I think the guy made a customer service mistake. Having a repair or maintenance task cost more than the estimate can happen. However, you should have been told as soon as he realized he misquoted you.
This once happened to me at a motorcycle shop and I told the guy, “You had plenty of time to tell me that you made a mistake on the quote. The time to tell me is not when you hand me the bill. Now here is the amount you quoted me. May I have my keys please?” On a catalytic converter replacement I had done once, it was handled the right way. I got a phone call from the muffler shop telling me that it cost more than the guy expected. He told me he would split the difference with me and asked me if I still wanted them to install it and I told him yes. Another time I had the timing belt replaced at a dealership and the bill was higher than I expected. The service rep said that the crank shaft seal was leaking and needed to be replaced. Rather than get my authorization as I sat in the waiting room, the mechanic just replaced it. I told the cashier “That was nice of him to do it for free since I never authorized it.” They took it off the bill.
Next time get the quote in writing. If this happens again without being handled properly, hold the guy to the original quote.
In any business, you have customers looking for products or services. Of course, they’d like to know how much it will cost them prior to the work being done. There are two approaches to this; budgetary estimate or quotation.
A budgetary estimate is given for work the supplier has done before and so has some experience and can ESTIMATE the cost based on prior history. It’s called an estimate because it’s based on the average time and materials required to perform the job. It doesn’t require much investment on the part of the supplier to provide this estimate so their expense is absorbed as overhead and part of doing business. Estimates usually have some margin for error and oftentimes, this is written into the estimate. For example, the customer realizes that their job may require more effort than the average and so allow for an additional $X dollars to be automatically authorized without the need to call the customer back. Call backs for authorization take time. This is time the job is sitting idle in the bay when work could be progressing or another job could be being performed. It costs the shop money to perform this service.
Only when the actual work commences can the true costs be determined. If the exception occurs and will exceed the pre-authorized amount the supplier calls and informs the customer to seek approval. Understanding this, it is worthwhile to state up front that you want to be called if the work will exceed $X and I give them adequate breathing room. This does a couple of things- puts the shop on notice as to what freedom they have in the decision making process and frees them up to be more efficient in managing the work in their shop. This typically results in a better overall job as they know you’re not going to nickle and dime them, stiff them in the end or delay the process as they have to get your approval for every last detail they encounter along the way. Sometimes the estimating form presented to the customer already has this type of information on it and you’re asked what limit you’re willing to authorize.
The second type of costing is a QUOTATION. A quotation is an exact costing and requires work on the part of the shop to determine. They have to disassemble and assess the problem before they can accurately price the work. Few people are willing to pay for this type of costing guarantee and even fewer shops engage in that kind of practice especially for routine jobs like brake or exhaust work.
I meant to add- if the shop IS willing to provide a not to exceed estimate before they even look at the car, then you can bet they have added enough FAT into the estimate to insure that they will not come out on the short end. If you don’t have the exception, you’re likely overpaying in that situation.
I think that 10% over the estimate is OK, but over 20% is completely unacceptable. This was 43% over the original estimate. The mechanic should have contacted molicious to report the overcharge before starting work.
molicious, you should make sure you agree with the mechanic on how much over the original estimate is OK and when he has to contact you for clearance if you use him again. Make sure he knows that you will take your business elsewhere if he does not comply. And make sure you mean it if you say it.
I suppose that you are a nice guy, and don’t want to ruffle anyone’s feathers. Whether you come across as the nice guy you are is a matter of how you say it, not what you have to say. If the mechanic can’t deal with your request, it’s his personality problem, not yours.
I always thought most shops had set rates per job based on how long they should take to complete. For example, if you need a new alternator, the shop expects the job to take 30 minutes. If the mechanic completes the job in 20 minutes, you still get billed for 30 minutes and the mechanic still gets paid for 30 minutes, right? What if the job takes 40 minutes? Isn’t the billable time for the job still 30 minutes?
I can see the need for estimates for diagnostic work. You don’t know for sure how long it will take. Shops that I have used will give me an estimate for an hour or two of labor and it might actually come out costing less. If they are focused on customer service, they will warn me before exceeding that estimate. It isn’t like a construction project where cost over-runs are expected and easily tolerated.
So for a brake job where the cost of parts exceed expectations, whether it is a quote or an estimate, the shop should have informed the customer of the over-run, right? Even if the shop isn’t obligated, it is just good customer service. Labor is one thing. After all, it might be the shop’s first brake job on this particular model and a labor estimate can fluctuate. Parts, on the other hand, should have fixed pricing and the shop representative or purchasing agent should have the pricing at her or his fingertips. For that to change without the customer being informed, someone had to make a mistake.
In the end, I don’t mind overpaying a little more for good service. Padding the estimate to account for unexpected cost over-runs makes sense. After all, nobody gets hurt if the customer agrees to the price and pays it. In fact, I would rather bill a customer less than the estimate than bill the customer more than the estimate. Padding the estimate increases the likelihood you will have a happy customer at the end of the day.
I always thought most shops had set rates per job based on how long they should take to complete. For example, if you need a new alternator, the shop expects the job to take 30 minutes. If the mechanic completes the job in 20 minutes, you still get billed for 30 minutes and the mechanic still gets paid for 30 minutes, right? What if the job takes 40 minutes? Isn’t the billable time for the job still 30 minutes?
Some states actually have laws on this…others don’t. In NH they can charge you whichever way they want. And I don’t deal with places that won’t quote a price and stick to it.
If a job is estimated to take 2 hours, but the mechanic does it in 1…then he has every legal right to charge you 2 hours. One job I knew about said it would take 11 hours…but took 3…the mechanic charged him 11…perfectly legal.
Now if the job takes longer then 11 hours…the mechanic will eat the extra cost…HOWEVER…That rarely happens. The books and on-line services they use to determine the extimates are very consevative. It’s very very unlikely an experienced mechanic can’t beat the estimates.