What the model does here, and what it is not allowed to do.
This is the page to read if you want to know exactly where the limits of this service are. They are unusually tight, and that is deliberate.
What the service does
Rattlemap helps you describe a noise clearly enough that a garage can reproduce it. What it produces is a description, rather than a conclusion.
It takes what you write in plain words and sorts it into a fixed set of dimensions that noise and vibration work has used for decades: when it happens, what its rate keeps time with, roughly where it seems to come from, how often, and what else was true at the time. It then tells you what is still unestablished and what is worth noticing about it during driving you were going to do anyway.
The sorting happens in your browser, against a local table of dimensions. Where a hosted model is used, it is asked for one thing only: which dimension a phrase belongs to. It is never asked what the noise is.
It makes no diagnosis and names no component
Rattlemap does not say what something might be, or what it sounds like. It gives no list of possible causes, no ranking of likelihood and no fault codes. It names no component, no category of component, and no system.
The conditions it organises are useful because a garage will ask about them. What those conditions point to is the garage’s work, and not this service’s. The narrowing you see on screen is a width — it says how much ground has been ruled out. It never says what is left inside it, because saying that would be a diagnosis by another name.
It does not judge whether a vehicle is safe to drive
Anything involving braking, steering, the wheels, the suspension or any warning light must be checked by a qualified person before the vehicle is driven further, rather than observed over the following days.
This service is built around noticing things over time. That is precisely the wrong approach to anything that affects how a car behaves. When it detects content of that kind, it halts the whole flow and offers no way to continue — not a warning you can dismiss, not a smaller version of the tool, and nothing that could be read as a suggestion to try something first.
Every observation it suggests is incidental
It will never ask you to do anything special. Never to coast in neutral. Never to brake hard. Never to drive one-handed, adjust anything while moving, or handle a phone or write anything down at the wheel.
Every suggestion uses something that happens on its own during ordinary driving: easing off the accelerator on a slip road, a turn you make every day, a bump you already know is coming. There is no timing, no counting and no reading anything off. Anything you notice gets written down after you have parked.
No costs, no recommendations, no uploads
It estimates no repair cost, recommends no garage or brand, and does not judge whether any issue should be repaired or how urgent it is. It accepts no uploads of any kind, including audio recordings.
The reasons for refusing audio, specifically:
- A recording throws away the part that carries the information. The single most decisive fact about a noise is whether its rate follows road speed or engine speed. A recording contains neither.
- Holding a phone while driving is not safe. A feature that puts people in that position should not exist.
- Judging a fault by ear is diagnosis — which this service does not do.
What it cannot know
The vehicle’s condition, its mileage, its service history and how that particular car is put together are all unknown to this service. So is anything that has to be seen, heard, felt or measured in person. Every card it produces carries that statement printed on it, so that whoever reads the card is told as well.
Accuracy, and what to do when it gets something wrong
Sorting a phrase into a dimension can go wrong — a word can be read the wrong way, or something can be filed under the wrong heading. Every line is yours to correct before a card is made, and nothing is generated from an entry you have not confirmed.
Because the output is a description rather than a conclusion, an error here means a condition is recorded imprecisely. It does not mean you have been told something false about your car, because the service never tells you anything about your car.
Rattlemap is not a substitute for inspection by a qualified person and is not offered as one.
Your content and training
What you write is not used to train models — ours or anyone else’s. Where a hosted model is used for the sorting step, it is called under terms that prohibit retention and training. This is a term of the contract, not a setting.
High-risk uses are prohibited
This service must not be used for or in connection with medical, legal, financial, safety, employment, credit, housing or judicial decisions. See the acceptable use policy.
