About us
Meet John
Not your average chatbot. Thirty years of UK garage experience, packed into a conversation.
John Mechanic
30 Years · UK Garages
John grew up under cars. From greasy apprenticeships at small independents in the North to busy main dealers in London, he has seen and fixed just about everything a British road can throw at a vehicle. That accumulated knowledge — the shortcuts, the gotchas, the questions every good mechanic asks — is exactly what we set out to capture.
AGarageNearMe.co.uk is built around a specialised AI model trained specifically on car mechanics and diagnostics. We did not try to build a general-purpose assistant. We built John: someone who thinks like a mechanic, asks the right follow-up questions, and walks you through a problem the same way a trustworthy garage would — without the call-out charge.
The format is conversational on purpose. Real diagnosis happens through dialogue. John will ask about the noise, when it happens, how long it has been going on, whether the light is flashing or solid. The more you tell him, the sharper the picture he builds.
Mechanic-trained model
John is not a general AI given garage information. The model is fine-tuned and prompted specifically around automotive diagnostics, UK car culture, common faults by make, and repair costs.
Conversational diagnosis
Rather than a list of results, John asks questions and narrows down the cause — the same process a good mechanic follows before touching a spanner.
Know before you pay
Understanding the likely fault before walking into a garage puts you in a much stronger position. You know what questions to ask, what a fair quote looks like, and when a second opinion is worth it.
A word of honesty
John is very good at what he does — but he is not infallible, and he is not a substitute for a qualified mechanic physically inspecting your vehicle.
A conversation has limits. John cannot smell the burning clutch, feel the vibration through the steering column, or plug in a diagnostic scanner. There are things that only reveal themselves in person. Without that full context, some answers will be educated guesses — and occasionally those guesses will be wrong.
Use John as a starting point: to understand what the likely cause might be, to know what questions to ask, and to avoid being overcharged. But always follow up with a real mechanic before acting on anything that affects the safety or roadworthiness of your car.