by Todd Low

Automotive Technology

You are a shop owner and you give a rather difficult job to one of your technicians. In the process of doing the job, a $75.00 part on the automobile is broken. It was an accident, but it was caused by the technician not knowing the proper procedure for the job.

In the future if the technician does a similar job again, he will not break the part, because he now knows what to do to avoid breakage. He has learned the proper procedure for this type of repair.

You must now decide what to do about the broken part.

Questions:

Should you put a new replacement part on the automobile and charge the customer for the part?

Should you take the price of the part out of the technicians pay?

Should you explain what happened to the customer, replace the part and absorb the cost of the part yourself?

Should you jimmy-rig the part somehow (it probably won't work right, or will break again in the near future) and give the automobile back without saying anything to the customer?