CARSTAR: Its Nationwide Warranty, Insurers and Your Rights

If you searched for CARSTAR, you most likely want a body shop after a crash or a hailstorm. CARSTAR is a franchise network: the shop is owned locally, the name, systems and insurer contracts come from CARSTAR, and CARSTAR belongs to Driven Brands. Its key written promise, a nationwide repair warranty, is described two ways in its own documents. On 9 October 2026 we read CARSTAR’s FAQ, its collision repair, accident assistance, insurance, financing and About pages; Driven Brands’ 2025 annual report at the SEC; the first 59 pages of CARSTAR’s franchise disclosure document, issued June 13, 2025, as amended December 29, 2025; Minnesota’s insurance claims statute; and a 2019 Washington Attorney General release. This site has no commercial relationship with CARSTAR, Driven Brands or any repair shop.

Who owns CARSTAR, and who runs your shop

CARSTAR started in 1989. Its franchise disclosure document (FDD) says it and its predecessors “first offered franchises to existing automobile collision repair facilities as conversion franchises in August 1989 and began offering franchises for new automobile repair facilities in October 1995.” That makes the network 37 years old in 2026, by our arithmetic, and it began by signing up body shops that already existed.

Driven Brands acquired CARSTAR in October 2015, according to the FDD; CARSTAR’s About page timeline says it “Unites under Driven Brands to become CARSTAR North America” that year. The franchisor today is CARSTAR Franchisor SPV LLC, “a direct, wholly-owned subsidiary of Driven Systems LLC” and “an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Driven Brands, Inc.” The FDD adds that funds managed by Roark Capital Management “owned and continue to own a majority of the outstanding stock of Driven Brands Holdings.” Our Meineke and Take 5 pages read the same parent’s filings.

Driven’s annual report (Form 10-K) for the fiscal year ended December 27, 2025 puts CARSTAR in its Franchise Brands segment with Meineke, Maaco, ABRA, Fix Auto and others, 2,699 locations in all, and describes the collision brands together: “Our collision repair services are offered through CARSTAR, ABRA, and Fix Auto, which were founded in 1989, 1984, and 1997, respectively, and together comprise the largest franchised collision repair network in North America. Our 1,077 collision locations, as of December 27, 2025, are almost exclusively franchised.” By our arithmetic, 99.5% of the whole segment’s locations are franchised.

What franchising means for you is spelled out in the same report: “Our franchises are independently owned and operated businesses,” and outside its standards and policies Driven does “not control the day-to-day operations, such as hiring and training of employees, of the franchisees.” CARSTAR puts it as “Each CARSTAR location is independently owned.” The shop that fixes your car writes your estimate, does the work and issues your warranty.

The shop pays CARSTAR for the name and the programs. Under the FDD, a franchisee pays a monthly base fee of “the greater of $1,000 or 1.5% of the Monthly Base Volume” (a monthly average of the shop’s sales in the year before it signed), 4% of monthly sales above that level, and an Insurance and Marketing Fund fee of the “Greater of $500 or 1% of monthly Gross Sales.” Those are payments between the shop and CARSTAR, not charges on your bill.

The nationwide warranty: five years, or lifetime?

CARSTAR’s About page timeline lists “Introduces first National Warranty” in 1995. What the warranty promises today depends on which CARSTAR document you read. Two company-run collision chains are read on our Gerber Collision and Crash Champions pages.

The consumer pages say five years. The auto collision repair page tells customers: “You’ll also benefit from a 5-year national warranty on qualifying repairs, so if you move or you’re travelling, you can rest assured that you’re still covered.” Further down the same page: “We offer five year nationwide warranty on qualifying repairs.” The FAQ is more guarded: “CARSTAR stores may offer a limited five-year nationwide warranty as an added benefit.”

Most pages give no length. A callout on four of its pages reads: “We stand behind our work with a CARSTAR Limited Nationwide Warranty* on qualifying repairs.” The asterisk leads to this: “Please refer to the official CARSTAR Warranty Document (if provided by the CARSTAR location at the completion of the repair) for specific coverage and excluded items.”

