Diagnostic Fee - Fair?

motorguy

Bigwheels1111 said:

I asked my local mechanic today what he charged for a diagnostic scan.
He charges 1 hours labour £48 inc vat.
The scanning kit and software cost him about 4k
The funny thing is that as much as the scanner tells you it not alway that helpful.
The car he was scanning said rear abs sensor had failed.
He smiled at me and said I bet the wires are damaged, as the plastic surrounding the wires is now eco friendly and contains 
a nut oil. The foxes love the taste and chew through them.
He put it up on the ramp and there were the chewed wires.
He soldered the wires and taped them up.
Charged the customer £48 all in.
Thats how you keep loyal happy customers.
The abs sensor was £150 plus fitting + scanning fee, near £300.

Thats exactly the problem.  People think by knowing "the code" thats the hard bit over, but often its not - its about knowing what the code means or know what it might mean.  Or what a combination of codes means.

motorguy

Ibrahim5 said:

Oh my god. £48 for a bit of solder and insulation tape. I'd have done it myself for about 20p.

Oh now come on, you're paying there for the use of the equipment and the time spent diagnosing the problem.

You wouldnt last long in business if you charged a customer 20p after maybe spending an hour or two on the car, have overheads to pay and using equipment that you've paid thousands for.

motorguy

Ibrahim5 said:

I would have thought that a £3.95 Bluetooth scanner would be adequate for diagnosing ABS faults. Your phone has got plenty of processing power and the data provided through OBD2 is relatively slow.

And then what?

The O/P has a code and doesnt know what it means and cant / doesnt want to do the repair themselves anyway?

"Just get a code reader and solve it yourself" posts remind me of -

Ibrahim5

The connection costs £3.95 for the interface. The hardware on the other side is a phone or PC. Anything made in the last 25 years should do. Anything else is software costs.

Ibrahim5

motorguy said:

Ibrahim5 said:

I would have thought that a £3.95 Bluetooth scanner would be adequate for diagnosing ABS faults. Your phone has got plenty of processing power and the data provided through OBD2 is relatively slow.

And then what?

The O/P has a code and doesnt know what it means and cant / doesnt want to do the repair themselves anyway?

"Just get a code reader and solve it yourself" posts remind me of -

With an ABS sensor fault you will have something like Throttle 50% Revs 2000 Gear 5. 3 wheels 50mph. 4th wheel 0mph. It's pretty obvious if 3 wheels are going at 50mph the fault is with the sensor registering 0mph. OK it might be the wire to the sensor but that always goes through your mind anyway. Not rocket science.

Phantom151

Ibrahim5 said:

The connection costs £3.95 for the interface. The hardware on the other side is a phone or PC. Anything made in the last 25 years should do. Anything else is software costs.

A £3.95 plug won't read ABS faults.

Ibrahim5

The commonest fault I fix are rear parking sensors. Just plug in and it tells you which one to replace. Less than £10 on eBay and it's fixed. Go to the dealership and it's £300 with brand new sensor, diagnostics and labour.

Ibrahim5

Most modern cars have got a display which is quite capable of displaying all the data. No need for an interface really. So it could come up with "fault on front left ABS sensor" on the display in front of the driver. I think the dealer would then have more trouble charging £150 for reading the display. I can't imagine that happening soon 

motorguy

Ibrahim5 said:

motorguy said:

Ibrahim5 said:

I would have thought that a £3.95 Bluetooth scanner would be adequate for diagnosing ABS faults. Your phone has got plenty of processing power and the data provided through OBD2 is relatively slow.

And then what?

The O/P has a code and doesnt know what it means and cant / doesnt want to do the repair themselves anyway?

"Just get a code reader and solve it yourself" posts remind me of -

With an ABS sensor fault you will have something like Throttle 50% Revs 2000 Gear 5. 3 wheels 50mph. 4th wheel 0mph. It's pretty obvious if 3 wheels are going at 50mph the fault is with the sensor registering 0mph. OK it might be the wire to the sensor but that always goes through your mind anyway. Not rocket science.

And my point still stands - and then what?

The O/P clearly doesnt want to / cant do the work themselves, so you're going to need to take it to a mechanic anyway.  And then you risk becoming one of the latter categories above.  Apart from anything if you "tell" a mechanic whats wrong with the car and only to repair that fault then you're pretty stuffed if its not that.  And yes, granted sometimes its obvious / can be deduced correctly but often its many codes to sift through and you need to know what that combination means.

What the O/P needs a cheap reliable local garage, not some cheap code reader that may or may not give him the codes that he can then attempt to diagnose himself before taking it to the main dealers or otherwise and telling them what to do.

motorguy

Ibrahim5 said:

The connection costs £3.95 for the interface. The hardware on the other side is a phone or PC. Anything made in the last 25 years should do. Anything else is software costs.

Now come on, you know as well as i do that a main dealer isnt using a £3.95 ebay special.  

In face i dont know any reputable mechanic who is.