HONEST MECHANIC SHOP TERMS

Version: shop_terms_v1
Last updated: August 31, 2026

These Shop Terms are an agreement between Honest Mechanic Technologies LLC ("Honest Mechanic," "HM," "we," "us," or "our") and the repair business identified during registration ("Shop," "you," or "your"). The individual accepting represents that they are legally authorized to bind the Shop.

1. Shop Service

HM provides a business portal and related infrastructure that may let a Shop request access, create authorized users, distribute referral links or QR codes, receive driver-consented cases, coordinate service, upload documents, record operational events, trigger an AI-assisted evidence summary, and view permitted customer and vehicle history.

HM is a technology and informational service. HM is not a repair facility, parts supplier, employer, franchisor, broker, insurer, warranty provider, payment intermediary, or agent of the Shop or driver unless a separate signed agreement expressly states otherwise.

2. Pilot And Commercial Terms

The Shop program currently operates as a free proof of concept. POC access does not promise continued availability, exclusivity, customer volume, ranking, leads, revenue, or conversion. During this POC, HM does not charge the Shop a platform, subscription, per-case, or per-opportunity fee, and the POC does not authorize HM to collect repair payments for the Shop or the Shop to collect HM subscription charges.

Monetization is outside the current POC. If HM validates the business model and later proposes monetization, HM will first update the applicable commercial and legal terms, provide notice, and obtain any acceptance required before charging. Any later order form, pricing schedule, or data-processing addendum will control only the subject it addresses.

3. Independent Shop And Service Relationship

The Shop is an independent business. The Shop alone decides whether to accept a customer and is solely responsible for inspections, diagnoses, estimates, authorizations, pricing, taxes, parts, labor, repair methods, timing, storage, towing, payment, delivery, warranties, callbacks, refunds, disputes, and compliance with consumer and automotive-service laws.

The service relationship and every agreement about inspection, diagnosis, authorization, estimates, price, payment, parts, labor, timing, vehicle custody, repair, delivery, warranty, correction, damage, or dispute are exclusively between the Shop and the driver. HM does not negotiate or approve those terms; set or collect repair charges; select parts; direct, supervise, inspect, approve, or perform the work; take custody of the vehicle; or provide the Shop's warranty.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, HM does not assume the Shop's responsibilities or the driver's responsibilities and is not responsible for either party's acts, omissions, statements, authorizations, payments, work, nonperformance, property damage, personal injury, warranty obligations, or disputes arising from that relationship. The Shop must look to the driver for authorizations, accurate customer-supplied information, and agreed payment, and the driver must look to the Shop for service, records, corrections, and warranties.

The Shop must not state or imply that HM employs, controls, certifies, licenses, endorses, guarantees, or is responsible for the Shop or its work. A listing, referral, QR code, case, badge, or use of HM tools is not certification or endorsement.

HM remains responsible for operating its own service in accordance with these Terms and applicable law. Nothing excludes responsibility that cannot lawfully be excluded.

4. Eligibility, Licenses, Insurance, And Compliance

The Shop represents throughout its use that it is lawfully formed and authorized to operate; maintains all licenses, registrations, permits, insurance, bonds, training, and qualifications required for its services and personnel; provides legally required estimates, disclosures, approvals, invoices, warranties, and records; follows safety, environmental, tax, accessibility, employment, telemarketing, privacy, and consumer-protection requirements; and will promptly notify HM if any material authorization is suspended, revoked, or materially restricted.

HM may request reasonable verification. Verification by HM is administrative only and does not transfer the Shop's professional or legal duties to HM.

5. Authorized Users And Account Security

Only authorized personnel may access the Shop account. The Shop is responsible for user invitations, roles, least-privilege access, accurate account information, secure devices, confidential passwords, and promptly revoking former personnel. Credentials and invitation or session links must not be shared.

