Data Sources and Licences

Shop listings

Each listing is compiled by GarageMap from the shop’s own website and public business information, and shop owners can update their own listing’s services. Street addresses, phone numbers and opening hours are refreshed periodically and can lag a change at the shop. The details are shown in GarageMap’s own format. How we check shops has the rest.

Posted prices

The out-of-province inspection price tables and the winter-tire changeover prices are copied from shops’ own websites. Each row links to the page the price was read on and says when it was checked. Our methodology explains how the tables are built.

Maps

Map tiles and map data are © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0. See OpenStreetMap’s copyright page. Shop positions on the map are GarageMap’s own.

Weather and climate

The winter-tire dates are worked out from Canadian Climate Normals 1991–2020: Calgary (Airport), and the tool pages show the week’s forecast from Environment and Climate Change Canada’s City page weather forecasts (MSC GeoMet API), read live.

Data Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada. Used under the ECCC Data Server End-use Licence. Nothing here implies that Environment and Climate Change Canada endorses GarageMap.

Vehicle makes and models

The year, make and model lists in the quote form come from the Vehicle API (vPIC) published by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The engine, fuel and drivetrain choices come from Fuel consumption ratings, Natural Resources Canada.

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.

VIN decoding and vehicle recalls

The VIN decoder reads a VIN with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Vehicle API (vPIC), a U.S. government work in the public domain. The decoder and the recall check list recalls from Transport Canada’s Motor Vehicle Safety Recalls Database, read at each search, with a copy kept for the most common models; the recall check shows the U.S. list from NHTSA’s Recalls API beside it, labelled as U.S. data. Both lists are by model and year: whether one vehicle has an open recall is for its manufacturer to confirm.

Transport Canada’s recall data is used under the same Open Government Licence – Canada, and the tool pages carry its statement. Vehicle data: NHTSA vPIC.

Vehicle guides: recalls, fuel economy and fuel cost

Each vehicle guide lists every recall Transport Canada’s database holds for the model, from a copy of it read by model and saved with the date it was read. Its fuel figures are Natural Resources Canada’s Fuel consumption ratings. For a gasoline, hybrid or diesel model, its yearly fuel cost multiplies NRCan’s combined rating by the 20,000 km a year NRCan’s own Fuel consumption ratings search tool assumes, at the average Calgary self-serve price for the month in Statistics Canada’s Table 18-10-0001-01, Monthly average retail prices for gasoline and fuel oil, by geography. The guide says which month. An electric model’s guide gives NRCan’s energy use and range, and estimates no electricity cost. Everything else in a guide — generations, trims, engines, common issues — is cited to its own sources on the page.

NRCan’s ratings are used under the Open Government Licence – Canada; the pump prices under the Statistics Canada Open Licence. Source: Statistics Canada. Neither government endorses GarageMap.

Rules and facts in our guides

Each guide lists its sources at the foot of the page — mostly Government of Alberta, Transport Canada and other public bodies — with the date each was checked.

Public registers for trust badges

When a shop shows a trust badge, it was checked by hand against one of these registers:

The City of Calgary’s data is used under the Open Calgary Terms of Use.

Running the site

The services we use to run the site — sign-in, analytics and hosting — are listed in our Privacy Policy, with what each receives.

Spotted something out of date? Email hello@garagemap.ca.

Data sources and licences