Especially when, for each of the 4 examples that you give you will be expected to give an "Accurate" quote immediatly, over the phone and without inspecting the vehicle.

Oh And

If you *are* given the oppertunity to inspect the vehicle you will be expected to do any preliminary inspections FOC even if it takes all day to work out "exactly" what is wrong.

For some years now I have been telling customers that "In most cases, repair is part of the diagnostic process and therefore an accurate prior estimate is impossible"

For the most part, people accept this once it has been explained to them. Those that dont accept it would probabally have been the sort of people who would have complained that, after having spent half a day tracking down a bad earth (say) it is not reasonable that you should charge "All that money *just* for replaceing a lucar terminal costing 20p!"

Ho Humm