Terms of use

Education only

WhipWorthy is for education. Nothing on it is financial, legal or mechanical advice, and nothing on it is a recommendation to buy, sell or finance any car. We are not your mechanic, your lawyer or your lender.

Where the data comes from

Owner complaints, recalls and crash ratings come from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (opens in a new tab). Fuel economy comes from the EPA at fueleconomy.gov (opens in a new tab). We pass that data on as is. It may be wrong, late or incomplete, and we can make mistakes in how we sort and count it.

Owner complaints are unverified reports, and counts are not adjusted for how many cars were sold. How it works explains what the data can and cannot tell you.

What a verdict is

A verdict of Worthy, Maybe or Pass is the result of fixed rules applied to public complaint counts, and the rules are published on How it works. It describes a model year as a whole. It is not a statement that any car, maker or seller is good or bad, and it is not a promise about the car in front of you.

Check the car itself

Before you buy any car, have it checked by a mechanic you trust, and check its VIN for open recalls with NHTSA’s recall lookup (opens in a new tab). The car’s own history and condition matter more than anything a website can tell you about its model year.

Loan lessons and the calculator

The car loan guide explains how loans work in general. The calculator works from the numbers you type in and gives an estimate. A lender’s real offer, fees and terms can be different, so read the contract before you sign.

Accounts and payments

The verdicts are free. A Car Hunt Pass or Pro opens the paid features listed on the pricing page. You sign in with a link we email you, so anyone who can read your email can sign in as you; keep your email account safe.

A Car Hunt Pass is one payment. Its price is the one the checkout shows when you buy it ($15 today, a launch price). It opens every deeper check for 30 days from the payment and then ends. A pass bought while another is still running starts when that one ends, so no days are lost. It does not renew, and nothing more is charged. A later change of price never changes what you already paid.

Pro is a yearly subscription. Its price is the one the checkout shows when you start it ($49 a year today, a launch price). It renews each year until you cancel. A few weeks before each renewal, we email you the date, the price and a link to cancel. You can cancel any time from your account page, and Pro then runs to the end of the year you paid for. If you join Pro at its $49 launch price, you keep paying $49 a year for as long as your subscription runs, and if you cancel and join again later, the price is the one the checkout shows then.

If you start Pro while a Car Hunt Pass is running, what you paid for that pass comes off your first Pro year. The renewals after it are the yearly price you joined at.

Payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card number.

Refunds

After those 7 or 14 days, a refund is up to us, and we look at each request ourselves. If we charged you by mistake, or the site did not work for you, write and tell us what happened.

A refund goes back to the way you paid, through Stripe. It usually takes 5 to 10 business days to show.

Using the site fairly

Do not use the site to break the law, to try to break the site, or to pull data from it in bulk with automated tools. The federal data itself is public, and you can get it straight from NHTSA and the EPA.

Links to other sites

We link to federal agencies and other sites so you can check our numbers. We do not run those sites and are not responsible for what is on them.

No warranty

The site and everything on it are provided as is and as available. We make no promises of any kind, stated or implied, that it is accurate, complete, up to date, fit for any purpose, or free of errors, or that it will always be up.

Limits of our liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not responsible for any loss or harm that comes from using the site or relying on it. That includes what you pay for a car, repair bills, loan costs, and any other direct or indirect loss. If we are ever held responsible anyway, the most we owe you is what you paid us to use the site.

Some places do not allow some of these limits. Where that is so, they apply as far as the law there allows. If any part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies.

Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. When we do, we will update this page and the date at the top. If you keep using the site after a change, you accept the new terms.

Questions

Write to help@whipworthy.com. A person reads every message.