HarrytheCarGeek

This is really a great question. I have struggled and continue to struggle with this question. I have made many mistakes dealing with this and have not really settled the matter. The closest compromise that I have reached is that I have a sales team paid a base and commissions. For example, their work entails keeping up to date and servicing the account, plus deriving a 1.5 to 3% of the gross billing above the cost of their base. There is a one time commission on new account acquisition too. A very good sales guy should be bringing you about $2.5mm is gross business minimum. You want good credit worthy accounts that pay on time and no hassles collecting your money. Having said that, this questions always leads me back to the most fundamental question which is, how much should I be making out of my business for my time and investment? I am certain that you will reach a point where you will have to choose to take your money and run from the industry, or stay invested and continue to work in the business.

http://www.state.nj.us/mvc/Inspections/tailpipe.htm They did away with the safety portion in 2010, take a wild guess what has happened to the auto repair business? http://www.state.nj.us/mvc/PressReleases/archives/2010/071610.htm It's all political wrangling, yet the people that have a vested interest in the matter are not represented. At the end of the day, it seems to me that one must become politically involved.

I don't know about you, but that filter right now is not a common stock item, my cost on the Hastings is $17.25 and the OEM Mopar is $33.23. List price is $53.28. Not knowing the context I wouldn't be able to tell you anything other than selling it at $51 on a corporate account that you have to wait 30 to 60 days to get paid is kinda cheap. And don't get me started on techs trying to tell me how others do it and how to run my business. I listen to what they have to say, but never get them involved discussing pricing in front of my customers. It's me who has to worry about making their payroll even when sales for the week haven't broken even. Suffice to say they haven't a clue as to the plain overhead expenses that take to keep the doors open and the lights on, their benefits, taxes, etc.

Who had the issue? The customer or your team?

Gonzo, I loved it! You had me reminiscing about a 2006 Nissan Altima that came in with a crazy electrical problem. I am an electronics kinda guy, so I will give the $1,000,000 dollar secret away to you guys. After I tell you about this Altima. The customer came in and told us the car had been to the dealer and other numerous shop and they could not fix her car. The problem was that the car would go into limp mode from time to time and it would become "undriveable". It didn't do it all the time, but just some times when it would rain or the weather was cold. There would be no codes, but when it failed it would light up like a Christmas tree and a whole slew of codes would pop up on the scanner. When we checked it, the first thing I noticed was that the battery terminals were heavily sulfated. This was the first clue that the prior techs checking this car didn't do proper diagnostics. I also noticed that there had been some cosmetic repair work. I asked the customer if the car had been in an accident, and she said that yes, there had been a fender bender that required the car a/c condenser replaced and some other "front" parts. I used Mitchell to find all the grounding points and found a plastic shim on one of the main ground points for the wire harness. Having seen a problem similar to this before, I took the car for a drive to see if I could reproduce the problem. I turned on all electrical loads and while driving on a vacant back road slammed on the brakes. Guess what, when the ABS activated the car when berserk, lights flickered and then shut off. I knew right then, I had an electrical grounding problem. Limped back to the shop, cleaned the battery terminals and re-grounded the harness, went back out and did my little test, no problem. Had the master tech give it the "second pair of eyes" once over, and called the customer to pick up her car, She has been a regular for about four years, and has become one of our biggest fans. So, the $1,000,000 secret is to always begin with the very basics, don't assume anything, always check for clean solid power, this will solve a good 80% of your problems.

http://www.quadllc.com/Quadrivium/Blog_and_Articles/Entries/2011/3/15_Prof._Cipollas_theory_on_stupidity.html Sometimes I tell myself to look in the mirror! So when you tell that guy that the his car is not safe to drive because the tires are worn down bald, and he tells you that they are perfectly safe, now you know how to classify him.

You know Chuy, a 3 month campaign may pay off with a unique message ad before it would grow stale. Play with your numbers, also some EDDM post cards to selected routes may increase your brand. Something like, if I wanted to be known for brakes, I would learn everything about brakes, materials, bonding, specs, performance, etc. Then would run a board: https://flic.kr/p/FdrhgA in conjunction with other collateral like stickers, pens, and post card, etc.

Elon, what a great post, really good points! I was thinking that $800 x 12 = $9,600 per year. $9,600 / 25,000 = $0.384 per every man, woman, and child in town, per year. If your ad budget for this bb is 7% of your revenue, $9,600 / .07 = $137,142.86. You will have to sell at least $137.2K to pay for this bb. Being conservative if the household size is about 4, 25000/4=6250, let say, of those only 65 percent are viable costumers 6250*.65 =4062.5 hh $137,143 /4062=$33.76 per every viable hh in town. If you have 20% of the market 4062*.2=812 hh for you $137,143/812 about $169 per sale. Or about $11,435 additional per month, or $2,858 per week in needed revenue. Make a spreadsheet and play with the numbers. edit: PS thanks for posting the question, got me thinking about Adwords budget.

We usually come on the high side of repairpal. Objectively, maintenance is a commodity service. Intermittent failures and diagnostic work are not well paid if you don't have highly trained techs to bill by the job instead of by the hour. One of the priciest investments has been the four channel PicoScopes for each shop, plus master tech training to catch intermittent and difficult to diagnose problems. Good trusted customer service will keep you in business, but pricing will continue to be very tough with customers expecting commodity pricing. Don't give your work away for free, stay strong, many people will go out of business in this upcoming round. Downsize if you can, cut all needless expenses, layoff the people that you don't need, and take care of the ones that are going to be with you for the long haul.

