Diagnostics fee or not

This has been an issue since day one. Should we charge to diagnose the car or should the estimate be free. Let’s define an estimate first.

What is an estimate?

An estimate is a list of all the parts and labor involved in making a repair. With the possibilities of adding supplements to the original estimate if other work is deemed necessary after the initial work has started.

Ok that’s an estimate, or is it…? Let’s try this again.

What is an estimate?

It’s a guess……. With the chance that I might get it right but more than likely the final bill will be different than what was original “estimated” at.

Hmm, the two definitions are different but at the same time mean the same thing… What about the diagnostic side? Ok, how about that… that diagnostic thing.

What is a diagnostic?

It is the process in which a technician is able to determine the cause or failure of a piece of equipment, vehicle, or appliance.

Did ya get that? … One more time …

What is a diagnostic?

It is the process used to determine the root cause of a given mechanical or electrical problem that has become an issue with a vehicle, appliance or piece of equipment.

Sounds the same doesn’t it…. hmm, maybe we are getting to the real issue… MONEY

The diagnostics may take some time, may even require a few sophisticated scanners, wiring diagrams, and tools. Time is money as we all know, of course, knowledge, expertise and experience is a commodity that should always be respected no matter what field you are in. A service charge for such “diagnostics” is essential in the continuing financial stability of a shop or for that matter… any service oriented business.

Once the diagnostics has been completed an “estimate” can then be given to the customer for their approval. This should also be noted that if a “diagnostics” is preformed and the problem turns out to be “intermittent” or none exciting a fee still applies. The time has already been spent to figure out that there was nothing wrong. That brings up another touchy issue. For some reason the customer feels cheated if you charge for nothing found… now wait a minute, how was it determined that nothing was wrong… ah…the diagnostics lead to that result. Then the problem isn’t the problem anymore, it’s the time spent looking for the problem that is the problem. To ease the customer’s woes you could always give them a time table for future re-evaluations. (30 days is a good round number) Note; It wouldn’t be the first time I have diagnosed a car for a customer only to find out that their complaint is from lack of understanding of their vehicle or dare I say… their just another fruit basket behind the wheel.

Now I’m not in favor of a free diagnostics (if you couldn’t tell already) and I’m not too fond of the free estimate. If there is any “man hours” that are part of any job a “man” wants paid. If that “man” is working on a commission basis, I can assure you that he is going to rush through the “estimate” in order to get to the real money end of the job.

However a diagnostic is a totally different thing, I don’t think I could have made a living without charging for the time it takes to figure out some of the strange pr oblems I’ve encountered over the years. Some things were easy to diagnose, some took hours. But I believe it’s the standardization of a diagnostic charge that would make things a lot easier for the customers to understand the complexities of today’s problem evaluations.

If a tech couldn’t figure out a problem in a reasonable length of time … say an hour… then it’s quite possible the shop is going to be losing money if they kept him on that job. The next best thing would be to move him off that job. Put another tech on who might be able to figure out the problem in a reasonable amount of time. Of course, the shop is already behind the 8 ball, since the first tech didn’t get the job done, but in the long run… it will get done, there will be an estimate for the customer explaining the repairs needed.

I don’t know which is more of a problem, the shops out there not willing to charge for estimating… Oops I mean diagnostic time… or the customer who doesn’t feel that it’s a necessary part of the process. Then again, these are not yesterday’s cars.

It’s about time there were some standards that everyone in the industry had to go by, be it from the independent side or the dealer side. Regulation or self imposed limits as to how much can be charged across the board for various levels of diagnostics. Not to say diagnosing a bad ball joint is easier than a battery drain, no, not at all. Each field in the industry would have to come up with a balanced set of standards that those involved could agree was a fair price for that type of service. If all the independent shops charge the same fees in a demographic area it would lead to a more even playing field for the customer. Maybe, we should think about using a different term rather than “independent”… we can be independent in ownership, style, quality, etc… but put the customer’s concerns up front. If I wasn’t in the business and didn’t know where to take my car I would really would like to know that I’m getting quality work done at a fair price at any shop I went to. If there was a way to put an end to the “I can get it done cheaper down the street” escapades… my drive home would be a whole lot more pleasant than in the past. .

