Diagnostic Fee
This case is just to see the importance of educating the customer about paying a fair diagnostic fee. This car came to me with stalling and hard to start issue and he gave me a diagnostic paper from one autopart store P0401.
So he wants me to change the EGR valve and do a tune up because it was about a year that he changed the spark plugs and other parts so I told him that I can do that. However, I was sure that those things that he wanted me to do don't have anything to do with the problem he has. So I sell him a hour of electrical testing and he agreed. After a few minutes, I told him that what he needed was an ignition switch and he was happy to save some money in parts that he didn't need and thanked me for being honest and professional. And for me, just a nice feeling of doing what I think is right. After all that is the reason we prepare for this moment and we should be paid for what we know for all the hours we spend trying to improve. But I know that the good customers are the ones that value your work and we have to keep educating the others.
Go easy on me, was my first post. Thank you.
Good job!! I am always amazed at shops that do not charge a fee for testing. Then again, I see a lot of shops that have no idea about testing other than pull a code and toss a part. I started selling a testing fee about 20 years ago, and its amazing how much money that saves the customer, and how much money it makes the shop and the tech. Now if this concept is not supported by management…
You absolutely need to charge for the diagnostic process. If you were to replace parts based on the customers recommendation and the problem wasn’t fixed the customer would hold you responsible. By properly diagnosing the problem you saved him the cost of unneccessary parts. Great job!
Great job and yes always get a diag fee for testing. You fixed the start and stall issue by replacing the electrical portion of ignition switch that is very common, even it was a recall back in the days. In regards the P0401 Egr dtc was that present, history, erased by autoparts stored. did you do any testing in regards that DTC, were all monitors complete? is also very common for egr passages
Yes I did, and he is coming next week to take care of the P0401, it needs a new egr valve and clean all the passages of the intake manifold, I own a acura mdx 02 and I just did the same job 3 weeks ago.
I remember this was a hot topic when I was in College back in the 80's. The comment was that it took 15 minutes to change an Oxygen sensor and an hour to diagnose it. At that time, we were moving from the type of diagnostics that you can see to the type that requires testing. In 30 years we have not as an industry taught the customer that our diagnostic time is worth more than our wrenching
I agree! I have tried for years to get my boss to charge a higher diagnostic labor rate to no avail. He will charge more for motorhomes and large trucks, but not diagnostics. He does charge for the time it takes, just not at a higher rate.
Hey Mike, Well at our shop we charge 1 hour labor for diagnostic and about 1.5 for electrical troubleshoot, not much but fair.
"Technicians that learn electrical and diagnostics should be the highest compensated in the shop." You could run for president with just that for a campaign, MC, and every single guy on this site would vote for you! I am that guy here, btw, but I'm also the only L1 let alone CMAT. And I have more tools than everyone else, including the ESO put together. On the days that there is nothing for me
that’ s right , but let’s keep doing what we really enjoy, learning and trying to fix cars
I totally agree and charge for diag work. A large part of the not selling or not being able to sell diag to customers comes from the parts stores. They have used large TV advertising and broad internet advertising that they can diagnose your car in the parking lot. Now we all know thats not actually possible with just a code reader. We can educate select customers, but when the masses have seen