A repair shop might estimate a dent in a door will take six hours to fix, but an insurance company will think the work should be done in four, Risley says. Each extra hour is more labor cost.

The repair cost calculator uses real-time shop repair estimates from over 400,000 accredited repair shops in the US. Enter in your vehicle and zip code, and select your repair type to get the ...

A new estimate from Sageworks, a financial information company, shows that privately held auto repair and maintenance shops on average posted 1.7 percent sales growth last year.