Totally understand the 69 charge for diag time and why you charge it. When the customer comes in and tells you what is wrong and what needs to be done. I think maybe you should wave the diag fee?
Hi Susan, we appreciate your question because we get asked this a lot. In your case, your husband did identify for us that the leak was power steering fluid; so we charged him a half hour of diagnosis vs. our standard one hour of diagnosis for an unspecified leak. Our technician lifted the vehicle and cleaned the area to determine what was leaking. After letting the cleaned vehicle run, he found the power steering pressure hose was leaking - not the pump. Often the pump will leak and run down the hose making it look like it is the hose. This is why we like to take the time to verify exactly what is leaking - it saves money for our customers in the long run. Our technician determined the pump was operating as desired and was dry after cleaning. We would have hated you to replace the hose only to find the pump was also a problem. All of our technicians are ASE master certified technicians. The benefit of that is we are known locally for our diagnosis skills and are often asked to diagnose vehicles by other repair shops. The down side of that is that our diagnosis fees are higher than some other shops. We don't apply the diagnosis to the repair because the time is actually used by the technician before a repair is begun. We've found that most shops that say they apply the diagnosis fee to the repair actually just mark up the repair - which we do not do. We pride ourselves on our technical expertise and stand behind everything we do for 2 years/24,000 miles. We hope you will give us another opportunity to delight you in the future.
- Capitol Automotive