Let’s talk about diagnostic time

What, when, why… and why it’s not a swindle

We understand.  You’ve lived with an annoying vehicle problem for a while but you’ve finally decided to get it fixed.  Now our Service Advisor says you’ll have to spend money just to find out what’s wrong before we can tell you how much the actual repair will cost.  That can be an awkward position for both you and us.

You care about how you spend your hard-earned money so it obviously matters what the bottom line will be.  Even if you’re willing to bite the bullet for an expensive repair, paying us to “diagnose” a problem when you “already know what’s wrong” seems pretty iffy.  It certainly sounds like an easy way for us to milk a few extra dollars out of you for no real reason, so you’re rightly skeptical.

From our point of view, we are running a business built on fixing your problems.  Both of those are important… as a business we have to cover our expenses, which means being paid for all the time we spend on each vehicle.  But we also have to fix your problem, fix it right, and preferably fix it on the first try.

Spending time to correctly diagnose your problem protects both of us.

We NEVER accept a diagnosis from ANY outside source

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a Dealer, another shop, the tow truck driver, a parts place, you, Uncle Ed, or the InterTubes, IT DOESN’T MATTER.  None of them are on the hook if things go wrong, but WE are.  OUR reputation is on the line if our repair doesn’t fix your problem.  WE cover all our work with a 24/24 warranty so WE will be the ones to pay if it goes bad.  And when your car has broken down on the side of the road you won’t be calling to scream at Uncle Ed, you’ll be calling US.

We’ve developed a process over 40 years of experience that ensures, to the best of our ability, your vehicle will be fixed right the first time at the minimal reasonable expense to you.  We’ll take other professionals’ opinions into account, but our process ALWAYS begins with our own ASE-Certified Technicians physically inspecting your vehicle to directly determine the cause of your problem.

Not all repairs require diagnostic time, but most need at least some

We WILL charge for diagnostic time, but some problems don’t require much diagnosis at all.  Some are clear right off the bat… the nail in your sidewall is probably causing your flat tire; there’s no need to look deeper.   But if you have an oil leak that could be coming from multiple sources it takes time to find what’s leaking before we can tell you what needs to be fixed or how much it will cost.  More complex is a consistent problem, like your dashboard lights turning off every time you hit a bump, that may take several hours to check all the electrical connections that could be at fault.  The hardest are the intermittent problems that don’t have consistent causes (like hitting a bump).  It may take many, many hours to recreate the problem and track down the cause.

We don’t expect a blank check

It would be unfair either to expect a blank check for diagnostic time or to charge you for time we don’t use.  (Portland auto repair icon Harold Dick prospered for 40 years under a different model; he’d fix your car, you’d pay whatever he said, and if you didn’t like it he’d never touch your car again.)  If we see the need for diagnostic time WE’LL TELL YOU HOW MUCH WE EXPECT CLEARLY AND IN ADVANCE, and if we need to go further we will CALL YOU FIRST.  If we didn’t use all the time you authorized we’ll adjust your bill appropriately.  Yes, we need to be paid, but no, we don’t need or want to be abusive about it.

I already know what’s wrong!

Knowing THAT there’s a problem is not the same as knowing WHY there’s a problem.  We actually had one potential client angrily insist his problem had been “diagnosed” because his check engine light was on!   Advice from friends or family can be offered with the best intentions and still not be correct.  It almost certainly isn’t based on actual examination.  Advice from a Dealer or another shop may be based on examination and may even be right, but maybe not… technical competence, commission sales, or other factors may skew their evaluation.  The worst misplaced confidence comes from a marketing ploy of parts stores… “McPartsies will diagnose the problem for free!”  No, they won’t.  They’ll “pull the codes” for free but that’s a far cry from a diagnosis.  Let’s dig a little deeper on that…

Hunting for a killer

“Pulling codes” is the start, not the end, of the diagnostic process.

Suppose you’re a detective trying to solve a murder, and you get a tip that the murderer lives in zip code 97202.  Case closed?  Hardly.  You’ve zeroed in on the general area but the killer isn’t located yet, much less caught.  You’ve still got the hard work of tracking them down to a specific location before you can even think about catching them and taking them to jail.

That’s what “pulling codes” is like in the automotive world.  It tells your mechanical detective where a problem is, but doesn’t explain the cause.  Scanning the engine computer for stored codes gives a list of errors but each code could have multiple causes.  The Technician still has the hard work of tracking down the specific failure, and only then can they send the bad parts to jail and fix your vehicle.

Wacky Bob’s says they’ll take off the diagnostic if I do the repair

Well, maybe, but probably not.  Wacky Bob has bills to pay too, so if he’s paying a Technician to diagnose a problem the money has to come from somewhere.  He might well take the line item for diagnosis off your invoice but the bottom line will almost always be inflated by the coincidentally same amount.  It’s a sleight of hand to make the sale easier, but you’ll almost certainly have paid for both diagnosis and repair when you’re done.

How diagnostic time helps all of us… no shotguns

Tom Dwyer Automotive only prospers when our clients prosper.  If we’re fixing vehicles poorly, making clients angry, forcing bad reviews, or paying money to fix mistakes, our clients lose and we lose.

Accurate diagnosis is the first step in a coherent repair process.  Without physical diagnosis a shop is just guessing at the cause of a problem, so you’re paying for parts and labor that may or may not be a fix.  There’s even an industry term for this- “shotgunning”, when you throw parts at a problem hoping they work.  Realistically, it often does work and both shop and customer are happy!  But when it doesn’t, you’ll be paying for the next round of parts and labor if the problem is still there… and the next, and the next, until the problem is finally gone.

If “shotgunning” is 80-90% effective, that’s not good enough for us or for you.  We insist on doing our own diagnosis because over 40 years of experience has shown us it’s the best way to fix your vehicle right the first time.  As of this writing we operate with a 99.71% self-reported client satisfaction rate, delivering 99% of repairs within estimate and 98.7% on schedule.  That’s not luck, it’s the result of meticulously following a time-proven process, and that process ALWAYS begins with accurate diagnosis.