How to quote a job you have not seen yet

The intake questions that decide whether a price is possible at all

These are the questions that turn a phone call into either a price or an honest refusal to give one. They take two minutes and they are the difference between a quote you can stand behind and a number you invented under social pressure.

The vehicle, precisely. Year, make, model, and the engine, because the same model with a different engine can be a different job entirely. If they do not know, the plate or the number on the door frame usually settles it, and asking them to read it out is entirely normal.

What is actually happening, in their words, and when it happens. Cold, hot, at speed, on turning, only in the rain. The pattern is often more diagnostic than the description.

What has already been done. This is the question people forget and it is one of the most valuable. A part already replaced by somebody else changes the likely cause, and it also tells you that the last person did not fix it.

Whether the car currently drives, and whether it is safe to. That decides whether this is a booking or a recovery, and it changes the whole shape of the job.

Now the questions that are specific to working from a van and that shop advice never mentions.

Where the vehicle is physically standing. A private driveway, a shared car park, a street with a permit scheme, an apartment complex, a workplace yard. Each of those is a different amount of hassle and some of them are a different amount of paperwork.

Whether the surface is level and hard. A car on grass, gravel or a slope is a different job from the same car on a flat driveway, and it is occasionally a job you have to decline once you see it.

Whether there is room to work around it and whether the vehicle can be moved. Being wedged between two other cars turns forty minutes into ninety.

Whether anybody needs to give permission. Property managers, landlords and some employers have views about repairs on their land, and finding that out on arrival wastes the whole slot.

Whether they already have the part. If they bought it themselves, that is a different conversation entirely, and the guide in this cluster on customer supplied parts covers it before you agree to anything.

And the last one, which is really about them rather than the car: when do they need it done, and is anything else about to be needed. That answer tells you whether you are quoting a job or a relationship.

How to give a range without it becoming a promise

A range is a real answer and it is usually the right one. What makes it work is that it arrives as a package: two numbers, the assumptions underneath them, the things that would move it, and how long it stands.

State the assumptions as facts about the job rather than as excuses. This price assumes the part is the one for your engine, that the fasteners come out, and that nothing behind it needs replacing at the same time. That sentence is doing more work than either number.

Name what would move it, specifically. A seized bolt, a second worn component that is visible only once it is apart, a part that turns out to be the wrong one for this vehicle. Customers accept these easily when they were mentioned in advance and resent them enormously when they were not.

Say what happens if it moves, and say it as a promise about your behaviour rather than about the price. Nothing extra gets done without a call and a new figure they agree to. That is the sentence that makes the whole range safe, and it is the same discipline the repair authorization guide in this cluster goes through in detail.

Say what is not in it. Fluids, disposal, a second visit, anything the range is not covering. An exclusion mentioned once is a fact, and the same exclusion mentioned at invoice time is an excuse.

Give it an expiry. Prices for parts move and a figure from six weeks ago should not follow you around. A short sentence about how long it stands is normal, and it also gently encourages the caller to decide.

Then send it. Same numbers, same assumptions, written down, before you go. Everything above is only real if it exists somewhere other than a phone call, and this is the step most often skipped on small jobs, which is exactly where the arguments happen.

The jobs that cannot be priced on the phone, and how to say so

Some work simply cannot be quoted without seeing it, and knowing which is which protects you far more than any clever wording.

Anything described as a noise. A noise is a symptom with a very wide range of causes and price outcomes, and the caller genuinely cannot tell you enough to narrow it. Quoting one is guessing in public.

Anything intermittent, particularly electrical. The fault has to be present to be found, and even the time it takes is unknowable in advance.

A warning light with no other information. The light is a report that the vehicle noticed something, not a diagnosis, and a code points at a circuit rather than a broken part.

Overheating, and anything involving a possible internal engine problem. These have an enormous range of outcomes and the cheap end and the expensive end are separated by something nobody can see from a phone.

Any repair on a vehicle that has spent its life somewhere corrosive, where what should be a straightforward component change is decided entirely by whether the fasteners cooperate.

Anything where the customer is repeating a diagnosis somebody else made. You are being asked to price a conclusion you did not reach and cannot verify, and if it is wrong the failure will be attributed to you.

The way to say all of this is short and not apologetic. Explain that you could give them a number now and it would be a guess, that you would rather come and find out, and what that visit costs and produces. Most callers respect it, because it is obviously the answer of somebody who intends to be accurate.

The ones who do not respect it are usually looking for the lowest phone number rather than for a mechanic, and losing those calls costs less than winning them does.