Mechanic shop inspection checklist
- Checklist points
- 42
- Minutes per inspection
- 50
- Photos to capture
- 21
- Technician cost per inspection
- $31.92
Every figure on this page is worked out from the inputs you enter, by the method stated below it. Lugtorq publishes no labor time guide, no parts price and no industry average: the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own numbers, and the book hours are always yours.
The figures above start from a worked example (42). Change any input and the answer updates as you type.
Download the Mechanic shop inspection checklist worked example (CSV)
A multi point inspection is a sales document that happens to be a safety record, and its cost is bay time. This builder sizes the checklist to what is on the lift and how far the inspection goes, then works out the minutes it takes, what that costs at your technician's hourly cost, and what a day of them takes out of the bays. Knowing that number is what makes the difference between an inspection programme and an intention.
An inspection programme is a bay time decision
Every shop that has tried multi point inspections has met the same wall: the checklist is easy to write and expensive to run. At a realistic minute per point, a full inspection on a light vehicle is most of a labor hour, and six of them is close to a technician's morning. That time is either sold, absorbed, or quietly skipped by technicians who are busy, and the third is what actually happens when nobody has costed it.
Photographs are what turn a recommendation into an approval
A customer who is told the brake pads are low hears an upsell; a customer who sees the pads next to a new one hears a fact. That is why the builder counts the photos as well as the points: capturing them takes time, and pretending it does not is how an inspection programme gets designed to fail. Whatever the count comes to, it belongs in the estimate of what the inspection costs you.
The record is worth as much as the sale
An inspection saved against the vehicle is the answer to the question a customer asks a year later about whether they were warned. It is also the reason a declined job can be raised again at the next visit without starting from nothing. The free builder sizes the work; Lugtorq Pro keeps the finished inspection against the customer and the plate, with the findings and the photographs on the same record as the repair order.
Mechanic shop inspection checklist: common questions
How many points should an inspection have?
Enough to cover what fails on that vehicle and no more. The builder starts from a realistic count by vehicle type and scales it by how far you are going, from a courtesy check to a pre purchase inspection, and you can read the minutes it implies before you commit the bay to it.
Is a longer inspection worth the bay time?
That is what the cost per inspection is for. Work it out, compare it with what the average approved job from an inspection is worth to you, and decide with the numbers in front of you rather than from a vendor's slide.
Do the photos matter?
They are what turns a declined recommendation into an approved one, and they are the record of what you told the customer. The builder counts them so the time to capture them is in the estimate of what the inspection costs, because it is not free.