Terms for Estimates, Authorization, Storage and Payment

A written repair estimate is produced with the vehicle at the shop. It costs $150 and is credited in full against an authorized repair, so proceeding means you pay for it once. Anything sent by email from photographs is a draft range rather than an estimate, and it is labelled that way because it cannot account for what a panel is hiding.

No work begins without your written authorization. If teardown exposes damage that was not visible at estimate, that additional scope is documented, priced and authorized separately before it is repaired. On a claim, the same additional scope goes to your carrier as a supplement. Nobody here has authority to add hours to a job on the assumption you would have agreed.

• Written estimate produced in shop, at $150, credited against an authorized repair
• Photograph based ranges are drafts and are labelled as drafts
• Written authorization required before any work starts
• Added scope documented, priced and authorized as a separate step

A fifty percent deposit is taken at authorization on any job over $2,000, with a further twenty five percent when parts arrive on any job over $10,000. The final balance is due at pickup. Special order parts require a full deposit at the point of order and that deposit is not refundable, because a cap moulded for one coach cannot be sold to the next customer.

Parts carry one hundred percent markup at or under $100 and thirty five percent above it. Paint supplies bill at $55 per paint hour and body supplies at $5 per body hour, with a $45 flat hazmat charge when chemicals, refrigerant or propane is involved. Sales tax of 7.75 percent applies to parts and materials, and labor is not taxed. Card payments over $1,000 carry a three and a half percent surcharge.

• Fifty percent at authorization over $2,000, a further twenty five percent over $10,000
• Special order parts: full deposit at order, not refundable
• Balance due at pickup, before the vehicle is released
• Replaced parts available for your inspection if you ask at authorization

A diagnostic buys technician time on a fault that has not been identified. It bills at $285 per hour with a one hour minimum and is credited in full against an authorized repair. What it produces is a finding, which may be that the fault is not where anybody expected. That is a successful diagnostic and it is billable, because the alternative is replacing parts until something changes.

An in shop pre purchase inspection runs $400 to $1,200 depending on unit size and the number of systems, and it produces a written report on condition rather than a repair estimate. It is performed at the shop only. There is no version of any inspection performed at a seller's address, a storage lot or a campground.

A vehicle left after completion occupies a bay or a yard space that another job needs, so storage charges may apply once a completed unit has not been collected within a reasonable period after notification. You are told when the unit is ready and told again if storage is about to begin, in writing, so a charge is never the first you hear of it.

Where a vehicle is genuinely abandoned, California provides a lien process for registered repair facilities and that process is followed rather than improvised. It is slow, formal and nobody's preferred outcome. If circumstances change and you need more time, say so, because an arrangement agreed in advance is always available and always cheaper than silence.

Where a carrier is paying, the customer remains you. We write the scope, submit documentation and bill the carrier directly where a direct billing relationship exists, and sixteen carriers currently qualify. What a carrier approves is a decision made by an adjuster against a policy you signed, and no shop can commit a carrier to anything.

Two consequences follow. Any amount a carrier declines remains your responsibility, including your deductible and anything classified as maintenance rather than damage. And if you instruct us to perform work your carrier has declined, that work is authorized and paid by you directly, which is a common and perfectly ordinary arrangement once the wall is already open.

Bring the vehicle back and tell us what you are seeing. Cross department review happens before every delivery, and it still misses things occasionally, because a lead who has looked at one panel for three days stops seeing it. A repair that has not come out right gets looked at by the department that performed it and by one that did not, which is how a disagreement about a finish gets settled by more than one pair of eyes.

If that does not resolve it, the California Bureau of Automotive Repair takes complaints about registered facilities and ARD00288521 is the number to quote. That route exists for you and using it is not treated as hostile. These terms are governed by California law and any dispute belongs in Orange County, California.