000-000-0000 · closed Sundays
Six times the answer is somebody else
A page like this costs a workshop real jobs. It is here because the jobs it costs are the ones that would have ended badly, and because a trade that never says no is a trade whose yes means nothing.
Take it to the dealer first, even if you would rather not. Work done elsewhere on a warranted electrical system is an argument waiting to happen, and the argument will be with you rather than with us. If they cannot find it and the warranty position is clear, we are still here.
An engine that runs badly is not automatically an electrical fault, and a garage that has the vehicle open is often better placed. Where the two are genuinely tangled, one diagnostic hour here will usually say which it is — but if your own garage already knows, they should have it.
Wiring damage after an impact belongs with the repair, not separately from it. Restraint components, structural repairs and the insurer's process all sit together, and pulling the electrical part out of that is how something gets missed.
A bulb, a blown fuse, a battery clamp you can move by hand, a trailer plug full of dirt. We will say so on the telephone, and we say it several times a week. A callout for one of those costs you an hour and costs us the next call you would have made.
Some control units can only be coded to a vehicle through the maker's online system by a workshop with an account for that make. Repairing a board avoids the question entirely, which is most of the argument for it — but where a job genuinely needs that access, a franchised dealer is the answer and we will say so at the start.
There is always somebody cheaper, and on a straightforward job they may well be the right choice. What is bought here is the hour spent measuring rather than replacing, and if that is not what you want then paying for it is a waste of your money as well as our morning.
Fewer wasted mornings, mostly. But also: a workshop that will tell you not to book is a workshop whose booking means something, and that is worth more over five years than the six jobs a year this page talks somebody out of.
It works the other way too. About one telephone call in ten ends with us describing something to check first, and a fair number of those never turn into a job at all. That is the intended outcome rather than a leak in the process.
You can stop at the end of the diagnostic hour. You pay for the hour, you keep the written note of what was measured, and you are free to take the vehicle and that note anywhere else.
$145 a workshop hour · $185 on site · agreed before it starts
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.