How our estimates work
Every price range and verdict on CarDoc comes from the steps below. The numbers are estimates for planning, not quotes: a shop that has seen your car may find more, or less, to do.
1. A starting range
For each repair we start from a range for your province and the type of shop. Where we have parts prices, labour times and labour rates, the range is parts (with the shop’s usual markup) plus labour time × the local labour rate, plus shop supplies (5% of the labour), plus your province’s sales tax. Where we don’t have those yet, we use the middle of published Canadian price guides, and the page says which.
2. Prices drivers share
Drivers can share what they paid. We check each price (it must be realistic, recent and not a duplicate), keep receipts private and delete them after 30 days. Once a repair has 3 or more approved prices for a similar car in a province, we blend them in: the more prices there are, the more weight they get (weight = count ÷ (count + 5)). We only ever show totals for groups of 3 or more prices, never a single person’s price.
3. The verdict
- Lower than typical: more than 15% below the low end of the range. Worth checking what’s included.
- Fair: from 15% below the low end up to the high end.
- A bit high: up to 20% above the high end.
- High: more than 20% above the high end.
A quote can be different for good reasons: dealer or OEM parts, extra work such as rotors with pads, or local labour rates. We say so next to every verdict.
4. Confidence
- High: data for your vehicle and 10 or more shared prices.
- Medium: data for your vehicle’s class or 3 to 9 shared prices.
- Low: general data only.
Every result shows its confidence, how many shared prices it used and when the data was last reviewed.
Keeping it current
Official data is re-imported every month, and every reference price carries the date it was last reviewed. If you think a number is wrong, tell us: support@cardoc.ca.