If that didn’t happen it then only comes down to a question of where to have the vehicle repaired at. Everyone has their favorite doctor, dentist, or restaurant. Which is probably based on location, atmosphere, or “ya just like that particular place”. Price is always an issue, and probably always will be. If you’re not getting the job done right at the shop of your choice… choose another one. How many times a day does your phone ring because you have some “price shopper” who is never coming to your shop because your price is higher than the last shop they called… even though they were referred by a friend to call you.

Maybe we should focus on better instructional classes, more information, and true manufacturer level scanners available to the independent side of the business. Sometimes too much effort is put on the “Be nice to the customer”, or the preverbal “Customer is always right” routine. The old saying; “If the customer knew what was wrong they would have fixed it themselves” still holds true today. But I’m talking about telling them what’s wrong with the vehicle, not how to fix it. With the advent of the computer age upon us the car has become a rolling updateable, flash reprogramming software jungle of information. The cost of these specialized scanners puts them out of the range of most consumers, and a lot of small shops, which, in some ways, also places the shade tree mechanic on the endangered species list.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the same line from a customer’s after I have diagnosed a problem. “Well, I could have done that myself, I would have looked there for the problem if I had the time, and I don’t know why you’re charging me for something so simple. You should give a break on the price because it was so simple. “Hey, I’m a regular customer I should be getting a discount.” My usual answer is… “So if you knew what was wrong, why did you bring it to me to figure it out?” And, I’m not sure that other professional people you deal with such as a doctor, dentist, or the grocer…etc… is going to give you a discount just because you shop with them on a regular basis.

Common sense, the largest lacking component in all of these situations… In my opinion, once common sense is removed from the conversation “stupid” takes its place. I wonder if I could estimate how many times this has happened… maybe so… but I better think about diagnosing it first…

We've tried a low flat fee in the past but that doesn't prove to even make a dent towards covering the cost of shop supplies. We switched to a small percentage and found that we netted about the same because the quantity of large $ tickets balanced out with the quantity of low $ tickets. 

Looking to make another change that will prove worthwhile but wanted to get some feedback first. We're in the Eastern PA area. Thanks so much.

I am new to the service side of the retail auto industry having worked in sales for 5 years. I am now the mechanical department manager of a Carstar collision repair shop. In addition to the usual insurance work, I am starting to take on more customer pay repairs. An issue I keep running into is that because I am located in Canada (South Ontario not far from Detroit) many of the vehicles we work on are severely rusted underneath and many bolts have siezed in place. Many require torches, cutting, drilling, and other unusual disassembly of adjacent components to remove. For example right now I am having a starter replaced on a caravan, and the lower engine mount needs to be removed but is siezed. We needed to apply heat but because it is so close to the rad fan shroud, ended up having to remove the shroud and other items nearby just to attempt to heat and remove the bolt. This ultimately didn't work, and we are now cutting it and drilling it out. Often times using heat causes damage to components. We needed to use heat to cut into a suspension knuckle to remove it after it was damaged from a curb, and ended up destroying a wheel bearing. Abs sensors also commonly need to be snapped off and drilled out because they are just so fused in place. Obviously this gets expensive. 

This happens all the time, and as a result the times I am using from shopkey pro and mitchell are not reflective of how long these jobs actually take. On one hand I don't feel it is fair to the customer to charge 2.6 hours for the starter replacement, and another 3 hours to attempting multiple ways to get a bolt out, heating, removing adjacent components, fan shroud R+I... turning a 2.6 hour job into 5.6 hours. On the other hand I understand that this is just the reality of working on vehicles older than a couple years in this part of the country and the customer should be paying for it. 

What would you consider standard practice in this situation? I don't want to be eating all this extra time, but I also don't want to have to charge customer hours upon hours additionally because we have to figure out how to unsieze everything.  

Thanks

Personally I think the guy is GENIUS.

Diagnostic is such a watered down term now. People think the guys at Autozone "diagnose" their cars for free.

I've told my advisors and techs to use the terms "test" and "analyze" like the guy mentioned in the video.

