Most people find us after somebody else already replaced two parts.

Here is what the first hour buys, because “diagnostic fee” means different things at different shops. We pull codes and freeze frame data, then we look at live data with the engine running under the conditions that actually trigger the fault — which sometimes means driving your car with the scan tool connected rather than idling it in a bay.

Then you get a written finding. What the code means, what we tested, what the reading was, what it should have been, and what we recommend replacing. In that order. If the honest answer is that a component is borderline and we cannot yet prove it is the cause, the report says that too, instead of guessing on your money.

The hour is $128 and it comes off the bill if you have us do the repair.

We check the things that decide whether a used car is a bargain or a project: frame and undercarriage for repair evidence and rust, fluid condition and leaks at the usual suspects, brake and tire life measured rather than eyeballed, suspension play, cooling system pressure, battery and charging output, and a full scan for stored and pending codes including the ones that have been cleared recently — a monitor set that has not completed tells its own story about a light somebody reset in the last twenty miles.

About one in four of these reports ends with the customer walking away from the car. That is the report doing its job.