Why is there a charge for testing?

I have found that most business owners have a good handle on what aspect of their business that their customers don’t like. The wiser business owners evaluate if there is something that they can do to improve, change or eliminate that aspect of their business. Unfortunately, sometimes it is not practical to eliminate it.

Everyone in the automotive repair business is very aware that people do not like to pay for diagnostic testing. It is not difficult to know this because there is no shortage of feedback on this subject. And let me be completely honest with you – I don’t always like to pay for it either! But I do have to pay for it. When I ask my technicians to diagnose problems with my own cars I have to pay them for that diagnosis.

Sometimes I think that because of my knowledge of the relationship between symptoms and causes that I can skip the diagnosis step. I recently bought a Mustang and the passenger power window didn’t work from the drivers door. Must be the switch I thought, and ordered a new switch. It turned out it wasn’t the switch, but instead a broken wire. And the wire wasn’t broken in the door or at the hinge, but rather behind the dash.

Another issue occurred six months ago when the Check Engine Light came on in my Dodge Durango. The code was for a Purge Solenoid Valve. I replaced the valve myself, but the code returned. The diagnostic testing revealed that the computer was bad.

Many people believe that the diagnostic computer tells the technician what is wrong. Unfortunately that is not correct. The computer tells the technician what didn’t happen correctly, but not why it didn’t happen. A good technician uses test procedures provided by the specific car manufacturer to test each component in the system and determine what is broken.

What it comes down to is that everyone wants the tests performed, but some don’t want to be charged for the testing. Some businesses claim that they don’t charge for the testing if the customer completes the recommended repair. In our interviewing of service advisers and technicians in these businesses we have been told that they just move the cost from the diagnostic test into the repair itself. We have been told this by many different people. Some businesses just read the diagnostic code and replace that part, but half of the time the problem is not with that part.

We looked at truly not charging for diagnostic testing. The problem is that it is the one aspect of our business with the greatest recurring annual costs. Each diagnostic computer has annual software licensing and software update costs. We have subscriptions to factory information for each make and model of car and truck. We choose to hire technicians at a higher pay rate than other businesses, even dealerships, so that we have people with experience and skill at diagnosing problems. And lastly we have to pay for continuing training every year. Every four months every technician goes to model specific training that only covers the latest advancements in computer based controls and diagnosing them. It takes us two years to rotate through each manufacturer, and then we begin to repeat the cycle.

As we debated the pro’s and the con’s we decided to stick with up front communication and pricing practices and let the chip’s fall where they may.

Brian Klaubert has written for the Neighborhood News for six years, and owns Christian Brothers Automotive – Hamilton Mill on Braselton Hwy in Dacula. They have been voted Best of Gwinnett in both the Gwinnett Daily Post and Gwinnett Magazine.