So my car was in an accident one month earlier, I had an issue arise in the gearbox and after looking on forum there was a possibility that it could be damages from the accident that led to the fault. I took the car to the mechanic and we established the problem because it's a common issue and we agreed that he would have a look at if there's damages towards the gearbox.
Two days later I get a call saying to come in, he said there's no damages that far in and he can either order the part which is over a $5000 fix or try to repair it. Shocked at the cost I said I need time to think about it. Four days later, because I couldn't move the car at the time, I receive a call and I found someone cheaper who can do the repair where his quote was $2500-$3000 and another person quoted $1500.
I explain this and then he says well he has to charge me for the time taken to diagnose the car. I tell him we already knew what the problem was, and all he had to do was lift it on a hoist and look under it. He said he did that and also ran it through the diagnostic tool which took 2 hours of charged time. Realistically I've seen diagnostic tools used and a whole transmission service was done in one hour so I'm just not sure at this point.
This is called "work". People charge for their work.