The franchise document says lifetime. Among the things CARSTAR promises its franchisees in Item 11 of the FDD is to “Administer the Limited Lifetime Nationwide Warranty program and maintain a telephone number available to the Facility for use by your customers in connection with customer referrals, questions, comments and complaints.” Item 12 uses the same name, and Item 3 records a 2025 Canadian settlement in which former franchisees agreed to “uphold the lifetime warranty for any work they performed prior to the termination date.” Item 1 lists the “national warranty program” among the parts of the CARSTAR system, “all of which we may change and continue to develop at our discretion.”

We could not settle which length applies, because CARSTAR does not publish the warranty. Nothing we read says what it covers, what it excludes, whether it ends when you sell the car, or how to claim. Only the shop’s warranty document answers that.

Federal rules put weight on those words. The FTC’s advertising guide, 16 CFR 239.4, says an advertisement that calls a warranty “lifetime” “should disclose, with such clarity and prominence as will be noticed and understood by prospective purchasers, the life to which the representation refers.” The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act calls a written warranty that falls short of the federal minimum standards a “limited warranty” (15 U.S.C. 2303), the word CARSTAR uses, and defines a written warranty as a written promise about “material or workmanship” (15 U.S.C. 2301(6)). Whether a collision repair falls under that Act is a question for a lawyer. The practical point stands: CARSTAR’s program name and its web wording disagree, so get the paper.

Using the warranty at another CARSTAR

The part of the promise that is written down plainly is the network. The callout says: “If you move to a new city or happen to be traveling, you are covered and if there is not a CARSTAR nearby, we will find a convenient location to honor the warranty.” The “Why Choose CARSTAR” FAQ describes “a warranty that applies across participating locations, not just the shop where the repair was completed,” so that “customers can seek support from another CARSTAR location if needed.”

The FDD makes that a duty for every franchisee, with a condition. Item 12 says: “You must honor valid customer claims presented under any Limited Lifetime Nationwide Warranty issued by other franchisees or our affiliate and perform the warranty work without charge to the customer after receiving written authorization.” Three things follow from that sentence. The warranty is issued by the franchisee that did the work. A second shop will fix a valid claim at no charge to you. And it does so only once someone has authorized the claim in writing; the part of the franchise agreement that says who gives that authorization was not in the pages we could read.

If a shop will not take a claim on another shop’s work, CARSTAR’s customer telephone line (the one the FDD says it keeps for “questions, comments and complaints”) or 1-800-CARSTAR is the next call, with the original invoice and warranty document in hand.

Two cautions. The consumer pages say “participating locations,” and the warranty covers “qualifying repairs,” a phrase no page defines. And because the franchisee that did the work issues the warranty, keep that shop’s invoice with the warranty document for as long as you own the car.

How CARSTAR works with insurance companies

CARSTAR is built around insurance work, and the company says so. The FDD puts it plainly: “CARSTAR’s business model focuses on insurance-related collision repair work arising out of relationships it has established with insurance company providers.” The home page, under “Insurance / DRP Services,” tells customers: “We maintain partnerships with more than 80 insurance providers across the country.” Its page for insurers offers “a single point of contact for insurance carriers” and a team “with a collective 70 years of direct insurance company experience.”

The FDD explains the machinery. “CARSTAR has entered into agreements with certain insurance companies (‘Corporately Managed Insurance Programs’ or ‘CMIPs’) under the terms of which CMIP partners may provide preferred access to participation in their direct repair programs (‘DRPs’) or performance-based agreements (‘PBAs’).” A direct repair program is an insurer’s program of preferred shops. To join, a franchisee signs CARSTAR’s Service Level Agreement and pays a Central Review Fee, currently 0.5% of its sales from those programs and up to 2%, which goes toward “managing and administering DRPs, and negotiating and administering contracts, with auto insurance companies.” To join other referral programs, a shop may have to use specified “paint, parts and customer satisfaction tracking, and computer estimating software.”

