What happens when things go wrong in a repair shop

[Erin]

So, say a car comes in and needs a new brake caliper. The customer is quoted a price and approves the work. NOW, during the removal, the brake line breaks unexpectedly and needs replaced.

Or say new plugs are part of a tune-up service but during removal, one of them breaks and a ton of other work then becomes necessary (how would a shop handle this one anyways? Head removal?)

Well you get the point. Not talking about careless accidents here but just things that can break during removal.

So then, unexpected parts/labor are needed. Does the shop just have to eat the cost? If a shop DOES try to get a customer to pay more, how would they explain it?

When I worked in a shop, I was not on the business end but the wrenching end so I never knew what went on in the office.
As I do not have the cash, I haven’t had a shop do anything to my cars except exhaust work on a couple cars.
So how does the shop deal with this?

Topic

[Walt jr]

I cannot speak about other shops but places I have worked handled it strictly based on the individual situation. Something small like a brake hose was usually “pain spread around” the customer usually paid the bulk of it, the shop discounted the work and then tried to work their parts supplier for additional discounts. I am not saying this was the best solution because if a customer sees a pattern develop where what they are quoted verses what they pay…they tend to go elsewhere. I also know a certain shop that is constantly beating up their parts suppliers and they have been cut off the “platinum” pricing tier by at least one local supplier. Most big dealers have an account where they can write off the shop disasters as customer courtesy and make the mess go away. The best solution is really not efficient for the shop, that is to have a tech actually look at the job before the quote is given and make provisions in the quote for possible pitfalls.

[Author]

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