The Shop must promptly notify support@honestmechanic.ai of suspected unauthorized access, compromised credentials, incorrect ownership, or misuse. Actions taken through valid Shop credentials may be treated as authorized until HM receives and can reasonably act on notice, except where law provides otherwise.

6. Driver Choice And Consent

The Shop may use HM only for drivers who voluntarily connect or affirmatively submit a case through an HM flow. A referral association does not grant access to all of a driver's scans, chats, vehicles, or history. The Shop may access only information HM makes available for the consented case and permitted customer/vehicle history.

Each case is a service opportunity initiated by the driver's express choice. It is not automatically distributed among shops, published as a public marketplace listing, or authorization for unrelated marketing.

The Shop must not pressure a driver to share information, bypass the HM consent flow, reuse a case for an unrelated person or purpose, or claim the driver must use HM to receive ordinary repair service. The Shop is responsible for any separate authorization required to inspect, diagnose, repair, test-drive, communicate with, or charge the customer.

7. Permitted Use Of Case Data

The Shop may use case data only to evaluate and respond to the driver's request, coordinate an appointment, provide authorized automotive service, document that service, manage a warranty or correction, satisfy recordkeeping obligations, and protect legal rights. Access must be limited to personnel with a legitimate need.

The Shop must not sell case data; use it for unrelated advertising or profiling; enrich unrelated customer lists; disclose it to unauthorized parties; scrape or bulk export HM data; attempt to identify other HM users; or use HM information for discriminatory, deceptive, harmful, or unlawful purposes. Marketing requires a separate lawful basis or opt-in and must honor opt-outs.

8. Shop Content And Documents

The Shop retains its rights in lawful original content. The Shop represents that each estimate, work order, invoice, photograph, note, completion statement, and other submission is authentic to the applicable transaction, materially accurate when submitted, lawfully obtained, not misleading by omission, and uploaded with all required customer and third-party permissions.

The Shop must identify recommendations, declined work, estimates, completed work, warranty work, and observations accurately. A recommendation or invoice line must not be presented as proof of a completed repair. Do not upload payment-card details, government identifiers, health information, credentials, unrelated personal information, illegal content, malware, or material the Shop has no right to use.

The Shop grants HM a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license for as long as reasonably necessary to provide and protect the service to host, store, reproduce, format, transmit, analyze, translate, and display Shop content to authorized users, the applicable driver, and HM service providers. HM does not acquire ownership of the Shop's original documents.

This limited license may continue after case or account closure only for as long as reasonably necessary to maintain the driver's authorized vehicle history, provenance, corrections, audit evidence, an active dispute, or a lawful retention requirement.

9. Case Status, Completion, And Customer Communications

The Shop must use statuses and completion actions honestly. Marking work complete means the Shop has completed the work it chose to document for that case; it does not cause HM to certify the repair. Operational statuses, appointments, and messages do not replace legally required customer authorizations or notices.

When the Shop marks work complete, HM may associate eligible case events, documents, owner feedback, and a sufficiently grounded evidence summary with the authorized history for that vehicle. Each item remains attributed as documented by the Shop, reported by the owner, observed or explained by HM, or inferred by HM. Case closure or the Shop later leaving the program does not automatically remove that history entry.

HM does not automatically disclose that entry to another Shop. A different Shop receives it or any part of it only after the driver selects that Shop and affirmatively authorizes the information identified in a new handoff flow.

The Shop is responsible for communicating urgent safety information directly to the customer through appropriate channels. HM notifications are a convenience, may be delayed or unavailable, and are not an emergency system. The Shop must maintain its own service, warranty, and customer-communication records where required.

10. AI Analysis, Attribution, And Neutrality

HM may use automated systems to extract structured information from eligible Shop documents, compare it with the original case, prepare bilingual repair-evidence summaries, and answer the driver's questions. HM intends to attribute documented statements to the Shop or source and distinguish them from HM observations, driver feedback, and automated inferences.