Those programs come with price pressure. The FDD warns franchisees that “CARSTAR Facilities may be subject to a bottom-line discount on the chargeable price of repair assignments,” and that the discount may be higher if the shop, or the CARSTAR shops in the program as a group, miss “certain key performance indicators established by the CMIP.” Driven’s 10-K describes the same pressure from the parent’s side: “Many insurance companies have systems, agreements, and minimum service levels that they use to allocate services and repairs. If we or enough of our franchisees fail to perform services for an insurance provider in accordance with the insurance provider’s systems or minimum service levels, we may not receive work from the insurance provider.”

None of that is hidden; a CARSTAR blog post says your insurer “will likely recommend or work with collision repair shops that meet specific performance standards.” It does tell you who the shop answers to: on a DRP claim, the insurer’s standards and CARSTAR’s at once. Ask the shop, in writing, which items your insurer will not pay.

Your right to choose the shop

CARSTAR’s own answer to “Do I have to use the repair shop my insurance recommends?” is short: “No - you have the right to choose your own collision repair shop, even if your insurance company suggests a preferred provider. ... While insurance companies may recommend certain repair facilities, the decision is ultimately yours.” Its FAQ adds that after an accident “you have the right to determine where you want your vehicle towed” as well as where it is repaired. Its pitch is that a network shop makes the choice easier, since “many locations are already familiar with insurance requirements and workflows.”

The right itself comes from state law, and we read one state’s statute in full. Minnesota Statutes section 72A.201, subdivision 6, makes it an unfair settlement practice for an insurer to require, “as a condition of payment of a claim that repairs to any damaged vehicle must be made by a particular contractor or repair shop,” or to use “intimidation, coercion, threat, incentive, or inducement for or against an insured to use a particular contractor or repair shop.” When you report a claim, a Minnesota insurer must read you this advisory: “You have the legal right to choose a repair shop to fix your vehicle. Your policy will cover the reasonable costs of repairing your vehicle to its pre-accident condition no matter where you have repairs made. Have you selected a repair shop or would you like a referral?” Once you say you have chosen, the insurer “must cease all efforts to influence” your choice. The same clause says “Consumer benefits included within preferred vendor programs must not be considered an incentive or inducement,” so perks offered through an insurer’s preferred-shop program do not count as an inducement under that clause. California’s and New York’s statute sites showed us a bot check, so we describe neither; ask your state insurance department.

The right runs both ways: you can pick a CARSTAR your insurer did not suggest, or skip one it did. And if you call CARSTAR first, it may choose the shop for you: the FDD describes an optional call-center program in which CARSTAR will “engage customers at first notice of loss and schedule a repair or estimate appointment at the applicable (as CARSTAR determines) participating CARSTAR Facility.” If you want a particular CARSTAR, say so by name. Our Safelite page covers the same question for windshield claims, where Minnesota has a separate advisory for glass.

After a crash: the 24/7 line, towing and a rental car

The FAQ starts: “First, stay calm. If there are injuries, call 911 immediately. Do not move your vehicle, unless you are in immediate danger and it would be safer to get your vehicle in a different location.” Its accident page adds: “Call us toll-free at 1-800-CARSTAR to speak with our trained representatives. We are here 24 hours a day, seven days a week to offer help when you need it most. We can call your insurance company, get your vehicle towed for repairs and contact a friend or family member for you.”

The page lays out “Our Insurance Process” in four steps: assist (“Arrange for a tow service Work with insurance company Review damage and facts of loss”), assess (“Prewash and disassemble vehicle for additional damage assessment Create a detailed repair plan”), repair, and deliver, which ends with “Finalize paperwork and national warranty Vehicle delivery.” That last step is when to ask for the warranty document.

On towing, CARSTAR says it can help “if your car is not in driving condition” but prints no tow price or policy on who pays. The FDD suggests shops may bill tows and rentals: the sales on which a shop owes royalties leave out “(2) tow charges; or (3) rental car sales.” Ask who is paying before the truck is hooked up. (Minnesota requires insurers settling a partial loss to cover repair “including reasonable towing costs.”)

On rentals: “We’ll coordinate a rental car for you through your insurance company with one of our preferred providers.” In a 2015 release CARSTAR named Enterprise Rent-A-Car “its preferred car rental partner throughout the United States.” Whether the rental costs you anything is a question for your policy’s rental coverage or, if another driver is at fault, for that driver’s insurer. Minnesota again spells it out: an insurer must tell you of “the insured’s right to select any rental vehicle company,” and in a claim against another driver’s insurer, that you “may have a claim for loss of use of the vehicle.”

