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Hi there.I did my car service recently and the garage found the coolant low and antifreeze weak. They did the pressure test of the cooling system and found the hose is leaking and they suggested it to be replaced. They told me the labour fee is unknown which means it might take half an hour or a few hours to get the job done.They said because it’s rusty, something like that so they can not estimate the amount of labour time. I shopped around and asked one another garage and they estimate it for 1-hour labour. It just raised a question for me that how would the charge of labours work? Does every garage have the same way of calculating the labour fee? And more specifically, is ‘rusty’ a true reason why they couldn’t estimate the labour cost? Are they just not confident of doing this job so not sure how much time it will take or they are just trying to rip me off? Thanks.

Any job can snow ball so it can be tricky to provide an accurate quote.
The rust and a perished leaky pipe indicate that the pipe may have been on for a long time sometimes these pipes can become ceased over time other times slip of with ease, it can be a roll of the dice.
The mechanical shop is trying to protect themselves incase something goes wrong.

Hi Ian, thanks for your help.I am just wondering if most of the garages will do Flat Rate Charging? So, in this case, that garage just do not want to risk repairing my car and wants to charge for actual hours worked? But I've asked other garage and they said it only takes about one hour to complete it no matter it's rusty or not.