AI output may be incomplete or wrong and is not a statement by the Shop unless it quotes or accurately reflects Shop-provided material. It is not a warranty, certification, accusation, final diagnosis, safety clearance, or proof that a condition was or was not resolved. HM will not intentionally portray a follow-up recommendation as evidence that the Shop acted improperly.

Case summaries and chat are intended to explain the Shop's documented work and instructions neutrally. HM may describe evidence limitations or recommended follow-up, but must not convert them by themselves into a discrepancy, accusation, or conclusion that the Shop performed defective work.

The Shop may not present HM output as its professional diagnosis, warranty, safety certification, or substitute for its own records and judgment. HM may withhold, regenerate, annotate, restrict, or withdraw an automated summary when evidence is insufficient, attribution is unclear, or a material error is reported.

11. Corrections And Disputes

The Shop must promptly correct material inaccuracies it controls and preserve any original record required by law. The Shop may report an HM platform, attribution, or summary error and provide supporting information. HM may maintain an audit trail, note a correction, regenerate or withdraw content, or restrict visibility while investigating.

Corrections retain provenance and, where needed for integrity or audit, are added as a version, annotation, or later event rather than silently replacing the original source record.

HM is not required to decide diagnosis, negligence, price, authorization, payment, warranty, employment, or other disputes between the Shop, customer, employee, insurer, manufacturer, or third party. HM may cooperate with lawful requests but does not become a party to the underlying service relationship.

12. Privacy, Confidentiality, And Security

The Shop must comply with the Shop Privacy Notice, applicable privacy and security laws, and its own accurate privacy disclosures. It must use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards; secure devices and networks; limit downloads; prevent shared credentials; train authorized personnel; safely dispose of records; and bind vendors with appropriate confidentiality and security duties.

The Shop must not make privacy promises that conflict with actual practices. The Shop is independently responsible for copies it downloads, prints, transmits, or stores outside HM. If applicable law requires a controller-processor or similar data agreement for a particular use, the parties will execute the required agreement before that processing; these Terms alone do not assign every legal privacy role for every jurisdiction.

13. Security And Privacy Incidents

The Shop must notify HM without undue delay, and no later than 24 hours after discovery where reasonably possible, of suspected unauthorized access, disclosure, loss, alteration, malware, credential compromise, or other incident involving HM systems or HM-provided case data. Notice must include known facts and may be updated as the investigation proceeds.

The Shop must preserve evidence, contain the incident, cooperate with HM and affected providers, avoid misleading statements, and make legally required notices for systems or copies under the Shop's control. HM may take protective action, including revoking sessions or suspending access. Contractual notice to HM does not replace any shorter legal deadline or duty to notify customers or authorities.

14. Acceptable Use

The Shop must not impersonate another business; submit fraudulent or fabricated records; manipulate reviews, referrals, cases, or metrics; access another Shop or driver without permission; bypass security or consent; probe or disrupt systems; introduce malware; reverse engineer private APIs except where law expressly permits; scrape, resell, or create a competing dataset from HM; infringe rights; harass users; or use HM unlawfully.

15. HM Brand And Intellectual Property

HM and its software, designs, models, documentation, trademarks, and service content remain HM property or that of its licensors. Subject to these Terms, HM grants the Shop a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the portal and HM-provided referral materials for the pilot.

The Shop may not alter HM marks, create confusing branding, imply endorsement, register similar domains or social accounts, or use HM materials outside the approved purpose. The Shop's own name and logo remain its property; displaying them in the portal or referral material is authorized only to operate the service.

16. Feedback, Ratings, And Publicity

HM may use general product feedback without restriction or compensation. Neither party may publicly use the other's name, logo, case details, or relationship as an endorsement, testimonial, press announcement, or advertising campaign without permission, except for accurate service identification and approved referral materials. Driver ratings or feedback may be moderated for authenticity, relevance, privacy, and safety.

