Where our data comes from.
Testigo isn't an AI making things up. Behind every fault and every recall there is a source you can open and read.
Today there are 737 known-fault sheets, 356 recalls with their own page and 49 explained OBD codes, each with its sources.
From official records to guidance.
Not all sources carry the same weight. They are ordered from firmest to least firm.
Official recall records
Recalls come from the public records of road-safety and consumer authorities. The most complete is the UK one (DVSA), which publishes its whole file; we also link NHTSA (United States), Rappel Conso (France), Transport Canada, the Australian register, Germany's KBA and the European Union's Safety Gate when they list the recall.
On every recall: a link to the official record and a note that only the manufacturer can confirm, with your VIN, whether your car still needs it.
Manufacturers and technical information
Manufacturers' technical bulletins, manuals and service information, and the technical databases garages use to explain a code or a fault.
On the fault sheets and on every OBD code, among their original sources.
Garages, press and owner forums
Cases documented by garages, motoring magazines, used-car buying guides and forums where owners tell what happened to them. A fault goes in only if at least one source you can open documents it; many have several.
Every sheet links its sources one by one, so you can read them yourself.
What you tell us
We use your answers to learn what works, never to write a sheet: «Did this report help you?», «Has this happened to you?» on faults and «What was it in the end?» on saved reports. Prices from «How much did it cost you?» are only shown when there are at least 5 similar repairs from the last 36 months; with fewer, we say nothing.
They are anonymous and stored as totals or without personal data.
The artificial intelligence
When you describe a symptom, the AI receives the sourced sheets we have for your car and the cases documented by garages, and uses them to rank the possible causes and the urgency. It only gives guidance: it can be wrong, it cannot see your car and it does not replace a mechanic.
In the report, your car's known faults appear with their sources; the rest is the AI's guidance.
Our rules.
- If we don't have a piece of data, we say so. We don't fill gaps with guesses.
- No garage or brand decides what a sheet says.
- Sheets are reviewed and expanded by hand, in batches. They don't update themselves: the links lead to the original source, which may have changed since.
- An OBD code points to which system to check, not which part to replace.
Spotted a mistake?
At the end of every sheet and every code there is a «Report a mistake» button. We read everything and correct the sheet if needed.