Estimating what it really costs to repair a vehicle is notoriously painful — buyers, body shops, and car flippers spend hours manually searching catalog numbers, pricing parts, and guessing labour costs. Carbender was built to solve this — born out of personal frustration while purchasing and repairing a salvage vehicle. The tool turns photos into repair estimates and OEM part lists in a few minutes — giving buyers a strong, data-backed starting point for evaluating, repairing a salvage vehicle.
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The idea started when I was looking at a damaged car on a salvage auction — a BMW that looked like a decent flip. I found a local mechanic who gave me a quote. I found another. The estimates were €2,400 apart for the same car. I had no idea which one was real.
That's the problem Carbender solves: information asymmetry in the used and damaged car market. Body shops and dealers have decades of experience pricing repairs. Regular buyers have nothing.
I wanted to build something that could look at a photo of a crashed car and tell you — in plain numbers — what it actually costs to fix. Not a ballpark. A real OEM part-by-part breakdown, with new, aftermarket, and used prices side by side.
What surprised me while building this was how much the problem compounds across borders. A car at a US Copart auction looks cheap until you factor in customs, DOT compliance, airbag restoration, and shipping. So I built the US import calculator and the free Monroney window sticker decoder — because a "loaded" listing often turns out to be a base trim once you pull the original factory build sheet.
We're still early, but the core works: upload photos → get OEM codes and repair costs → decide with confidence.
Would love feedback from anyone who's bought or sold a damaged vehicle. What information would have saved you the most money? 🔧