mechanics.tradePrivacy notice
What mechanics.trade holds about the people who use it and about the garages it lists: where it comes from, why, who else handles it, and for how long. Looking for a garage needs no account.
Who we are
This site is run by mechanics.trade, 7 Princes St, Edinburgh. To reach us, use the contact form or write to the address above.
We decide how the personal details described here are used, which makes us the controller under UK data protection law.
If your garage is listed
What we publish. The trading name, which for a sole trader can be your own name; the address, postcode and phone number of the test station; the vehicle classes it is authorised to test and how many test bays it has; for a company, when it was registered, its previous names, what else it is registered to do and the town of its registered office; and, where the open map has them, its opening hours, website and the payments it takes.
Where it comes from. Public sources: the DVSA register of active MOT test stations, Companies House, OpenStreetMap, and whatever the garage sends us. The DVSA and Companies House records are published under the Open Government Licence. The MOT pass rates on the site come from DVSA's anonymised test results and say nothing about any one garage or driver.
Why, and the basis. Legitimate interests: the public's interest in a free, factual list of the garages near them that can test their vehicle, with direct contact details and no fee, and ours in publishing it. We weighed that against yours. We publish only details already public so customers can contact the garage; we add no reviews, ratings or verdicts; a home address appears only where DVSA publishes it as the test station's address; and a listing costs nothing.
Your choices. You can object at any time and we take the listing down, or ask us to correct it. Use the Modify listing button on its page, or the contact form. There is no charge and no condition. A listing stays while the station is on the DVSA register and is taken down when it leaves it.
If you use the site to find a garage
| When | What we keep | Why, and the lawful basis | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| You post a job request | The job you describe (the service, your answers to the job card, the town and the first half of your postcode, when you need it and your description), your name, phone number and email address, and the messages you and businesses send each other about it | To pass your request to the Premium garages who cover your area. They see the job, your name and your phone number, and can reply to you here. They never see your email address: it is kept only to confirm your request and to tell you when a business replies. Basis: doing what you asked us to do | 90 days from posting, then deleted with every message. You can delete it sooner from your private job page. A request you do not confirm is deleted after 48 hours |
| You send a garage an enquiry | Your name, email, phone if given, message, the days that suit you, and your job card: the job, the make, model and year of the car, its fuel and rough mileage, whether it can be driven to the garage, when you need it and the first half of your postcode | To pass your enquiry to the garage you chose (only garages with Premium take enquiries), which replies to you directly. Basis: doing what you asked us to do | 12 months, then deleted. The garage keeps the email we sent it under its own privacy terms |
| You open a listing or tap its number | A count per listing per day. To count you once a day, a one-way code made from your IP address and a secret that changes daily, never the address itself | For the garage's monthly figures, and to limit spam on the forms. Basis: legitimate interests | The code: deleted after a day. The daily counts, which identify nobody: 2 years |
| You use the contact or listing form | Your name, email, the garage name and message, and the listing the form was opened from | To answer you and to correct the listing. Basis: legitimate interests in replying | In our mailbox while we deal with it, and up to 2 years after |
Your saved garages, the numbers you marked as called, the boxes an owner ticks to say where else they take work, a form you were part way through, and any job card you save are kept in your own browser, not sent to us. Clearing the site's data in your browser deletes them. The job card leaves your browser only inside an enquiry you send, and only to that garage. Saving it from the enquiry form is off unless you tick the box.
Some profiles carry a form to post your job on Taskerama.com, a separate site. What you type into it goes straight to Taskerama.com when you press the button, not to us, and Taskerama's own privacy terms cover it from then.
If you claim or pay for a listing
| When | What we keep | Why, and the lawful basis | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| You ask us to add your business | What you enter on the add your business form (the business name, services, town, area, phone, website, hours and description), the email you give, and how the request was decided. With fast-track and Premium, the Stripe numbers as below | To check the business and set up its listing and account. Basis: doing what you asked us to do | Once your listing is set up, as the listing's record; a request we do not take forward, 90 days; one left undecided, 12 months |
| You claim a listing | The email you give, and a record of the claim: when, how it was decided, and whether it was accepted | To check you run the garage before you can sign in. Basis: legitimate interests | An accepted claim while the listing is claimed; a rejected, superseded or undecided one 90 days |
| You sign in | A one-time link and a session, both stored only as a keyed code, and a session cookie in your browser | To keep you signed in to your dashboard. Basis: providing the service you asked for | Links last 30 minutes and are deleted a day later; sessions 30 days |
| You use the dashboard | Your settings, and on Premium your price list, note, availability and the photos you upload, with their captions and before and after pairing (we remove the location and camera details stored inside a photo before keeping it, and each one is reviewed) | To show them on your profile. Basis: our contract with you | While the listing is claimed. When Premium ends they stop showing, and are deleted 90 days later |
| You pay for Premium | Your Stripe customer and subscription numbers, the plan, the date it is paid to, and when you accepted the terms. Card details go to Stripe only | To run the Premium you bought. Basis: our contract with you, and tax law | While the account exists; Stripe keeps payment records as long as tax law requires |
| A person checked your garage (before 12 October 2026, when Premium stopped including the check) | When it was done, whether by your published phone number or email, which of the listing's details you confirmed, and a short note | To show the Owner verified badge truthfully. Basis: our contract with you | 2 years; a check that could not be completed, 90 days |
| We email you | Enquiries (on Premium), the monthly report and the result of a check | To run the listing tools. The monthly report rests on legitimate interests, and every one has a one-click link to stop it | Sent, not stored, beyond the records above |
Cookies
One cookie, and only for garage owners who sign in: a session cookie that keeps the dashboard open for up to 30 days. The spam check on forms (Cloudflare Turnstile) reads technical details of your browser to tell people from scripts. There are no advertising cookies, no analytics scripts and no tracking across sites.
Who else handles it
- Cloudflare hosts the site, the database and owners' photos, runs the spam check, and sends and receives our email.
- Stripe takes owners' payments for us; card details go to Stripe and never reach us.
- Mail to our address is forwarded by Cloudflare to our mailbox at Google (Gmail), which also holds those messages. Replies go out from that mailbox.
- A garage on Premium you send an enquiry to receives what you wrote by email, through its own mailbox provider, and is responsible for it from then.
Nothing is sold, and nothing is passed to anyone else for marketing.
Outside the UK
Cloudflare, Stripe and Google (which holds our Gmail mailbox) are based outside the UK and may process these details outside it. Those transfers rely on the UK extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the company has signed up to it, and otherwise on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum in its data processing terms.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, have it corrected, have it deleted, restrict how we use it, object to our using it where we rely on legitimate interests (and always to any marketing), and receive what you gave us in a format you can reuse. No decision about you is made automatically.
Ask through the contact form or by post to the address above. UK data protection law gives us one month to answer in full. If you are unhappy with the answer you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.
Last updated 19 October 2026. Terms for garages · About this site