What we do

Starting and charging

Why it will not turn over, why the battery is flat on Monday, and which of the four things in that circuit is actually at fault.

three jobs on the rate card
Labour from $145
one to six hours

“It is on its second new battery and it is still going flat.”

A battery, a starter, an alternator and the cables between them are one circuit, and a fault in any one of them looks exactly like a fault in the others. That is why this is the single most parts-swapped area in the trade, and why so many vehicles arrive here on their second new battery with the original fault still in them.

The test that separates them takes about forty minutes and is skipped almost everywhere. State of charge first, then a load test, then the charging voltage measured at the alternator and again at the battery — because the difference between those two numbers is a fault all by itself, and it is a cable or a connection rather than anything you can buy. Then the ripple on the output, which is what shows a diode stage that has gone down. And under crank, the voltage lost along the main feed and along the ground path, which is what separates a tired starter from a cable that cannot deliver to a perfectly good one. Parasitic drain is the slower job: the vehicle has to be left alone long enough for its modules to go to sleep before the reading means anything at all, and pulling fuses to hunt one wakes everything up and resets the clock.

What would actually be measured

In roughly this order, and none of it names a part

State of charge and a load test on the battery, before any conclusion about anything else
Charging voltage at the alternator and at the battery, and the difference between them
Ripple on the charging output, which a voltmeter cannot show you
Voltage drop on the main feed and on the ground path, measured while the engine is cranking
Quiescent current once the vehicle has genuinely gone to sleep, timed rather than assumed
On a truck, each battery of the pair tested separately, and where the twelve-volt load comes off

The jobs

What you can buy, and what the labour costs

Hours are chargeable hours. The figure is the published rate for where the work happens multiplied by those hours, and there is nothing else in it — parts are separate and are at cost plus 20 per cent with both numbers on the invoice.

Starting and charging. Hours are chargeable hours. The figure is the published rate for where the work happens, multiplied by the hours, and there is nothing else in it — parts are separate and are at cost plus 20 per cent with both numbers on the invoice. Where a job can be done in the workshop or on site, its figure is the workshop one. Done where the vehicle stands rather than here, the same hours are at the on-site hour, $185.
Job	Hours	Where	Labour
Starting and charging system test	one to two hours	workshop or on site	$145 to $290
Parasitic drain test	two to four hours	workshop or on site	$290 to $580
Dual battery and split charge	three to six hours	workshop	$435 to $870

Starting and charging system test

$145 to $290

Battery, starter, alternator and the cables between them, tested as one circuit rather than swapped one at a time.

one to two hours, turnaround same day
workshop hour, $145, here — or the on-site hour, $185, where it stands

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.

Parasitic drain test

$290 to $580

The battery that is flat on Monday morning. Slow, because the vehicle has to be left alone long enough for its modules to go to sleep before the reading means anything.

two to four hours, turnaround one to two days
workshop hour, $145, here — or the on-site hour, $185, where it stands

The first hour: Connecting the meter without breaking the circuit, then waiting. Pulling fuses to find a drain wakes everything up again and resets the clock, which is why that method finds nothing and takes all afternoon doing it.

What you are left holding: The measured quiescent current, how long it took to settle there, and which circuit the excess is on.

Dual battery and split charge

$435 to $870

A second battery that charges properly, powers what it is meant to power, and cannot flatten the one that starts the engine.

three to six hours, turnaround one to two days
workshop hour, $145, workshop

The first hour: Working out what the alternator on this vehicle actually does, because a charging system that varies its output needs a converter between the batteries and a simple relay will undercharge the second one for ever.

What you are left holding: The installation, fused at both ends, with a drawing of what was fitted and where the fuses are.

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.

Where this stops

What this is not

Fitting a battery is not diagnosis and we will not sell you one as though it were. If the answer turns out to be a battery, that is what the test says and it is a cheap morning. If it turns out to be the third battery in two years, the test is the reason you stop buying them.

Everything we do not do, and who we send you to

A closed workshop roller shutter in flat daylight

A worked example

The van that was booked in for an alternator and did not need one

Plumbing and heating, four vans · One van, second charging complaint in a year

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 we did: 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.

The whole example

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.

Worth reading first

Why the battery is flat on Monday morning

A vehicle that starts all week and not on Monday is being emptied rather than not being filled. Here is how a parasitic drain is actually measured, and why pulling fuses to find one does not work.

Read it — about ten minutes

Questions

What does it cost to find out what is wrong?

One hour, charged at the rate for where it happens: $145 in the workshop, $185 on site, $125 on the bench for a control unit. That hour is measurement rather than guessing, and at the end of it you get what was measured and what it would cost to put right, in writing. If the fix takes under fifteen minutes it happens inside the hour and there is nothing more to pay.

Can you tell me what is wrong over the telephone?

No, and neither can anybody else. We can tell you whether it sounds like a workshop job or a callout, roughly how long the first hour usually takes on that sort of fault, and occasionally that it is something you can check yourself in five minutes. Naming a part down a telephone is guessing with a confident voice.

How do you charge for parts?

At what they cost us plus twenty per cent, and the invoice shows both numbers. We take no rebate, commission or bonus from any supplier for fitting one brand rather than another.

Starting and charging · labour from $145

Describe the symptom, or 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.

Start the symptom check Call 000-000-0000