The estimate, the deductible and paying for it

CARSTAR prints no prices. Its collision repair page says “The cost of the repairs depends greatly on the type of damage your vehicle suffered, the parts needed for the repairs, and the processes involved,” and the FAQ describes the order of events: “The repair process begins with you bringing your vehicle in for an estimate with a trained estimator. If you choose that shop, they will work with your insurance agent to process the repair claim.” Then, the collision page says, “You will be presented with a detailed repair plan and if you give the go ahead, we will order the needed parts.”

Two estimates for the same damage can differ; CARSTAR’s explanation is “thoroughness of the appraisal process.” Compare the lines CARSTAR itself says an estimate should carry: “a description of the repair parts to be used, what items your insurance will and will not cover and the expected amount of the repair.”

The deductible is due at the end: “Your deductible is due when you pick up the vehicle after repairs are complete.” The collision page adds: “The guilty party’s insurance usually covers the cost of the repairs. If that’s your insurance company, then you might have a deductible that you’ll have to cover.” When the other driver’s insurer pays, there may also be a claim for the value your car loses because it now has an accident history; our diminished value guide explains who owes it.

For the deductible or anything insurance does not pay, CARSTAR’s financing page says: “We offer flexible financing options through Sunbit and Zip.” Uses include “Finance insurance deductibles and out-of-pocket repair costs.” Sunbit, it says, has “no late fees, origination fees, account opening fees, or prepayment penalties”; Zip splits a bill into “four interest-free payments,” though “Customers may be charged finance charges, late fees, and convenience fees if applicable.” Approval is not automatic (“All loans are subject to credit approval”), and the page lists participating shops under 18 state headings, so ask before you count on it. Two other pages still advertise a Driven Brands credit card, one calling it the “Synchrony Car Care credit card” and the other the “CarCareOne credit card”; the financing page itself mentions neither.

If the car may be a total loss

Driven’s 10-K ties total losses to used-car prices: “As the price of used cars decreases, the number of cars being deemed a total loss increases, resulting in less demand for repairs and maintenance.”

CARSTAR has a central desk for those cases. The FDD describes “an optional centralized program, under the terms of which CARSTAR will complete the total loss estimate for applicable total loss claims submitted by participating CARSTAR franchisees.” The shop pays CARSTAR for each request, “regardless of whether CARSTAR determines that the claim is a total loss”: currently “$50 per total loss estimate request,” and up to $100. That fee is between the shop and CARSTAR, not on your bill. For you it means the total-loss estimate on your car may be completed by CARSTAR’s central program rather than by the shop you chose; ask the shop who prepared it.

If your car is declared a total loss, our total loss page explains what the federal title record will show, and our gap insurance page covers the case where the payout is less than the loan.

How many CARSTAR shops there are

CARSTAR publishes several counts, from different years and for different areas, and Driven’s filings do not break the brand out.

The U.S. figures run from 333 to 464; the North American ones are higher because CARSTAR had 317 franchised shops in Canada at the end of 2024. The FDD’s U.S. outlet table (Item 20) was in the part of the file that did not download. The 10-K’s 1,077 cannot be split either: the FDD counts 55 ABRA and 212 Fix Auto shops in the U.S. a year earlier, but the 10-K does not say how many collision locations are in Canada. A sitemap can also list closed or unopened shops.

What regulators and courts have recorded

We found no consumer-protection action by a state attorney general or the FTC naming CARSTAR. The one government record we found concerns workers.

Washington, 2019. The Washington Attorney General’s office announced that, “To avoid a lawsuit, the following corporate chains entered into legally binding commitments to eliminate no-poach clauses nationwide,” and listed CARSTAR with 30 Washington locations and an estimated 333 U.S. locations. Such clauses, the release explains, “prohibit employees from moving among stores in the same corporate chain.” The chains agreed “to stop enforcing no-poach clauses, and to stop adding no-poach clauses to new franchise contracts,” in agreements “filed in King County Superior Court.” Driven’s 10-K says the clauses “were removed from our franchise agreements in the U.S. in 2019.” We read the release, not CARSTAR’s assurance itself.

