Arable farm, about nine hundred acres
The combine that stopped three times in one week
The machine cut out at random and restarted after ten minutes.
An illustrative composite, not one job
Plumbing and heating, four vans
The van that was booked in for an alternator and did not need one
One van, second charging complaint in a year
What was happening
The battery light came on intermittently and the previous shop had replaced the alternator eleven months earlier for the same symptom. It was booked in to have the alternator replaced again.
What was done
The charging system tested as a circuit before anything was ordered: state of charge, load test, charging voltage at the alternator and at the battery, and voltage drop on the main cable and the engine ground under load. One hour.
What it turned out to be
There was three quarters of a volt lost across the main charging cable, all of it at a corroded connection behind a bracket, so the alternator was working and the battery was not being fed. The connection was remade. The eleven-month-old alternator stayed in the van, which is the part of this the owner remembers.
Every case study on this site is an illustrative composite assembled from several jobs. No customer is named, no vehicle is identifiable, and there is not a single testimonial on this website attributed to a person — a fabricated one would be the one genuinely dishonest thing a workshop's website can do.
The piece of work
Starting and charging system test
Battery, starter, alternator and the cables between them, tested as one circuit rather than swapped one at a time.
How that figure is arrived at
- Workshop hour× one$145
- The same rate, at the long end× two$290
- Parts, if any are neededcost + 20%separate
- Labour for this jobone to two hours$145 to $290
The workshop hour is $145 and it is on the rates page. That multiplication is the whole of the labour charge: no callout fee on top of it, no shop supplies percentage and no environmental levy. Those are the workshop figures. Done where the vehicle stands rather than here, the same hours are at the on-site hour, $185. It is the cost of the work — it is not a quotation for a vehicle nobody has seen.
The first hour: The whole test. It takes about forty minutes on a car and it is the reason a good many alternators do not need replacing.
What you are left holding: The measured state of charge, the load-test result, the charging voltage at the battery and at the alternator, and the ripple on the output.
The other three
More of the same kind of thing
Haulage, general freight
The yard that kept flattening batteries over a weekend
Three units in nine would not start on a Monday.
An illustrative composite, not one job
Agricultural contractor
The module the dealer said was no longer available
A control unit had stopped driving one section of the machine.
An illustrative composite, not one job
$145 a workshop hour · $185 on site · agreed before it starts
Describe the symptom, or just telephone
The symptom check takes about three minutes and gives you a written summary of which circuits would be tested first and why, with the hours and the published rate against each. It is an indicative scope and not a diagnosis — nobody has seen the vehicle — but it is a better opening than a blank contact form. If you would rather skip it, the telephone works.