the Cost of Home Audio Repair

I paid about $250 to have my audio receiver repaired. Of that, I paid $85 up front for the "diagnostic fee" which was applied to the total repair bill at the end. There was a $15 "chemicals fee" (for cleanser and solder), $30 in parts, tax on the parts was about $2.50, the rest was all for labor at $85 an hour.

The quality of the service was fine. The front office people took in the unit needing repair, asked me to describe the problem, took down all of my information, and charged me an $85 "diagnostic fee" up front. They warned me that there was about two weeks worth of people in line ahead of me, so I was not that surprised when it took them three weeks to get back to me with the estimate. Once I approved the repair to be done, they finished it up about a week later.

As a consumer, check out the price of buying a new unit and decide whether repairing your piece of gear is even the right decision for you. For example, if your unit is worth $1000 then paying $250 for repair may be fine for you. Even if the monetary value of the gear is not great, you might like it enough to invest in having it repaired. However, a lot of electronics devalues so quickly that it costs almost as much to fix something as it costs to go buy a new item. Also, be very sure to accurately describe the problem. It is like that game "telephone". There is the actual problem that is happening, then there is the way you put that into words, then there is what the person at the counter writes down, then that message eventually reaches the technician who can only go by the description written on the page. Make sure the description is accurate.