Posted On: July 28, 2008, 4:05 pm CDT

Posted By: Mark1

Granted, Two Cents, that not all companies are paintable with the same brush. The same holds true of consumers, shops, and vendors also.

However, your point of "watching" vendors that "set their own prices" is startling.

Who should set a repair vendor's prices, if not the vendor; the repair expert, the one conducting the actual repairs and assuming the liability for those repairs?

Insurers set their own prices which vary greatly depending upon the insurer, more than just the actual amounts of coverage. Any web search will prove such. The quality and level of service (and the fine print or lack of exclusions) by the higher priced insurer is usually higher, and so is the higher priced vendor. In other words, you get what you pay for is still an adage that holds true today, possibly more than ever before.

I have found that vendors that do not use the estimating guides are usually much more in touch with the actual costs involved in the repair, and watching their costs much more closely, and providing much more accurate estimates, and finally, repair bills, simply because they don't use the "guides". Old fashioned, perhaps, but also thorough.

Again, who should be "setting" those repair vendor's pricing if not themselves?