The Service Writer

A 90-minute, 4-round basic Express simulation on running the front counter of an independent auto-repair shop from a service writer's seat: writing up each concern in the customer's words with the odometer and a road test, giving a written, itemized estimate the customer authorizes before work starts, getting documented consent before any additional work (California Bus. & Prof.

Code §9884.9(a); 16 CCR §3353), recommending work by safety, necessity and budget and never by an untrue statement (§9884.7(a)(1) and (a)(4)), booking cars against technician hours with promise times the shop can keep, choosing parts by quality and warranty, explaining the invoice at pickup and owning a comeback, for high-school Career and Technical Education in automotive service technology, service-advisor courses and courses preparing the ASE Entry-Level Certification in Automobile Service Technology.

Daniela Iwasaki, 18, the fictional Saturday service writer of Arden Creek Auto Care, a six-bay independent shop in Sacramento, California, runs the counter over four Saturdays in October 2027 with lead technician Desmond Afolabi.

Round by round you decide how to write up concerns and give prices, what to do when the technician finds more and how to book the day's cars, how to recommend work to a customer on a budget and where to buy parts, and how to hand cars back and answer a car that comes back; at each decision point the four Saturdays are projected again with the decisions taken so far.

Each round is scored on cars delivered right, late hours, the comeback rate, gross profit and customer trust, with open violations shown alongside; doing work without consent or selling work with an untrue statement caps the score. English with Spanish.

An introductory simulation that assumes no prior knowledge of the subject, designed for undergraduate courses. It also works in vocational and high-school programmes and in onboarding sessions.