the first month's $19.99). After that first month, billing reverts to the regular $19.99 per month until you cancel. Any other promotional pricing will be clearly disclosed at checkout before you confirm payment.
• Cancellation method. You may cancel a subscription at any time by going to Settings → Account Management → Manage subscription, which opens a Stripe-hosted page where one tap cancels your subscription. We accept cancellations through this online method only — no phone call or email is required, and we do not require any "save offer" or "cancellation reason" interaction. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your then-current billing period; you keep access through what you've already paid for.
• Payment authorization. By tapping the Pay button on a subscription checkout, you affirmatively acknowledge these auto-renewal, billing, and cancellation terms.
• Receipts. Stripe sends an emailed receipt for every charge to the email associated with your account. We do not mail paper receipts.

8. Third-party services

The App relies on third-party services to function, including Anthropic (Claude API for the advisor and cost estimator), Supabase (account authentication, cross-device data sync, subscription state, and saved conversations), Stripe (payment processing, subscription management, saved-card storage), Sentry (error monitoring), PostHog (product analytics and masked session replays), EmailJS (bug-report email routing), Google Fonts, and the jsDelivr CDN. Your use of those services through the App is also subject to each provider's own terms of service and privacy policies. We do not control and are not responsible for the availability, accuracy, content, or practices of any third-party service.

9. Intellectual property

The App, its interface, its copy, its logic, and the proprietary system prompt that powers the AI advisor are owned by 2nd Opinion Automotive, LLC and are protected by copyright, trade secret, trademark, and other intellectual-property laws.

We grant you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the App for your own personal, non-commercial vehicle-decision purposes. Everything not expressly granted in these Terms is reserved.

AI-generated responses are provided to you for your personal use in evaluating your own vehicle and shop interactions. You may not resell, publicly redistribute, or rebrand App output as a commercial product or service.

10. Disclaimers — no professional advice

THE APP IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE APP WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR FREE OF HARMFUL COMPONENTS, OR THAT ANY CONTENT GENERATED BY THE APP WILL BE ACCURATE, COMPLETE, OR RELIABLE.

2nd Opinion Automotive, LLC is not a licensed mechanic, licensed dealership, automotive engineer, attorney, insurance adjuster, or financial advisor, and nothing in the App constitutes such advice. You are solely responsible for the safety and operation of your vehicle and for any decision to authorize, defer, or decline repairs.

2nd Opinion Auto Advisor, 2nd Opinion Automotive, LLC, and all of its creators, principals, officers, employees, and agents make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, completeness, reliability, suitability, or availability of any information, opinion, or guidance provided through this application. All content is provided strictly for informational and educational purposes. Nothing in this application constitutes professional mechanical advice, legal advice, financial advice, or safety advice of any kind.

11. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, 2ND OPINION AUTOMOTIVE, LLC AND ITS OWNERS, EMPLOYEES, AND AFFILIATES WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUES, DATA, GOODWILL, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF THE APP, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR TOTAL CUMULATIVE LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE APP WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE TOTAL AMOUNTS YOU HAVE PAID TO US FOR THE APP IN THE 12 MONTHS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, OR (B) US $50.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, 2nd Opinion Auto Advisor, 2nd Opinion Automotive, LLC, and all of its creators, principals, officers, employees, and agents expressly disclaim all liability for any bodily harm, personal injury, death, property damage, financial loss, or any other direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages of any kind arising from or in connection with: (a) your use of or inability to use this application; (b) any opinion, recommendation, guidance, or information provided by the AI advisor or any other feature of this application; (c) any decision you make regarding your vehicle, your safety, or your finances based on information provided by this application; or (d) any emergency or roadside situation in which you use or attempt to use this application. By using this application, you acknowledge that you assume full and sole responsibility for all decisions made regarding your vehicle, your personal safety, and your finances. Use of this application does not create any professional, fiduciary, or advisory relationship between you and 2nd Opinion Automotive, LLC or any of its principals or employees.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages, so some of the above limitations may not apply to you.

12. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless 2nd Opinion Automotive, LLC and its owners, employees, and affiliates from and against any claims, damages, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or related to your use of the App, Your Content, or your violation of these Terms or any applicable law.

13. Termination

You can stop using the App at any time. To remove your locally stored data from this device, use Settings → Clear App Data or clear your browser's site data for this app. Note that local clearing does not remove your account data on our servers — your vehicles, logs, and saved conversations remain in our database and will re-sync if you sign in again on any device. To permanently remove your account and the data we store on the server, use Settings → Account → Delete My Account as described in the Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or terminate your access to the App at any time, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms or any applicable law, or if we discontinue the App. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and governing law) will survive.

14. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we do, we will update the "Last updated" date above and, for material changes, call them out in the in-app changelog. Your continued use of the App after changes take effect means you accept the revised Terms. If you do not accept the revised Terms, stop using the App and clear your local data.

15. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Minnesota and applicable federal laws of the United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law principles. You and 2nd Opinion Automotive, LLC agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to the App or these Terms will be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Minnesota, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

Nothing in this section prevents either party from seeking injunctive or equitable relief in any court of competent jurisdiction for misuse of intellectual property or confidential information.

16. Severability and entire agreement

If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and 2nd Opinion Automotive, LLC regarding the App and supersede any prior agreements on the same subject.

17. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email support@2ndopinionautomotive.com, or use Settings → Report a Bug inside the app.