How we rank
detailers
Every detailer is scored by TopScore — a single 0–100 number that answers one question: how confident can a customer be that this is a genuinely top detailer?
Every listing clears a bar to be here at all
Nobody is listed on request, and nobody is listed by paying. To appear at all, a business must be a real Google-listed detailing company with at least 5 reviews and a 4.0★ average, categorised as a detailer rather than a car wash, body shop, mechanic or supply business. Everything below that line is never published.
A deeper check runs listing by listing
It costs money per business and involves reading their website, so it runs in batches rather than all at once. 2,337 of 10,056 listings (23%) have been through it so far:
| Open for business | We ask Google directly whether the business is still operating, and remove anything permanently closed. |
|---|---|
| Live website | We fetch the site and record whether it is dead, parked or broken. A well-reviewed detailer with no working website is still a real business, so that alone does not remove them. |
| Recent activity | Businesses with no reviews in roughly two years are treated as inactive. |
| Actually a detailer | We read the site and remove car washes, body shops, mechanics, tint-only and supply businesses. |
| A usable website | Blank, template-default and spammy sites are recorded as low quality. |
Listings that have not been through it yet are ranked on their review record alone. We would rather tell you which is which than imply a check we have not run.
Then we score with TopScore
Every detailer gets a single 0–100 TopScore. The base score uses what we hold for every listing:
| Rating quality · 70% | Average customer rating, credibility-adjusted (Bayesian shrinkage) so a 5.0 from 8 reviews does not outrank a 4.9 from 400. |
|---|---|
| Review volume · 22% | How many customers have weighed in, on a diminishing-returns scale. |
| Service breadth · 8% | A small nudge toward full-service shops. Deliberately small, so a specialist who does one thing superbly is not buried for it. |
Verified listings are scored on more
Once a listing has been through the deeper check, two measured inputs join the score and certifications start to count:
| Rating quality · 44% | As above, credibility-adjusted. |
|---|---|
| Review recency · 20% | How recently real customers have reviewed them. A shop reviewed this month outranks one coasting on old reviews. |
| Website quality · 18% | Whether their site is a professional, functioning detailing business — assessed by actually reading it. |
| Review volume · 18% | As above. |
| Certifications · bonus | Manufacturer certifications found on their own site (XPEL, Ceramic Pro, IDA, Gtechniq, STEK and others) earn a small bonus. |
Neither formula can be bought, and both answer the same question. The deeper check is being worked through the whole directory, so the second one is where every listing is heading.
Where each fact comes from
Not everything on a listing is known the same way, and treating a shop’s own claim as though a third party had confirmed it is how directories end up overstating. Every field we hold carries one of four levels, and nothing is presented above the level it was collected at.
| Verified | Confirmed by a source with no stake in the ranking. Business name, address, phone, location. |
|---|---|
| From Google | Google’s own data, refreshed on a schedule and dated on the record. Rating, review count, whether the business is still open. |
| They say | Stated by the business on its own website. We report it as their claim. Prices, services offered, manufacturer certifications, anything an owner adds after claiming. |
| Our reading | Our own reading of the available text. Used for ranking and filtering, never presented as fact. Review summaries, specialties, TopScore itself. |
In practice that means a price on this site is what a detailer advertises, not a quote for your vehicle; a certification is what a shop states on its own website until we have checked it against the manufacturer’s own installer list; and a review summary is our reading of what customers wrote, not a claim about the business.
Our principles
- No pay-to-play. Placement cannot be bought. Claimed listings add photos and details, but never move up the ranking.
- Verified, and we say how far that has got. 2,337 of 10,056 listings have been through the full check. The rest clear the entry bar — a real, categorised detailing business with a genuine review record — and are described that way rather than borrowing a badge they have not earned yet.
- Grounded in real reviews. Summaries are synthesized from genuine customer reviews. We never invent prices, quotes, or criticisms.
- Transparent. The checks and weights above are the whole formula — no hidden inputs and no factor we have not named. Where a check has not been run yet, this page says so.