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How repair pricing normally works
Search this question and you will mostly find installation prices, which is not what you asked. Repair is priced differently.
Almost every repairer charges in two parts: an attendance that covers diagnosis and some labour, then parts on top. What varies is how honest the first number is.
Watch for a callout fee quoted separately from an hourly rate. Two small numbers can add up to more than one larger one, and you will not know until the invoice arrives. Ask whether diagnosis and the first hour are included in the attendance price.
What the parts actually cost
The reason most repairs come in lower than people fear is that the common failures are cheap components.
A protective device, an MCB or RCBO, is usually £20 to £50. This is the single most common part we replace.
A contactor costs more but is still a modest part on most units.
A connector or a tethered lead varies widely by brand. On some units the lead is a serviceable item at a sensible price. On others it is a significant fraction of a new charger.
A main control board, where it is available at all, is the one that changes the answer. On most domestic chargers it is either not sold as a spare or priced close enough to a new unit that replacement makes more sense.
What makes a repair expensive
Discontinued brands. No parts means no economical repair. This is the most common reason a repairable fault turns into a replacement.
Water damage that has reached the electronics. Caught early it is a seal. Caught late it is a new charger.
Work that is not really the charger. If the diagnosis finds that the circuit was undersized, wrongly protected, or fitted before the current open PEN rules, putting that right is proper electrical work and it is priced as such. It is also work that needed doing.
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Check the warranty first
Three years is the common period and some brands offer longer. If yours is inside it, the manufacturer or the original installer should be your first call, and the repair should cost you nothing.
Bringing in a third party on a unit still in warranty can void it. Check the date before you book anybody.
Commercial sites are a different question
Everything above is home charging. If you are responsible for chargers at a block of flats, a workplace or a depot, one off repair pricing is usually the expensive way to run the estate.
At that point a contract with a response time and included engineer labour normally works out better, and it is covered in our EV charger maintenance contracts for commercial sites.
