A mechanic who doesn't doesn't value his time accurately. Many, if not most vehicles are often too expensive to repair now so I doubt he is a liar. But I could be defending the automotive world because it's a tough place to be.
His time is "free" to him. Don't forget many mechanics don't set the time of the repair. It's book time, the mfg tells the minimum time a repari should take. Doing a job right for a customer is also far more expensive then the duct tape and zip ties approach a tech might do on their own vehicle.