Estimates

A guess on the part of a service department with respect to the nature of a vehicle's problem and cost of repairing it. Although most shops will stand by their estimate, there is also the situation where the problem is caused by something which will be more expensive to repair or may be less expensive. In the case where other components are also faulty (but the estimate did not include them), the shop may contact the customer with a revised estimate saying, "We can repair what we thought was the faulty part, but we found another defective part which also contributed to the problem once we took things apart. Now the cost will be more. Do you want us to go ahead and repair that component too?" In the case where a lesser solution repaired the problem, good shops will give you a bill that is much less than the estimate with an explanation like, "We thought we had to replace the expensive control box, but we found that one of its plugs had come loose". See also EPA estimates