The Auto Repair Data Pack. Every Number You Need, Pulled Once
Search demand, posted shop prices, metro interest, shop counts by city, review themes and 115 ready content briefs for US auto repair. One set, cleaned and joined, so you skip the API bills and the days of runs.
Who It Is For
- Agencies and writers who publish for repair shops and want real prices, real questions and real demand in every post.
- Software and parts companies sizing the shop market city by city.
- AI content teams that want an agent to write from a brief instead of paying to research the same facts again for every post.
What Is Inside
Search demand
16,888 repair searches with Google volume, cost per click, difficulty and 12 months of history, grouped into 115 repair jobs. Then 15,330 long tail searches from Google and Bing suggestions that were not in that set. The 776 that both engines showed carry fresh volume. 733 of them have volume, about 2,134,020 searches a month combined, and 203 sit at 1,000 or more.
What shops actually charge
We crawled 22,085 independent shop websites and read 18,181, with chains and dealers left out. 207 shops state a labor rate. The median is $129 an hour and the middle half runs $100 to $165.
| Item | Shops | Low | Median | High |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labor rate per hour | 207 | $100 | $129 | $165 |
| Oil change | 569 | $49 | $69 | $90 |
| Diagnostic fee | 504 | $80 | $100 | $150 |
| Smog check | 262 | $36 | $45 | $59 |
| Wheel alignment | 198 | $79 | $99 | $119 |
| Brake pads per axle | 197 | $135 | $180 | $259 |
| Battery replacement | 188 | $110 | $150 | $200 |
| Synthetic oil change | 139 | $59 | $70 | $99 |
Labor rate by state
Median posted hourly labor rate at independent shops, by state. Shops is how many shop websites in that state post a rate.
| State | Shops | Low | Median | High |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CA | 53 | $100 | $160 | $185 |
| MO | 3 | $125 | $150 | $150 |
| FL | 15 | $125 | $149 | $175 |
| MN | 3 | $120 | $149 | $175 |
| MI | 3 | $122 | $145 | $150 |
| NY | 6 | $125 | $145 | $190 |
| VA | 3 | $125 | $140 | $175 |
| NC | 4 | $125 | $132 | $180 |
| WA | 15 | $110 | $130 | $175 |
| PA | 7 | $80 | $130 | $175 |
| OR | 5 | $100 | $126 | $179 |
| TX | 13 | $110 | $125 | $145 |
| NV | 4 | $100 | $125 | $190 |
| TN | 6 | $100 | $125 | $175 |
| AZ | 5 | $125 | $125 | $125 |
| SC | 3 | $75 | $125 | $150 |
| IL | 4 | $100 | $122 | $150 |
| CO | 3 | $100 | $120 | $175 |
| UT | 8 | $100 | $110 | $130 |
| KY | 3 | $75 | $110 | $110 |
| WI | 4 | $90 | $107 | $187 |
| ME | 3 | $75 | $100 | $115 |
| IN | 3 | $90 | $90 | $120 |
| OH | 6 | $69 | $75 | $140 |
More jobs from the same shop websites, added October 31. Each row has 15 or more shops.
| Job | Shops | Low | Median | High |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brake job | 160 | $140 | $189 | $305 |
| Brake pads and rotors | 82 | $225 | $312 | $400 |
| Flat tire repair | 44 | $25 | $40 | $65 |
| Tire mount and balance per tire | 37 | $25 | $25 | $60 |
| Jump start | 32 | $50 | $75 | $85 |
| Engine diagnostic | 32 | $69 | $89 | $125 |
| Headlight restoration | 27 | $49 | $79 | $125 |
| AC repair diagnostic | 26 | $95 | $120 | $180 |
Where demand runs hot
Search interest for 42 repair terms across 210 metro areas, indexed against the average metro, plus a profile of what each metro over indexes on.
The shop market by city
Shop counts and quality for 2,083 cities, and a map of all 1,581 US cities over 25,000 people with shops per 10,000 residents. 783 of those cities are flagged thin.
What owners say and ask
23,409 public shop reviews from all 51 states, boiled down to themes, star mix, price verdicts and the jobs that go wrong most. No review text and no reviewer names. Plus 1,846 questions people ask Google and ranked owner complaints counted from public Reddit posts.
Who wins the results page
Result page breakdowns for repair searches. AI answers and the sites they cite, forums, video, local pack and the domains that hold the top 10.
115 content briefs
One brief per repair job, ready for a writer or an agent. Target keywords, the questions Google shows, symptoms, car type notes, owner pain, what ranks today, the gap to beat it and the sources to cite.
