Garage charging for 'looking' at car

Can a garage charge for 1.5 hours labour to look at a car, and then tell you it would not be economical to repair the car?
PS, mechanical repairs, not crash repairs.

labour is labour .... workers have to be paid.

They looked at your car so they have to be paid for their time.

yup seems fair enuf to me.

Doctors charge to look at you

"Time is money" The garage is not a charity and deserved to be paid.

You got a lucky escape there. I would rather pay 1.5hrs labour to confirm problems with the car instead of paying continuous repair bills. I would assume the labour being charged would be approx E80/hr.

Well, it's not always the case that money is paid up front.

Who pays plumbers, electricians, plasterers etc for quotes?, Very few I suspect.

What about estate agents?, again, no money up front, but they incur costs.


My own buisness, kitchen manufacture and fitted furniture... I have lost customers when I suggested that I couldn't travel 50 miles for free in order to discuss their job in their house... if they wish a free quote they can email me basic info, or visit my workshop.. but some customers refuse, and get peeved off when I refuse to do house calls for free.

(I'd try to charge a fee just to cover my costs to call into people, i.e 60 or 80 Euros perhaps, and this'd be taken off the bill if they go ahead.)


It's the same with kitchen quotes... does anyone pay for those? I suspect very few do... I have many customers who turn up with practically no information, and they expect me to quote for free based on incomplete info.


So a garage could also reasonably be expected to provide a quote for free, and if that involves them examining the car then yes, that should be free. Or it could be free, if they wished.


If everythings is agreed beforehand then fine... but if no payment was mentioned before hand then it's a bit rich to try to charge now.



Do people think a garage should be paid for discussing the new cars they have for sale with a potential customer? Should they charge for test drives?

If not, then why all the 'time is money' and 'the garage is not a charity' statements... all companies must carry out some work for free., or should carry out some work for free, depending on the business model.

The garage should certainly have made the situation clear to the customer when the car was left in.

JoeBallantin... I couldn't agree more.

Had the garage said up front... "sorry mate, but if this car is BER or you don't get the work done by us we'll have to charge you for the diagnostic" then I'd say fair enough.

But a business can't charge a potential customer for the work they put into trying to win that customer.... that's just absurd!

Big difference between giving a qoute to win a job and actuallly looking at any machine to asses problems

The qoute for the gagrage is we will charge you x per hr for work

Then they worked for 1.5 hrs and were honest enough to advise you to cut your losses.

If an electrician drives to your home looks at a washing machine and advises that it would be better to right off the old one, should this service be free.

You ask these people for expert professional opinion.
You are not only paying for time you are paying for know how.

Frank said:

If an electrician drives to your home looks at a washing machine and advises that it would be better to right off the old one, should this service be free.

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I think this is called a call out charge and would generally be discussed on initially contacting the tradesman.

OP doesn't give a great deal of detail but I would take exception to a garage charging me for 'having a look'.

It's just a guess but I would imagine they told OP something like 'leave it in and we'll have a look at it for you and let you know what it needs'.

Times might be tough and to be honest, if it were me I would probably pay up.... I still find it underhand and a bit sharp though.

but by following that logic it would seem to be in the garage's interest to do some work that would not fully "fix" the car in order to justify a charge to the motorist.

in this case the garage did the right thing.

From what i get from the origional question, This car was left in for repairs as there was a mechanical problem. An hour and a half to diagnose it was not worth the owner paying into a bottomless pit to keep it road worthy was the right call and one I would have made. Some people cant see the wood for the trees. A well run garage knows how to handle its customers and knows when to call it a day on the cost of repairs to the value of their vehicle. Why should have been done for free ?? A little cop on please.

If the garage didn't say that there was a charge to diagnose the problem then there should be no charge. If they did mention a diagnosis charge then a charge is fine.

So which is it?

Just because they did some work doesn't mean they should be entitled to charge. It all comes down to what was agreed beforehand... and if nothing was agreed then that's the garages problem really...

I find myself tending towards "JoeBallantin"'s feelings on this thread but not quite a 100%.

But I would suspect that the OP is not too pushed either way as they have not checked back since posting on the 2nd Oct.

Just my 2'pennth worth.

JoeBallantin said:

If the garage didn't say that there was a charge to diagnose the problem then there should be no charge. If they did mention a diagnosis charge then a charge is fine.

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I would be of the opinion that it is the other way around.

If the OP didn't agree up front with the garage that there would be no charge for having a look then why shouldn't there be a charge

A mechanic spent 1.5 hours looking at the car - why should the garage have to pay his wages without recouping the cost of the time spent on the job.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I forgot to check back in here. I was just ranting really, the money had already been paid. :-(
A charge was never mentioned when leaving the car in. I was caught out by this garage before, I should have learned my lesson the first time!

Its obvious that they would charge for this. they spent time inspecting the car and time is labour and that is what you were charged for.

Eamonn T said:

Its obvious that they would charge for this. they spent time inspecting the car and time is labour and that is what you were charged for.

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I know this has been done to death (mods... feel free to close at any time...) but I feel quite strongly about this...

Eamonn T... you go into Harvey Norman's and talk to a sales guy for half an hour about a new laptop... should he invoice you for his time... after all "time is labour".

Or you get a guy out to quote you for new windows / a new kitchen... he spends time at your house and time preparing the quotation for you... should he invoice you for his time... after all "time is labour".

Spending time in the pursuit of new business should be allowed for as a cost to the organisation to be covered by the margin on generated sales.

A business needs to understand first and foremost what it gets paid for!