Verified Customer
Greg's statement that we charged him for services he did not authorize is entirely false. The short version is that he did not want to compensate us for our time to diagnose the vehicle when he did not approve repairs. We just have to ask: when was the last time your doctor diagnosed your illness, wrote you a perscription, and didn't ask to be compensated for his/her time? The full explanation follows.
Greg initially came to us back in December of 2016 have to have a check engine light diagnosed on his 2002 Ford F-150. At the time, we explained to him how our diagnostic services work, which is that if we diagnose a problem but are not given the opportunity to accomplish our recommended repairs, we do ask that our diagnostic time is covered. If we do accomplish the recommended repairs, we do not charge diagnostic time. This is standard across the industry, and across many other industries.
On his first visit, we observed DTC P0306, which is indicative of a misfire on cylinder #6. We educated Greg on his options for repair stating that at 153,000 miles, it was probably time for a tune up and new coils. We offered to replace just the one ignition coil that was acting upl, or the coil and plug on cylinder #6, or we could replace all coils and plugs now and get it out of the way because he would eventually have to be back to replace them all. We explained that we could replace them one-by-one over several visits, which would cost more in the long run but the repair bill would be easier to digest each time since they would be smaller than a complete tune up. Greg elected to replace just the one coil.
Fast forward to August 16, 2017. Greg comes back in and asks us to diagnose another check engine light. This time, Michael did not re-explain to Greg the diagnostic policy because he felt that as Greg was a returning customer, there wasn't a need.
On this second visit, we found misfires on cylinder #5 and we observed that the intake manifold was leaking coolant into cylinder #5, which was fouling out the coil. As always, we offered multiple strategies to take towards this repair, and he could select the best version that suited his needs and budget. The bare minimum repairs that were needed would be an intake manifold gasket and an ignition coil for about $952 out-the-door. However, as the intake manifold is plastic on this vehicle and warping is a common problem in plastic intake manifolds, we couldn't promise that the old manifold wasn't warped and wouldn't leak even after our repairs. The other option was in addition to the above, go ahead and replace the rest of the ignition coils and all spark plugs in order to limit the number of visits for this kind of issue, and also replace the intake manifold to ensure we didn't have a leak even after doing these labor-intensive repairs. The cost on this repair was around $2,100 out-the-door.
Where Greg's complain lies is in the fact that he did not approve any repairs and when he came to pick up the vehicle, we insisted that we were compensated for our diagnostic time. We asked to be compensated for 1 hour of our time, plus shop fees, for $132.79 out-the-door, even though we had spent more 3 hours between diagnosing the vehicle, writing up multiple estiamtes, and discussing those estimates with the customer on multiple occasions. Yet, Greg was still unhappy that he was asked to compensate our time. We even offered to NOT charge him and let him just take the keys and go, but he reluctantly agreed to pay for the diagnostic services.
We feel that we are reasonably owed compensation for our time and services rendered to diagnose a vehicle, just like any other shop would, and just like your doctor would expect payment for time spent with you. We again reached out to Greg to discuss this situation, but to date, our phone calls have gone unanswered.