17. Suspension And Termination

HM may approve, reject, limit, suspend, or terminate Shop access to protect users, security, service integrity, legal rights, or the pilot; investigate suspected violations; respond to expired or revoked licenses; or comply with law. Where appropriate, HM will provide notice and an opportunity to correct, but immediate action may be taken for urgent risk, fraud, unauthorized access, or legal necessity.

The Shop may request account closure through support@honestmechanic.ai. Closure ends future portal access but does not automatically erase driver records, original business records, acceptance and audit logs, open disputes, or information lawfully retained under the Shop Privacy Notice. The Shop must return or securely dispose of HM-provided data it no longer has a lawful need to retain.

18. Disclaimer Of Warranties

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SHOP SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE." HM DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, AND QUIET ENJOYMENT. HM DOES NOT WARRANT CUSTOMER VOLUME, LEAD QUALITY, REVENUE, APPOINTMENTS, VEHICLES, ADAPTERS, DOCUMENTS, SHOP OR DRIVER STATEMENTS, DIAGNOSES, REPAIRS, RESULTS, OR AI OUTPUT. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW CERTAIN DISCLAIMERS, SO THEY APPLY ONLY TO THE EXTENT LAWFUL.

19. Limitation Of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, HM AND ITS OFFICERS, MEMBERS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES; LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, CUSTOMERS, OR OPPORTUNITY; VEHICLE DAMAGE; BODILY INJURY; REPAIR, TOWING, STORAGE, WARRANTY, OR REFUND COSTS; CUSTOMER OR EMPLOYEE ACTS; OR CLAIMS ARISING FROM THE SHOP'S SERVICES, DOCUMENTS, REPRESENTATIONS, SECURITY, OR LEGAL COMPLIANCE.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, HM'S TOTAL LIABILITY ARISING FROM THE SHOP SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF US$100 OR THE AMOUNT THE SHOP PAID DIRECTLY TO HM FOR THE SHOP SERVICE DURING THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT. THESE LIMITS DO NOT APPLY TO LIABILITY THAT CANNOT LAWFULLY BE LIMITED, INCLUDING WHERE APPLICABLE HM'S FRAUD, WILLFUL MISCONDUCT, OR OTHER NON-WAIVABLE RESPONSIBILITY.

20. Shop Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, the Shop will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless HM and its officers, members, employees, and contractors from third-party claims, damages, judgments, settlements, penalties, and reasonable legal costs arising from the Shop's services, diagnoses, estimates, repairs, warranties, personnel, taxes, documents, content, customer communications, unlawful data use, security failures under its control, material breach of these Terms, or violation of law or third-party rights. This obligation does not apply to the extent a claim results from HM's own negligence, willful misconduct, or violation of law.

21. Governing Law And Disputes

These Terms are governed by Florida law, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Before filing a claim, the Shop and HM will attempt in good faith for 30 days to resolve it through hello@honestmechanic.ai. Unless applicable law requires otherwise, unresolved claims may be brought in a state or federal court with jurisdiction in Florida. This draft does not require arbitration or a class-action waiver; counsel must approve any future clause of that kind before publication.

22. General Terms

These Terms, the Shop Privacy Notice, and any signed order form or addendum form the agreement about the Shop service. If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain effective. Failure to enforce is not a waiver. The Shop may not assign these Terms without HM's written consent. HM may assign them in connection with financing, merger, reorganization, or sale. No partnership, joint venture, fiduciary, employment, franchise, or agency relationship is created. Neither party is liable for delay caused by events reasonably outside its control.

23. Changes And Acceptance Records

HM may update the Shop service or these Terms. Material changes after publication require a new version, notice, and re-acceptance where required. HM may record the version, cryptographic hash, language, Shop, accepting user, role, timestamp, and related audit metadata. Acceptance by an authorized user binds the Shop.

24. Contact

Shop program and contract questions: hello@honestmechanic.ai

Technical and account support: support@honestmechanic.ai

Privacy questions or requests: privacy@honestmechanic.ai