Mechanic Quote Decoder

Mechanic Quote Decoder Skill

Most garages are honest; the padding problem is structural anyway: you can't see the car, you can't judge the diagnosis, and the quote arrives by phone with a "while it's up on the lift" rider. The defense isn't mechanical knowledge — it's interrogation structure: which lines trace to the symptom you brought the car in with, which are discoveries (legitimate but separately decidable), which are maintenance upsells wearing urgency, and the magic question that dissolves soft lines: "which of these are safety-critical today, and which can wait until the next service?" Honest garages answer that cleanly. The answer's shape tells you which kind you're dealing with.

What This Skill Produces

• A line-by-line decode of the quote: symptom-linked / legitimate discovery / maintenance-due / soft upsell — with the reasoning per line and the 🔴🟡🟢 urgency read as claimed vs as evidenced
• The callback questions, scripted: the safety-critical-today question, the "can I see/keep the old part?" line, the failed-vs- worn distinction ("is it broken, or wearing?"), labor-hours clarity
• A sort: authorize now / decline politely / defer to next service / second-opinion — with the decline scripts that keep the relationship
• The second-opinion math: when the quote size justifies the cost and hassle of another garage's eyes, and how to ask for one without war
• Price-sanity flags: parts findable at retail (the OEM-vs- pattern-part question asked, not assumed), labor hours vs book-time norms — framed as questions to ask, never as asserted local prices

Required Inputs

Ask for (if not already provided):

• The quote/invoice text or the phone-call version as remembered, with every line and price
• The original symptom: what the car was brought in FOR, in the user's words
• The car (make/model/year/mileage) and its service history roughness
• The relationship: trusted long-term garage, or first visit? (The prior changes the read — and the scripts)

Framework

1. Anchor every line to the symptom. Three bins: fixes-the- complaint · discovered-while-in-there (real, but a separate decision — the lift doesn't obligate you) · unrelated-maintenance (legitimate as scheduled work, soft as urgency). A quote where nothing maps to the original symptom is itself a 🔴.
2. Interrogate urgency, don't assume bad faith. The load-bearing question, verbatim: "Which of these are unsafe to drive on today, and which can wait for the next service?" Follow-ups: "is the part failed or wearing?" · "what happens if I leave it 3 months?" Honest answers are specific and mixed; padding answers are uniformly urgent.
3. Ask for the evidence ritual. "Can you show me / photograph the worn part?" and "I'd like the old parts back" — both normal professional requests; both change soft-line behavior. On brakes, the numbers question: "how many millimeters left?" converts "getting low" into a fact with a timeline.
4. Sanity-check the money as questions. Parts: "is that OEM or pattern, and what's the price difference?" Labor: "how many hours is that line?" — then the user can compare against book-time sources themselves; the skill frames the questions and never invents local rates. Diagnostic fees credited against work done? Ask — often yes.
5. Sort and script. Authorize the symptom-fix and true safety items · defer maintenance-due to its schedule ("let's do that at the service in March — book me in") · decline the soft lines with the relationship-keeper: "just the [symptom fix] today, thanks — I'll plan the rest." Second-opinion trigger: quote is engine/transmission money, or the urgency answers came back uniform-and-vague; the ask that isn't war: "I want to think about a bill this size — can I get the diagnosis in writing?" (The written- diagnosis request is also the second garage's starting point.)

Output Format

## The quote, decoded
| Line | £ | Bin (symptom / discovery / maintenance / soft) | Urgency
claimed vs evidenced | Verdict |

## Call the garage back with these
[The scripted questions, in order, with what honest vs soft answers
sound like]

## The sort
Authorize: … · Defer (with booking line): … · Decline (script): … ·
Second opinion because: …

## Money sanity questions
[OEM-vs-pattern · labor hours · diagnostic-fee credit — as asks]

⚠ This decodes the quote's structure — it is not a remote diagnosis.
A written diagnosis + a second garage is the tool for engine-money
decisions.

Quality Checks

• Every line lands in exactly one bin with reasoning tied to the stated symptom
• The safety-critical-today question appears verbatim in the callback script
• Deferrals come with a rebooking line — declining maintenance forever is its own future 🔴, and the decode says so
• No local prices, book-times, or part costs asserted — money checks are framed as questions
• The tone treats the garage as presumed-honest; the structure does the protecting

Anti-Patterns

• Do not diagnose the car — the skill interrogates the quote, and says so when asked to do more
• Do not script accusations — every line is deliverable to a mechanic you'll see again
• Do not dismiss discovered work as scam by default; the lift really does reveal things — separate decision ≠ illegitimate
• Do not let deferred safety items vanish — deferrals get dates
• Do not invent repair prices or hour norms; the questions put the numbers on the garage's side of the table where they belong

Related

[[used-car-decoder]] before this car was yours; [[home-contractor-quote-decoder]] — the same grammar in a different trade; [[car-tco]] for whether this car is worth fixing at all.