What It Costs to Collect Yourself
These are list rate estimates for pulling the same data on your own. They do not count your time.
| Piece | Size | Data cost |
|---|---|---|
| Search volume, questions and result pages, plus a national shop file to build city stats | 16,888 searches, 45,676 shops at $3 per 1,000 | about $143 |
| Agent or analyst work to clean and join it | one pass | about $200 (est) |
| Long tail searches for all 115 jobs | about 50,000 more searches | $9 (est) |
| Search volume by metro | 210 metros | $19 (est) |
| Questions for every job, plus local results in 50 metros | about 1,350 result pages | $6 (est) |
| Shop map for every US city over 25,000 people | about 1,400 cities, 4 shop types | $34 (est) |
| Shop reviews mined for real prices and labor rates | about 2,000 shops | $15 to $40 (est) |
| Total | plus 1 to 2 days of runs | about $428 to $453 |
And per post
An agent that researches live spends about $3.90 a post on cache reads and search data, and saves nothing for the next one. Writing from a brief in this pack runs about $0.27 a post (est). Across 115 posts that is about $449 of research you only pay for once.
With the pack you skip the API accounts, the rate limits, the cleanup and the joins. You get one set of files with sources and dates on every one.
Free Samples
Every file has a free sample of about 5 percent of its rows. Totals files show their top level numbers and the names of the tables inside. The manifest lists every file with rows, columns, source and collection date.
| File | Rows | What | Source | Collected | Free sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| keywords.csv | 16,888 | Every repair search with monthly volume, cost per click, difficulty, intent, trend, peak month and 12 months of history. | DataForSEO, Google US (Google Ads volume) | 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-25 | Sample |
| repair_jobs.csv | 115 | One row per repair job. Demand, click value, questions, owner money mentioned, result page makeup, parts range and labor hours. | Joined from the files in this pack plus MechanicRank repair guides | 2026-10-25 | Sample |
| repair_jobs.jsonl | 115 | The same 115 jobs with top keywords, questions, symptoms, car type notes and sources nested in each record. | Joined from the files in this pack plus MechanicRank repair guides | 2026-10-25 | Sample |
| questions.csv | 1,846 | Questions people ask about car repair, how many result pages show each one and who answers it. | DataForSEO, Google US (People Also Ask and AI answers) | 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-25 | Sample |
| pain_points.csv | 36 | Ranked owner complaints with post counts, anger score and the median dollar amount owners mention. | Public Reddit posts, counted and paraphrased. No usernames or post text | 2026-10-25 | Sample |
| reddit_topic_stats.csv | 19 | Post counts, anger score and median money mentioned for each repair topic. | Public Reddit posts, counted only | 2026-10-25 | Sample |
| serp_features.csv | 78 | What each search result page shows. AI answer, cited sites, forums, video, local pack and the top 10 domains. | DataForSEO, Google US (organic and advanced SERP) | 2026-10-25 | Sample |
| serp_domains.csv | 934 | Which sites win repair searches, by topic, with top 3 counts, AI answer citations and share of voice. | DataForSEO, Google US (organic and advanced SERP) | 2026-10-25 | Sample |
| shop_market_by_city.csv | 2,083 | Shop counts and quality for 2,083 US cities. Shop types, median rating, share with a website, Sunday hours and mobile repair. | Public business listings, city totals only | 2026-10-25 | Sample |
| long_tail.csv | 15,971 | Long tail repair searches pulled from search suggestions, with seed job, intent and which engines showed it. | Google and Bing search suggestions | 2026-10-30 | Sample |
| long_tail_both_volume.csv | 776 | The 776 long tail searches both engines suggested, with US monthly volume, cost per click, competition and bid range. | DataForSEO, Google US (Google Ads volume) | 2026-10-31 | Sample |
| trends_metro.csv | 7,691 | Search interest for 42 repair terms in 210 metro areas, with an index against the average metro. | Google Trends by metro area | 2026-10-30 | Sample |
| metro_profiles.csv | 210 | One row per metro with population and the repair searches it over indexes on most. | Google Trends by metro area plus Census populations | 2026-10-30 | Sample |
| posted_prices.csv | 16 | Prices independent shops post on their own websites. Labor rate, oil change, diagnostic fee, brakes and more, with the middle half range. | Independent shop websites, 22,085 crawled, robots.txt respected | 2026-10-30 | Sample |
