How We Work: Estimate, Authorization, Repair

A repair shop in Oregon has to prepare an estimate before it begins work on your car, and give you a copy no later than before it takes final payment. That is ORS 646A.482.

The estimate has to describe the general nature of the proposed work and divide it into separate tasks to the extent the work can be divided. It has to list the estimated cost of labor and of the parts or component systems to be replaced, any incidental charges, and a total, which may be stated as a reasonable range. The shop keeps its own copy.

One provision rarely gets quoted. Where a shop proposes to take a vehicle apart simply to find out what is wrong, the estimate has to carry two extra figures: the cost of that disassembly and evaluation, with reassembly priced separately, and the time the shop would reasonably take to put the vehicle back together. Ask for both before you agree to exploratory work.

ORS 646A.480 defines a vehicle repair shop as any business that, in exchange for payment, evaluates the condition of, maintains or repairs a motor vehicle. A one-person garage is covered on the same terms as a multi-bay shop.

The vehicle side is narrower than drivers expect. A motor vehicle here is a self-propelled device used on a public highway for personal, family or household purposes. Motor homes are excluded by name, as are fleet vehicles serviced under a maintenance contract. Body and frame shops fall outside the definition, and collision work sits under a separate statute, ORS 746.292.

Once an estimate passes $200, an Oregon repair shop cannot work on the car until you authorize it. The prohibition is wider than most people assume: without your authorization the shop cannot evaluate the vehicle's condition, cannot disassemble it or remove parts to assess it, and cannot carry out repair or maintenance work.

Under $200 the authorization requirement drops away, which is worth knowing when a small job is written up at drop-off. Approving part of an estimate and deferring the rest is normal. Ask which deferred items are safety related and which can reasonably wait.

Ten percent or $200 past the figure you authorized, whichever is less. Past that point ORS 646A.486 requires the shop to stop and obtain a fresh authorization.

The statute also sets out how an estimate gets revised. The shop either marks on the estimate the work it will not now perform and recalculates the cost, or it prepares a new estimate and voids the previous one. Either route leaves you a document you can hold against the first one.

Jobs grow for ordinary reasons on used vehicles: a fastener shears off on a car that has spent fifteen winters permanently damp, or a second worn component turns out to be sitting behind the first. When that happens here the work stops and you get the call, including where the increase sits under the statutory threshold. Where we cannot reach you, the car waits. Where the revised figure means the repair no longer makes financial sense for the vehicle, you are told that too.

Bring in a quote you already have and we will tell you what we would measure to confirm it. Call (541) 641-8877.

ORS 646A.486 recognizes three, and we use whichever suits you.

In writing. You sign a statement printed on the estimate itself.

Orally, by telephone. The shop notes the name and telephone number of the person giving assent and the date and time of the call.

Electronically. By fax, email or other electronic means, carrying the sender's signature or name and the date and time of transmission, attached to a copy of the estimate.

Whichever route you take, the approval has to point at a specific estimate. "Do whatever it needs" gives you nothing to hold anyone to afterward, and we will not work from it.

ORS 646A.495 adds two things worth knowing at any counter. You can name a designee to approve work for you, but you cannot name the repair shop or anyone working for it. And you can waive the authorization requirement only where the shop explains it first and you sign a separate document under a statement conspicuous enough that a reasonable person would have noticed it. A waiver folded into the small print of a work order does not meet that test.

ORS 646A.490 governs the end of the job. A shop cannot charge you for work it did not perform, even where that work appeared on an estimate you authorized. It cannot install used parts, or a component system mixing new and used parts, where the estimate said new, and it has to disclose used or reconditioned parts. It has to reassemble a disassembled vehicle approximately within the time the estimate indicated, where the parts are available. And it has to keep legible copies of the required documents for at least a year.

That last one earns its keep after the fact. A year on, the shop still holds the estimate and the invoice, so an argument about what you approved does not turn on whether you kept your copy. Where a shop will not resolve a dispute, the Oregon Department of Justice runs a consumer hotline on 1-877-877-9392, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM Monday to Friday, and publishes a searchable database of complaints against named businesses.

Less often than drivers fear, and the threat of a held car is what usually ends a dispute early. ORS 87.152 gives anyone who repairs a chattel a possessory lien over it, then carves motor vehicles back out. On a car, only a franchised dealer or manufacturer, a tow operator holding a Department of Transportation certificate, or a lien on an abandoned vehicle qualifies without more. Any other shop has to maintain a $20,000 surety bond or an irrevocable letter of credit before it can claim one.

Search for your rights on a car repair and most of what comes back governs somewhere else: Washington Attorney General guidance, California Bureau of Automotive Repair material, Florida's rule on exceeding an estimate, Georgia and Ohio consumer pages.

Oregon has no Bureau of Automotive Repair. The rules here are ORS 646A.480 through 646A.495, and their numbers differ. Oregon's tolerance is 10 percent or $200, whichever is less. Florida's is $10 or 10 percent, whichever is greater. On a $1,200 repair those two rules disagree about when the shop owes you a phone call.

The statute sets the floor. Our estimate carries the measurement behind every line on it.

• What was tested and what it showed, with the number attached: brake pad thickness in millimeters, rotor thickness against the discard dimension stamped into the rotor, and play at a named steering or suspension joint, with the side it is on.
• Parts and labor on separate lines, with the part named and a reason for choosing it over a cheaper one.
• Every item sorted into one of three groups: unsafe to drive on, should be scheduled soon, worth keeping an eye on.
• Follow-on work named up front, such as the alignment a suspension replacement will require, and how long we expect to have the car.

Those last two save the most argument at collection. An alignment that follows suspension work belongs on the estimate you agreed to rather than on the invoice, and a timeline given at drop-off decides whether you arrange a ride back to Thurston or wait in the lobby.

Diagnostic charges are explained before the work starts, and the parts we replace are kept for you on request, with the measurement that condemned them. Getting a second opinion on a large job is reasonable, and the estimate is yours to carry to any other shop on Main Street.

Call (541) 641-8877, email info@autorepairspringfield.com, or tell us what the car is doing. The contact page carries a six-point description script that speeds up the diagnosis.

3436 Olympic St, Springfield, OR 97478, a short run from Eugene and the rest of Lane County. Weekdays 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on the Saturdays nobody else in Springfield covers.

How to judge any shop in town covers what to ask at a counter that is not ours, and about the shop covers who you are dealing with.