Very wise words! Thanks for sharing!

It's more than that, we are heading into a tsunami of drastic change in our lives. The whole transportation industry is now under full attack, and so are other industries too. The car as a status symbol has diminished tremendously. With VLSI chips making very complex service amenities cost efficient and its accompanying software malleable to easy updates, affordability for the masses has become possible. If you have noticed, we are under tremendous pricing pressure, ease of access to price discovery by the masses will keep making our business very stressful. Youtube, Quora, Car-part, and other sources of information are making it difficult to gauge customers. We have to adapt to survive, we are evolving, only those with the hunger and ambition to learn and adapt will prosper. This is nothing new, it has always been this way, except now with faster or near instantaneous communications the cycle of evolution has been shortened. Watch out for statesmen and philosophers to point the way to our next stage of existence. The political economic system is getting an explosive shock.

Just took my first Uber ride. My son pull out his phone and tells me our ride should be here in a minute, we come out of the lobby and a very nice car and driver are waiting for us. He was very professional, and friendly. What a phenomenal use of technology those guys have developed, this is a game changing tool! Can you imagine their options to cross implement their technology? Towing services, courier services, auto repair, etc...!

These guys have been soliciting our shops, was wondering if anyone here is familiar with these guys: https://mycfsapp.com/ http://www.drivingsales.com/blogs/automotivepr/2016/01/25/confident-financial-solutions-launches-resource-portal-to-help-boost-auto-service-centers-revenue-auto-repair-financing?__hstc=205315983.1e835c34ab7bf88e972fdd7a7debc857.1453766400060.1453766400061.1453766400062.1&__hssc=205315983.1.1453766400063&__hsfp=3972014050

Because you know better!

Well, from my experience I have seen a difference in fleet performance. Sprinters that have been maintained with the proper oil have easily done over 300k miles, while those that have come in off the street their turbos have failed around 115- to 180k miles. (gas MB 229.3, 229.31,229.5, 229.51;diesel MB288.51, 229.31, 299.51) Of course a good quality oil filter is a must, some of the early turbo failures I have seen had installed cheap filters or they didn't replace the oil filter.

Do you keep track of your comebacks, warranty claims? That will help you determine your pricing. There are tax issues to be worked out as well, if you are on the hook for an additional 24 to 36 months I would talk to a CPA about how to mark that extra revenue.

SAAB, Sprinter/Freightliner; BMW it's Castrol, no?

If you have any doubts on your bulk oil shipments, have then tested. I use Blackstone Labs http://www.blackstone-labs.com/what-is-oil-analysis.php

........... glitch

What he said.

I think you did the right thing. I have been to court many times, people are responsible for their actions, don't get bullied or intimidated from doing your professional work.

Why is it that as soon as you become a master mechanic, it is time to retire?

Hi, Bob. I already do EDDM, I usually run 20k pieces per mailing, I use gotprint.com for printing http://www.gotprint.com/store/pricing.html 6.5"x12" 4/4 full color cost me less than $5,600. for 20k pcs It has been a real good deal so far, but much has to do with the design and offers. Cheap pricing only brings worthless candidates.

Gavilan, I see you are doing EDDM, what size is that postcard, and how many are you guys sending out?

http://www.underhoodservice.com/whos-at-fault-top-10-domestic-diagnostic-codes-fixes/ http://www.underhoodservice.com/diagnostic-dilemmas-getting-in-sync-with-a-couple-wranglers/ Synchronization Roulette The next morning, the Jeep started perfectly. As the day progressed, the Jeep would produce a CE light and a P1391 code each time the engine was cranked. Obviously, the mechanical relationship between the CMP and the CKP was changing — sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Further TSB and archival research indicated that the 4.0L historically has had a problem with the bearing seizing in the cam position sensor and twisting the housing out of synchronization with the crankshaft sensor and producing the DTC P1391 and the accompanying P0352, 353 and 351 DTCs. Fortunately, many aftermarket scan tools can detect CMP synchronization problems in the 4.0L through a synch mode feature included in the scan tool menu, see Photo 2. Simply put, the CMP can be adjusted in the synch mode to within +/- 1 or 2 degrees tolerance. In this case, the CMP synch was nearly perfect, which dismissed any problems with a seized cam sensor bearing. I might say at this point that I normally don’t start a diagnosis by disassembling components because a faulty connection might be re-established or a cracked circuit board might be reactivated. But, in this case, I removed the cam sensor only to discover the magnet stuck to the CMP’s shutter! See Photo 3. Clearly, I had taken the “scenic route” on this diagnosis by not inspecting the CMP for loose components in the first place, see Photo 4. But, the loose magnet clearly was causing an intermittent synchronization problem that had created a roulette wheel effect that resulted in the occasional slow-start or cranking/no-start complaint that cropped up after the vehicle came into the shop. The diagnostic curve ball in this case was clearly the unexpected issue of a magnet coming loose in the camshaft position sensor without causing a catastrophic failure.