I love these kinds of posts. It shows that people with no working knowledge of a certain type of business understand how it works.
I am the owner of an independant shop and I can tell you that I ALWAYS charge when I do a wreck estimate.
Why? Because you are taking one of my technicians away from a job to look over your bike and taking up one of my lifts to put your bike on to look at it.
Is my time, my techs time, or my equipment worth nothing to you? It sure sounds like it by the way you are bad mouthing a business that is in business to make money.
Someone also said that the insurance would deny the amount of the cost of the estimate? I have never had an insurance company deny one of my estimates or any charges resulting from one. I can tell you that what happens is if the bike is repaired at my shop the cost of the estimate is applied towards to actual repair hours. If the customer picks the bike up and I do not do the work then the charges are due to my shop, either by the insurance or the owner of the bike, before the bike is released. No exceptions
So here is the reality of it for future knowledge.
You have already handled this it sounds like but, next time either take it to a shop that will do what you need and discuss money in detail with them or dont. Leave the machine at your house, let the adjuster come out to you, let him do his own estimate, you and he go back and forth about the actual cost of things associated with the machine and what needs to be repaired, and learn to work on your own bike yourself.
Haynes has motorcycle repair manuals readily available for you to purchase so you can be a "DIY" kind of guy!!!
Now I am sure I have offended someone on here by this and they are going to come at me with something like "nice business attitude", or "your shop must not be busy since you talk to people like this" etc, etc, etc,.
Let me assure you I have more than enough work to meet my goals and then some. I have this shop and work on motorcycles because I enjoy it, NOT because I have to!
