No offense taken Mike. I was really just trying to oversimplify an idea so the OP and other readers could understand.
Here's what I was saying. As a business your goal, in the simplist sense, is to generate profit, not just revenues. With this goal in mind the business (to be referenced as "you" from now on), will take work where your costs/expenses are covered by the amount charged. Initially, one might consider employee time, costs to keep the facility open (power, lights, rent, etc) as the primary expenses. However, good will in the community and potential liability are variables also to be considered. That being said, someone may offer you $50,000 to burn tires in your parking lot, which seems like easy money. But if you were caught, you may face $75,000 in fines and the potential loss of your license to operate at your current location. On the other hand, if you are altering the safety equipment that came on the vehicle, it may be profitable as far as labor and time, but it could open you up to liability down the road if the driver were to get into an accident. Both of these would skew the cost/benefit away from your benefit.
As it seems you have much more experience in the auto repair industry than I, you can understand that a job that seems exceedingly simple, but as you noted, is a "waste of time" would imply that there is no benefit in doing the work.
All this seems to be a very long winded way of saying that by whichever method these businesses determine profit, this is not a profitable job and they would rather turn it away.
Back to the OP, no harm in asking everyone. Ask anyone in sales, it takes 7-8 NOs to get to a YES.
Hope you find a place. Do you have the grille yet?
