The Diaforik
Comeback Standard.
Version 1.0 · September 2026 · Sam Bruley
Most shop software counts gross profit, average ticket and hours billed, and never counts whether the car got fixed the first time. This is the definition Diaforik uses, published so anyone can use it.
1. What a comeback is
A comeback is any vehicle back inside ninety days for the same concern: whether or not the counter called it one.
The record decides what counts, not the person writing it up. Ninety days from the first visit's close; the same concern, in the customer's words or the vehicle's symptom, not the same part.
2. Two kinds, never blended
- Diagnostic: the fault wasn't found. The car came back with the same concern because the cause was never identified.
- Workmanship: the repair didn't hold. The cause was right; the work failed.
They are counted separately and reported separately. A blended number hides which one a shop has.
3. What does not count
- Declined last visit: the customer turned the work down, and the same concern came back. Filed as declined, not as a comeback.
- New problem: a different concern on the same vehicle.
- Another store's work: the last repair was done elsewhere.
Each is filed at the counter with the reason on the record, so the rate can be checked.
4. The six things an audit reads
- Parts replaced before the fault was found
- Time to the second visit
- Customers who came back once and were never seen again
- Tickets closed with no cause written
- What each comeback cost the shop
- What each comeback cost the customer
Read once at the baseline from twelve months of repair orders, and read again at six months against the same six things, in writing.
5. What a comeback costs
Counted before the customer is counted: the technician's time on the return visit, the parts eaten, the writer's time (the call, the intake, the second handoff) and the goodwill knocked off to make it right. In the sample audit that comes to $534 per comeback at the national average labor rate. A customer never seen again is counted at what they would have spent for the years they kept the car.
6. The rule behind it
Nothing leaves on a guess. List what could cause it, test the cheapest first, measure, rule it out, and don't replace a part until one thing is left standing. The record decides.