The FDD’s litigation item. Item 3 lists suits CARSTAR brought against former franchisees, such as a breach-of-contract case filed October 16, 2024 over “the early closure and abandonment of its CARSTAR Facility,” two settled disputes (summarized in the table below) and suits against the parent, including a securities class action filed December 22, 2023 in which “Driven Brands Holdings disputes the allegations of wrongdoing.” Those are allegations in a pending case, not findings. The item ends: “Other than as described above, no litigation is required to be disclosed in this Item.” No customer’s suit over a repair appears in it.

Minnesota, 2026. Minnesota’s Department of Commerce cancelled CARSTAR’s franchise registration (file number 10909) by an order dated 07/27/2026, because “the franchisor has failed to file an annual report and fee pursuant to Minn. Stat. 80C.08, subd. 1.” The registration covers selling franchises there, not repair work.

The Better Business Bureau’s site blocked our request and we do not use review sites, so this page gives no rating.

Where CARSTAR’s own documents disagree, and what to ask

We recorded 8 places where CARSTAR’s documents disagree. Those that matter to a customer:

• How long the warranty lasts. “a 5-year national warranty on qualifying repairs” on the collision repair page; a “Limited Lifetime Nationwide Warranty” in the franchise document.
• Whether you get it at all. “We stand behind our work with a CARSTAR Limited Nationwide Warranty” in one place; “CARSTAR stores may offer” it, and the document comes “if provided by the CARSTAR location,” in others.
• Where it is honored. The FAQ tells you to look for a warranty “that will be honored at any of their locations”; another page says “participating locations,” and the FDD has the second shop act “after receiving written authorization.”
• How to pay. The About page offers a “Synchrony Car Care credit card,” the collision page a “CarCareOne credit card,” and the financing page only Sunbit and Zip.
• Age, size and owner. The About page is headed “Celebrating 30 Years of CARSTAR Momentum” though the brand dates to 1989 (37 years, by our arithmetic); CARSTAR has published 4 different store counts; and “Each CARSTAR location is independently owned” sits beside the FDD’s 1 company-owned CARSTAR in Canada and three different CARSTAR company names (“CARSTAR Franchising, Inc.” in the footer, “CARSTAR Franchise Systems, Inc.” on the accessibility page, CARSTAR Franchisor SPV LLC in the FDD).

Your own paperwork outranks all of it: collect and keep the estimate, the final invoice and the warranty document.

Common questions

Who owns CARSTAR?

Driven Brands, which also owns Meineke, Maaco and Take 5 Oil Change, through CARSTAR Franchisor SPV LLC; Driven acquired the brand in October 2015. Each shop is owned and run by a local franchisee.

Does CARSTAR have a lifetime warranty?

Its franchise document names a “Limited Lifetime Nationwide Warranty,” but its web pages promise “a 5-year national warranty on qualifying repairs” and say stores “may offer” it. The terms are in the shop’s warranty document; ask for it before the repair.

Is the CARSTAR warranty good at any CARSTAR?

CARSTAR says it “applies across participating locations,” and its franchise document requires every franchisee to honor valid claims on warranties other shops issued, at no charge to you, “after receiving written authorization.” Bring the original invoice and the warranty document.

Do I have to use the repair shop my insurance company recommends?

CARSTAR’s answer is “No - you have the right to choose your own collision repair shop, even if your insurance company suggests a preferred provider.” Where that right comes from is state law; Minnesota’s, for example, bars insurers from making payment depend on using a particular shop.

Does CARSTAR work directly with my insurance company?

CARSTAR says it has partnerships with more than 80 insurers and that its shops can get preferred access to insurers’ direct repair programs. Whether your local shop is in your insurer’s program is a question for the shop and the insurer.

Does CARSTAR give you a rental car or a tow?

It arranges them: “We’ll coordinate a rental car for you through your insurance company with one of our preferred providers,” and its 24/7 line at 1-800-CARSTAR can “get your vehicle towed for repairs.” Who pays depends on your policy and on fault.