One day, when I was 18 or 19, I was invited to a Mercedes dealership to try and fix a problem they were having with their site. I went there with the same minds

One day, when I was 18 or 19, I was invited to a Mercedes dealership to try and fix a problem they were having with their site. I went there with the same mindset as the OP: I'll investigate for free, but a solution would cost money. Unfortunately I didn't have the experience or perseverance to actually work my way through a highly custom CMS, one that seemed to be forced on most dealerships. I went in thinking there'd be a blob of PHP somewhere, or some code to look into. There was none, only an endless series of silver-tinted forms. I gave up, said this was way out of my depth, and despite their insistence refused to bill them for the time. It was enough for me, as a young whippersnapper, to say that I worked for Mercedes (for a day). Good to see OP had a similar-ish run-in but managed to see it through.