Do you know how towing a car into this particular shop works? If so, please enlighten me.

In most shops, mechanics do not talk to customers. Mechanics get paid to work on vehicles - not talk on phones.

Regardless, the potential for sticker shock exists if the LLM and the mechanic disagree on pricing. You can and will lose customers due to this. I’ve seen it happen. That’s why service advisors are trained to only quote for diagnostics over the phone.

Finally, in the sales training we got, we were taught to not compete on price. This rule doubly applies to a high end shop. They make their money by competing on quality and timeliness. Adding the LLM to the equation compromises both of those.

From the Washington state attorney general’s website:

“ Estimate: You are entitled to a written price estimate for the repairs you have authorized before the work is performed, only if you deal face-to-face with the facility and the work is expected to cost more than $100. Once you receive an estimate, the facility may not charge you more than 10% above the estimated costs without your prior approval.

The estimate includes, among other things: the odometer reading; a description of the problem or the specific repair requested; choice of alternatives for the customer; the estimated cost; labor and parts necessary for the specific diagnosis/repair requested”

So the LLM builds an estimate. Maybe it’s under 10% difference when the customer walks through the door.

When it’s not, there’s a big problem. Yes, this is still before work has begun, but now you’ve wasted the customers time. And potentially wasted their money if the vehicle was towed in.

Otherwise, it’s all different.

The exit plan for these guys is usually to sell the shop. Most buyers are usually skilled white collar workers looking for a new hobby. The shop folds after that because they no longer have the same connections to the specialty community.

You can get business outside of the specialty auto scene. In fact, it’s required since that’s what actually makes money. Google reviews and word of mouth are king here.

So do you remove the owner from the customer experience? I wouldn’t. But if you are going to do that, then, understanding the risk is important.

1. Unless you have a recent job that matches the exact same repair/service, you have incorrectly estimated the cost of the repair. In some states, this matters a lot and will cost the shop money. Unless your LLM only quotes for labor in sane amounts for diagnostic and nothing else, you’re only adding noise. This is a disservice to the client and the shop owner. The client now has an inaccurate quote for work and the shop will get a reputation for being inaccurate in quoting work.

2. Let’s say that you manage to get the exact same job twice. Your machine now needs to source parts. Parts may have been in stock yesterday. The might be out of stock now. If they are in stock, you need to retotal the price since prices are dynamic. Did you teach the agent how to source parts? What rules does it have for sourcing used parts?

3. New jobs can’t be quoted. Even if you taught the machine how to calculate book time and margins, it still has to find the right parts. If your shop does high end work, you know how much of a pain in the ass this is. Also remember that some work requires nonobvious parts - like fluids if you need to remove a part in the way of your goal.

4. The only area I see this being useful in is pickup. The shop can mark a car as done and the LLM can call to inform the client that they can come at a preset, unchanging time to get the vehicle. If the vehicle is staying overnight, the LLM can call with a progress update.

Finally, I’d like to note that this sort of dev work goes beyond hubris. It’s dangerous. The more we assume we know without verifying, the greater the risk. In this case, the dev is risking someone else’s livelihood.

I'll set the scene that I think most of us have experienced: you're working on a project. You start down the rabbit hole of research to find a solution to something. Maybe you find it quickly somehow. But this case, you don't. The problem is too big for an easy answer and instead requires synthesis and reflection.

Eventually, after opening 50 tabs and only closing the immediately useless stuff, you find that you need to circle back up the problem solving chain. The problem is that you have 45 tabs open and no method to the madness that is clearly visible.

This further compounds if you're trying to solve a new problem with an existing set of tabs that haven't been cleaned out from the last problem.

Nowhere in this process is the UX leading you to solving a problem.

My half-baked solution is to allow for the user to enter "research mode". When a new tab is opened, the browser halts the user and prompts for what they found on the last tab that led them to opening this new tab. When the user leaves research mode, any leafs left should also prompt for a summary or omitted as irrelevant. Then, once all the tabs have been accounted for, a report can be generated which shows all the URLs and the user's notes. Bonus points if allows generation of MLA / APA citations automagically. Further bonus points if I can highlight sections of text / images while in research mode to fill my new tab questionnaire as I go.

I feel like the author of this post would have benefited from those letters. Maybe your kids would too.