Privacy
Nothing you type here leaves your browser. The ads are Google's, and you can say no to them.
What the site itself keeps
Diagsheet has no accounts, no sign-in and no forms. The search box runs in your browser against a list of vehicle names, and the odometer and the tick sheets work the same way: what you type is used on the page in front of you and is sent nowhere. Your light or dark theme choice is kept in your browser's local storage. So, once you allow analytics, is a random visitor ID for our own visit counter (see Analytics below). Nothing else is stored on your device on the site's behalf.
The site is served by Cloudflare, which logs requests the way any web host does, to keep the site up and to filter attacks, and publishes its own privacy policy. Fonts load from Google Fonts, which receives your browser's request for the font files and nothing else from this site. The rest of this page covers Google's advertising and analytics, and the small visit counter we run ourselves.
Advertising
Diagsheet carries advertising supplied by Google AdSense. Google is a third-party vendor and uses cookies to serve ads on this site. Those cookies let Google and its partners show ads based on your visits to Diagsheet and to other sites on the internet, and measure whether the ads were seen.
Ads appear in two places: one unit partway down a vehicle, symptom, recall, first-year or model page, after the part you came for, and one at the end of most pages. A slot Google has nothing to show in collapses rather than sitting empty. Error pages, the make listings, the contact page and this page carry no ads. Google's systems choose what appears in them; nobody at Diagsheet does, and no advertiser has any say in what the pages report.
Ads can be personalized or not. Personalized ads are only served where you have allowed advertising cookies, or where the law works by opt-out and you have not opted out. You can turn off personalized advertising across the whole web in Google's Ads Settings. How Google uses information from sites that use its services explains what Google collects, and Google's advertising policies cover the rest.
Analytics
The site uses Google Analytics 4 to count visits. It records which pages were viewed, the approximate location Google works out from your IP address, the type of device and browser, and how you arrived at the site. It does not record what you typed into the search, the odometer or a tick sheet, because none of that leaves your browser in the first place.
In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, analytics storage is off until you allow it. Until then Google gets a cookieless signal that a page was viewed and nothing that identifies your browser between visits.
We also run our own visit counter. It runs on our Cloudflare account and its records end up on a computer we control, not with an analytics company. It sets no cookies and never stores your IP address. It notes the page, the page that sent you, your browser, your screen and window size, a few device details (touch support, processor cores, memory, time zone and language), how long the page stayed open and how far you scrolled, and a rough location and network provider (Cloudflare works those out from the connection). Once you allow analytics, it keeps a random ID in your browser so we can tell a returning reader from a new one. With the same permission it checks whether the ads on the page could load, or whether an ad blocker stopped or hid them, and notes the answer with that page view. We use it to count what share of readers block ads. Nothing on the site changes because of it. Its records are deleted after 14 months.
Cookies and your choices
What happens before any Google script sets anything depends on where you are, because the law does.
In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, all four Google consent signals start denied: advertising storage, advertising user data, ad personalization and analytics storage. A consent message asks first. It is Google's own certified consent management platform, registered under the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework, and until you answer it nothing is stored for advertising or analytics. You can see the message again, change your answer or withdraw consent entirely with the Privacy settings link at the bottom of every page. Withdrawing is one click, the same as giving it.
Everywhere else, including the United States, those signals start granted, which is how opt-out privacy law works, so ads may be personalized unless you opt out. The Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information link at the bottom of every page does that: the opt-out is passed to Google and its advertising partners as a restricted data processing signal, and the site works exactly the same afterwards.
If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland
The legal basis for advertising and analytics cookies is your consent, and nothing is stored until you give it. The legal basis for running the site itself, including the request logging and security filtering Cloudflare does, is a legitimate interest in keeping a working website online. Our own counter records a page view without its ID on the same footing: a legitimate interest in knowing which pages get read and in spotting bots. With no IP address and no ID, one of those visits can't be tied to the next. That part has no consent message because it is not optional and involves no tracking across sites.
If you are in California or another US state with a privacy law
Serving personalized ads can count as a sale or a share of personal information under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the CPRA, and under similar laws in other states. Use the Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information link in the footer to opt out. These laws also give you the right to know what personal information has been collected about you, to have it deleted, to correct it, and not to be treated differently for asking. Diagsheet holds no account, no name, no email address and nothing you typed. Personal information here means what Google's advertising and analytics cookies collect, which you reach fastest through your Google account controls, and our own counter's records, which carry only a random browser ID. Clearing your browser storage cuts the link between you and those records.
Affiliate links
Diagsheet is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program that lets sites earn fees by linking to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Some symptom sheets suggest a tool for checking the problem yourself, like a code reader or a battery tester, with a link to it on Amazon. Those links carry our tracking ID. If you buy something after following one, Amazon pays us a small share and you pay the same price you would anyway. We never suggest parts, because we can't check that a part fits your car, and a tool only shows up on a sheet where it helps with that problem.
Following one of those links takes you to Amazon, which sets its own cookies under its own privacy notice. Amazon reports how many orders came through the site, never who placed them, and nothing you typed here goes with you.
The complaints on this site
Owner complaints shown here are public records published by NHTSA. NHTSA removes names before publishing; this site shows the text as published, the date, and the mileage where given, and never the VIN fragment. If you filed a complaint and want it changed, the record is NHTSA's to change, and a change there reaches this site on its next daily build.