I was chatting to a friend about the estimate on his car’s restoration… never mind the initial figure (an eye-watering 20k, as it happens), you just KNOW that the final bill is going to be about three times as much. Because it always is. And it was.
Why do garages never, ever, come in under (or even bang-on) estimate? My brother decided that he loves his Alfa 156 Sportwagon so much that he’d have the oil-guzzling engine reconditioned, instead of buying a new car. He also thought that recycling his car in this way was the most environmentally friendly thing to do. Garage estimate: £600-800. Actual cost: £2300. Multiplied by three, again.
Why? What unexpected circumstances cropped up? Alien landings? A warp in the space-time continuum? No, nothing. Let’s face it, Mr Garage Owner, it was just a really bad estimate, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t garages pay for their lack of expertise (or worse) when it comes to estimating so very, very badly? Why are we, the customers, always the ones to make up the shortfall when their estimates are so wide of the mark?