| posted_prices_by_state.csv | 116 | Median posted price by state and item. | Independent shop websites, 22,085 crawled, robots.txt respected | 2026-10-30 | Sample |
| posted_prices_jobs.csv | 8 | Posted prices for more repair jobs (brake job, pads and rotors, flat repair, tire mount and balance, jump start and more), each with 15 or more shops. | Independent shop websites, 18,181 read, robots.txt respected | 2026-10-31 | Sample |
| labor_rate_by_state.csv | 24 | Median posted labor rate per hour by state with the middle half range. | Independent shop websites, 22,085 crawled, robots.txt respected | 2026-10-30 | Sample |
| shop_map_cities_25k.csv | 1,581 | Every US city over 25,000 people with population, shop counts from two sources, shops per 10,000 people and a thin market flag. | OpenStreetMap plus Census 2023 place populations | 2026-10-30 | Sample |
| review_themes.csv | 18 | What good and bad shop reviews talk about, and how much more often each theme shows up in bad ones. | 23,409 public shop reviews, totals only. No review text or reviewer names | 2026-10-30 | Sample |
| review_jobs.csv | 14 | Which repair jobs show up in reviews and the share of each that are 1 or 2 stars. | 23,409 public shop reviews, totals only. No review text or reviewer names | 2026-10-30 | Sample |
| review_stats.json | 12 | Review totals. Star mix, price verdicts, top services, owner reply rates and dealer savings. | 23,409 public shop reviews, totals only. No review text or reviewer names | 2026-10-30 | Sample |
| research_stats.json | 4 | Run totals for the long tail, metro and shop map work, including top metros for each term. | Summary of the files above | 2026-10-30 | Sample |
| briefs.jsonl | 115 | One ready content brief per repair job. Target keywords, questions Google shows, symptoms, car type notes, owner pain, what ranks, the gap to beat it and sources to cite. Also shipped as 115 separate JSON files. | Built from the files in this pack | 2026-10-25 | Sample |
Preview, long tail searches with volume
| Keyword | Monthly volume us | Cpc | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|
| cv axle replacement | 18100 | 2.48 | MEDIUM |
| wheel alignment how much does it cost | 9900 | 2.87 | MEDIUM |
| wheel alignment for car | 6600 | 3.83 | LOW |
| tire rotation how many miles | 1600 | 3.6 | LOW |
| strut replacement near me | 1000 | 5.65 | HIGH |
| transmission rebuild cost 4l60e | 1000 | 3.13 | MEDIUM |
Preview, repair jobs
| Job | Category | Monthly searches | Avg cpc usd | Peak month | Parts low usd | Parts high usd | Labor hours low | Labor hours high |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engine Repair (general) | Engine | 70720 | 5.63 | Oct | ||||
| Intake Manifold Gasket Replacement | Engine | 14090 | 1.86 | Mar | 40 | 300 | 2.0 | 6.0 |
| Purge Valve Replacement | Exhaust | 7650 | 1.2 | Mar | 40 | 180 | 0.6 | 1.6 |
Preview, metro search interest
| Term | Dma | Trends value | Index vs avg metro |
|---|---|---|---|
| oil change | Tri-Cities TN-VA | 58 | 121 |
| oil change | Greenville-Spartanburg SC-Asheville NC-Anderson SC | 56 | 117 |
| oil change | Clarksburg-Weston WV | 42 | 88 |
| oil change | Great Falls MT | 47 | 98 |
| oil change | Palm Springs CA | 31 | 65 |
| oil change | Seattle-Tacoma WA | 38 | 79 |
Preview, shop market by city
| State | City | Shops | Mobile capable pct | Median rating | Pct with website | Pct open sunday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PA | Philadelphia | 96 | 70.8 | 4.8 | 62.5 | 54.2 |
| CA | Burbank | 79 | 7.6 | 4.8 | 68.4 | 11.4 |
| CA | Orange | 74 | 4.1 | 4.8 | 66.2 | 16.2 |
| FL | Fort Lauderdale | 53 | 75.5 | 4.9 | 64.2 | 66.0 |
| CA | Daly City | 45 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 80.0 | 13.3 |
| CA | Lawndale | 43 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 60.5 | 9.3 |
Preview, content briefs
The brief sample has these jobs.
- ABS Wheel Speed Sensor Replacement, 1,920 searches a month, 3 target keywords, 8 questions
- AC Compressor Replacement, 63,830 searches a month, 8 target keywords, 6 questions
- AC Condenser Replacement, 12,760 searches a month, 8 target keywords, 8 questions
- AC Recharge, 185,000 searches a month, 8 target keywords, 12 questions
- Alternator Replacement, 440,980 searches a month, 8 target keywords, 18 questions
- Ball Joint Replacement, 28,960 searches a month, 4 target keywords, 8 questions
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