How we price a repair
Every cost range on this site is built the same way, from the same four inputs. Here is the arithmetic, so you can check it — and so you know exactly what you are looking at when a figure is marked provisional.
Last updated July 2026
The four inputs
A repair bill is not one number. It is four, and they behave differently.
| Input | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Parts | Priced as a range across OEM, aftermarket, and remanufactured where all three are genuinely viable. Where a remanufactured unit is not a real option, we say so instead of quietly using the cheapest figure to make the range look better. |
| Labor hours | Flat-rate hours from published guides where we have them, and the hours reported on submitted invoices where we do not. Real hours routinely exceed flat rate on an older truck, so the top of the range reflects the invoices, not the book. |
| Labor rate | Per state, per shop type — dealer, independent, mobile. Collected from invoices and from calling shops directly. Where a state has no sample yet, a labelled national placeholder is used. |
| Shop supplies and fees | The line nobody quotes you. Typically a percentage of labor, plus disposal and environmental fees where applicable. Included in our totals because it is on your invoice. |
The arithmetic
total = parts + (labor hours × labor rate) + shop supplies + fees
The low end of a published range is that calculation with aftermarket or remanufactured parts, book hours, and an independent shop's rate. The high end is OEM parts, the hours an invoice actually showed, and a dealer rate. Both ends are real bills somebody paid.
Why we publish percentiles, not extremes
Once a repair has enough submitted invoices behind it, we publish the interquartile range — the 25th to the 75th percentile — with the median called out inside it.
A true minimum and maximum would be a wider range and a worse one. The absolute minimum is usually a fleet with a parts contract doing the work in-house; the absolute maximum is usually a breakdown on an interstate at 2am with a rotator involved. Neither tells you anything about the quote in your hand. The middle half does.
What we show alongside every range
- The sample size, as a raw count of invoices.
- The median, not just the band.
- The date of the most recent invoice in the set.
- Whether the figure is verified from our data or provisional from published sources.
What “provisional” means
A range needs at least 5 approved invoices before we will present it as ours. Below that threshold the page still shows a range — a page with no number on it is useless to someone holding a quote — but it is built from cited published sources rather than our data, it is flagged provisional in a banner, and the byline under the range names what it was derived from.
The labor rate inside those provisional figures currently comes from a national placeholder band, not from our own state dataset. Its published provenance reads, verbatim:
provisional national placeholder — TODO(verify), not yet from our collected dataset
The placeholder bands themselves: Class 8 $125–$210/hr, medium duty $110–$185/hr, light duty and pickup $95–$165/hr. These are placeholders pending our own collection, not measurements, and they are marked as such everywhere they surface.
What is not in the number
- Towing and recovery. Priced independently and highly situational.
- Downtime. Usually the largest cost of the whole event and never on the invoice. Use the downtime calculator to put a figure on it.
- Diagnostic time where it is billed separately, which varies by shop.
- Collateral repairs found once the truck is apart, which is the single most common reason a real bill exceeds a published range.
- Taxes, which vary by jurisdiction.
Using this to judge a quote
- Ask for the quote broken into parts, labor hours, labor rate, and supplies. A shop that will not break it out is telling you something.
- Compare each line separately. A quote can be high on parts and fair on labor, and the total hides that.
- Check the labor rate against rates in your state rather than against a national average.
- Run it through the quote checker, which does the line-by-line comparison for you.
- A quote above our range is not automatically a rip-off. Emergency service, a rare part, a seized fastener, or a truck that needed more than the code suggested all justify it. Ask which one applies.
Help make these better
Every one of these ranges gets sharper with each invoice submitted. It takes about two minutes, we publish nothing identifying, and the aggregate is public — including to you.
Submit a repair invoice