For example, if customer comes in for an overheating issue and wants to know why: previously we said "it'll be $38 to diagnose why your car is overheating." Problem with this is that it could be so many different things, if we use the words  "test" and "analyze" it becomes:

"Hey John, we need to TEST your cooling system by pressurizing it and ANALYZE it for any leaks. It'll be $38 to do this test." This is GENIUS! Why? because the customer will be happy because he knows what we are testing and feels that his money is being well spent instead of a "diagnostic" which conjures up images of a guy just sticking the code reader to the obd port.

If it ends up NOT being a leak: "Hey John, we tested the cooling system and the good thing is, there's no leak. WE need to now make sure you are getting good coolant flow and test to make sure there's no clog in the lines... or test the water pump.... test head gasket by anazlyzing combustion bubbles entering the system... etc"

Let's be honest, how many times have we pulled out our hairs diagnosing vehicles and only getting paid/charging .5?? Not only do we get what we deserve with "test" and "analyze" but the customer is happy too! 

Can anyone that went to the conference last year chime in?? This is from watching the first 7min of the video (have to pay to watch the rest, which I don't mind but thinking about buying the all access pass for 2017) and I'm thinking this is where the instructor was heading.... correct me if I'm wrong and what do you guys think??? Let's get some good discussions going

I quit my job as a service advisor and started doing side work out of my garage @$35/labor rate. Became a mobile mechanic with $45/hr 3 months after. Got a shared building with 2 bays and bumped up to $60 an hour. 8 months later, I am now at my current very own 6 bay facility with 4 employees and I just bumped up my rate to $75/hour. I have 2 national chains that share the same wall (Meieneke and Precision tune) and they charge $95/hour.

Problem is, I still have customers that come to me from my $35/hr days and feel extremely bad and guilty for charging new rate. Should I be? Best way to implement change without losing customers? From the customers perspective, do you think they understand the operating costs and justification in price increase?

Right now I have a folder with handwritten estimates in it, but going through it is a pain. I am thinking I might get a binder and put the estimates in the binder in some type of order. Not sure if it would be better to organize by name so if they tell me their name I can easily find the estimate - or by date of estimate so its easier to go through it every once in a while to clear out old ones that are taking up space.

Thoughts or suggestions?

Do you quote over the phone or do you advise having the customer come in first?

Do you quote the immediately and have them wait on the line or do you call them back?

Do you use websites like repair pal for quick, general estimates?

What is your shops procedure? How long do you keep invoices?

I did some math and on average each car uses at least 6 pieces of paper. (RO, checklist, 3 invoices, Marketing letter, occasional reprint of RO)

We blow through over 1,000 pieces of paper a week. An astounding 10 cases a year.

What ever happened to "Get a computer, it will make your life easier?"

Higher ARO and High Car Count is obviously the goal, however lets just keep it specific as to what is more of a challenge for you and your shop!

Are we getting to detailed when doing this? I have learned to try and secure a appointment before giving a estimate, but that does not seem to work either. I'm not looking to land all the Customer's that call, but some would be nice!! More and more we are seeing people want to supply their own parts. In the past we never did this. Is it time to start thinking about changing how a CSP (customer supplied part) job is handled?

Looking for any thoughts

Thanks Jim Quinn

1. I seem to be getting a high number of intermittent problems lately, many that I simply cannot verify. So I spend a bunch of time writing the car up, road test, inspect in the shop, check symptoms in identifix, etc, and after all this many times I simply can find nothing, the problem does not happen for me at all. How do you charge for this???

2. Because of the type of work we do much of it is charged hourly. I have tried writing down my hours, time apps on my phone, but due to wearing many hats (answering the phone, paper work, ordering parts, etc. It simply seems to be impossible to keep things straight which I'm sure I wind up loosing lots of money on because I loose track of things and to me it never seems like it took very long but then my day is over and where did all the time go?

3. How are you charging for diagnostics? I charge 1 hour for scan module, research codes and determine the cause. Sometimes this works out well as I can find the problem rather quickly, however other times it can be quite complex, how do you handle the charge when things take longer?

Also, we had an incident the past week that a customers brought in their vehicle for a diagnostic. They filled out the work order form and left. The customers husband comes in about 20-30 min later and demands that we don't touch the vehicle and does not want us to diagnose anything, yet my techs have already spent a considerable amount of time searching for the problem. How would you approach this sitation? Would you still charge the full diagnostic fee?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts and opinions.

Thanks

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and opinions!