The repair estimate

Original opinion extract, written for practice.

When the repairer charged for identifying the fault, I almost said that nothing had been fixed. Then I considered what I had actually wanted: someone who knew which part had failed, whether it could be replaced and whether replacement made sense. She had given me those answers. They occupied fewer lines than I expected for the price, but their length was not the measure of the work. I still want the charge explained before I agree to it, and I want to know what a later repair would cost. None of that makes knowledge free simply because it arrives as a short explanation rather than a new object. I paid for a decision I could make with confidence. The machine remained broken; my understanding of it did not.

Use your own words to evaluate the writer’s attitude to paying for diagnosis before a repair. Give details from the extract to justify your answer.