The Estimate Isn’t the Repair

by Matthew Ciaschini, MABA President

A few months ago, I wrote about “Know Better, Do Better.” The message was simple: once you know the proper repair, you own the responsibility to perform it. Ignorance isn’t a defense anymore.

Now I’d like to take that one step further.

The estimate isn’t the repair.

Read that again. Think about it.

Somewhere along the way, too many shops have allowed an estimating system to become the blueprint for a repair. We open CCC or Mitchell, write what populates on the screen, negotiate what the insurance company challenges and move on to the next vehicle. Before long, we’re letting software dictate the repair instead of the people who engineered the vehicle.

Here’s the problem. CCC didn’t build the car. Mitchell didn’t crash-test the car. The OEM did. Hell, neither estimating company has done a labor study in decades.

An estimating system is exactly what its name says it is; an estimating system. It is not a repair manual. It is not OEM documentation. It is certainly not the final authority on what it takes to restore a vehicle safely and properly.

If CCC were perfect, we’d all be retired and sitting on a beach somewhere. Unfortunately, it doesn’t know what your technician actually did yesterday. Your technician does.

And that’s where many of us are leaving money and credibility on the table.

Every day, technicians perform operations that never make it onto an estimate. They remove components you don’t know about. They protect adjacent panels with materials you probably aren’t charging for. They apply seam sealer, corrosion protection, cavity wax, weld-through primer, structural adhesives, foams, and one-time-use hardware despite what the repair order says. They perform pre-measurements, post-measurements, road tests, battery support procedures, scans, calibrations, aiming procedures, destructive inspections, cleaning operations, masking, feather-prime-and-block operations, denibbing, polishing, corrosion prevention and dozens of other tasks that are necessary to complete a proper repair.

Then we wonder why profitability is shrinking or non-existent.

Here’s a difficult question:

If your technician touched it, documented it, cleaned it, measured it, protected it, removed it, installed it, tested it, calibrated it, or performed it because the OEM required it…why aren’t you asking to be paid for it?

There simply isn’t enough room in Massachusetts labor rates to give anything away.

As many of you know, MABA continues fighting for fair labor reimbursement across the Commonwealth. We are pushing for rates that better reflect the realities of repairing today’s increasingly complex vehicles. But while we’re fighting that battle, we also have to be honest with ourselves. Many shops are unknowingly discounting their own repairs every single day. That’s not the insurance company’s fault. That’s not CCC’s fault. That’s our fault.

Too many repair plans begin and end with whatever the estimating software suggests. The repair should begin with OEM procedures, technician input and a thorough blueprint, not a preloaded database.

The estimate should simply become the written record of the repair. A repair plan. Nothing more. Nothing less.

If an OEM requires it, document it. If your technician performed it, document it. If a product was consumed, document it. If it adds value to the repair, protects the customer or restores the vehicle to manufacturer specifications, document it. Because if you don’t, no one else is going to do it for you. Because if you don’t, you won’t be paid for what you did.

The days of writing a quick estimate in 20 minutes are behind us. Vehicles have changed. Materials have changed. Electronics have changed. Repair procedures have changed. Our processes have to change too. This also means involving the people who actually repair the vehicles.

Some of the best blueprinting I’ve ever seen doesn’t happen behind a computer monitor. It happens on the shop floor with technicians, estimators, parts personnel and production managers walking around the vehicle together. That’s where missed operations are discovered. That’s where OEM procedures are verified. That’s where complete repairs begin. Not at a keyboard. At the vehicle.

As leaders, we also need to stop measuring success by how quickly an estimate is written and start measuring how complete a repair is captured.

Here’s my challenge to every shop owner and manager reading this. Pull five repair orders that have already been delivered. Ask yourself one question:

Did we bill for everything we actually did?

Not everything CCC suggested. Everything we actually did. If the answer is “no” – and I suspect many of us will find at least one missed operation, then that’s where the opportunity lies.

Before we complain that insurers don’t reimburse enough, let’s make sure we’re not failing to request reimbursement for work we’ve already performed. The estimate isn’t the repair. The repair is the repair.

Our responsibility is to understand it, document it, justify it and be compensated for it. Knowing better was the first step. Now it’s time to do better.

Want more? Check out the August 2026 issue of New England Automotive Report!