01 · The problem.
Every quote at Acme started the same way: a customer texts a photo of a worn brake or a cracked manifold, and someone at the front desk walks it back to a tech, waits for an estimate, types it into the system, and texts it back. On a good day that loop took a couple of hours. On a busy day it took two.
Customers don't wait two days for a quote. They call the next shop. Placeholder copy — the real article will go here.
The fix wasn't a smarter estimate. It was a faster one — fast enough to land before the customer called anyone else.
02 · What we built.
A single-purpose tool: drop in a photo, get a draft quote in seconds. The model reads the image, identifies likely parts and labor, and pulls live pricing from Acme's existing parts catalog. The service writer reviews, adjusts, and sends — the whole loop now lives on one screen.
Front-axle brake service · '19 Civic
| Brake rotor, front (×2) | $184.00 |
| Brake pad set, front | $78.00 |
| Labor (2.5 hrs) | $275.00 |
| Total | $579.00 |
03 · The results.
Three months after launch, the numbers told a clean story. Placeholder — real figures to come.
04 · What we learned.
Training on real shop photos — bad lighting, grease, odd angles — mattered more than model choice. The first version, trained on clean catalog images, fell apart on a phone photo taken under a lift. Placeholder copy.
The lesson generalizes: the data that's annoying to collect is usually the data that makes the tool actually work.