[amluto]

If I take my car to a shop, the shop contemplates my car, and concludes that they can’t help me on that visit (because they’re the wrong shop, they have the wrong part, etc), the usually charge me $0. Maybe $15.

I have never in my life experienced an ER doing anything competent that remotely resembles reading documentation as part of triage. Why on Earth should they get paid more than a tiny nominal fee for the use of the waiting room and a bit of time spent by the triage staff?

[secabeen]

My understanding is that this is because the car repair market is heavily regulated, estimates are required for all repairs, and payment is based on a standard number of hours for each job, not actual time taken. The cost of estimates is already wrapped into the cost of the completed repairs, and estimates are required before work is done, so few places charge for declined estimates.

https://www.bar.ca.gov/pdf/writeitright.pdf

[dboreham]

I think it's because car repair shops can't get away with being a total dick.

[dsfyu404ed]

Exactly.

"Terell's cousin is handy and while he's not the greatest he can probably get 'r done for more time and frustration but a lot less overall expense" is the nuclear option that caps how big a bag of dicks a shop can be.

Barrier to entry is low and they don't have an AMA cartel lobbying the government to protect them which helps a lot too.

[dsfyu404ed]

>If I take my car to a shop, the shop contemplates my car, and concludes that they can’t help me on that visit (because they’re the wrong shop, they have the wrong part, etc), the usually charge me $0. Maybe $15.

Because you're a regular.

If you're not a regular customer of theirs expect a diagnosis fee that's about equivalent to half an hour of labor.

[dghlsakjg]

Yeah, but you are still informed of, and sign agreement to the diagnostic fee.

They also won't charge you a diagnostic fee if they know ahead of time that it is a service they won't provide like in the example. If I somehow end up at the tire shop for an AC service, they don't send me a bill 6 months later for an arbitrary amount just because they had to tell me that I need to go to the shop down the road for my issue.

I don't live in the states anymore, but I genuinely don't understand how any of this is legal. If I started sending out invoices to every client months later for services that they didn't know they were getting, with arbitrary prices, sometimes with egregious errors on them, I would expect a knock on the door from the authorities.

[shigawire]

If the human body was as easy to fix as a car you might have a point.