ScottSpec

Alex, I think this a good topic / idea as we might all benefit from feedback, however I don't think it will help with backlinks as only logged in users can see them. Scott

We have 2 sites. One for our Volvo Service http://www.4volvoservice.com and the other for our general repair http://www.scottsautospec.com/ . Both ready for some updating. Any feedback would be appreciated. Scott

I am currently in the process of setting up some loaner vehicles. I have resisted it for a long time because of the cost and liability, but I now believe it is something we almost need to do. I thought I would share some of what I have learned / experienced so far. To clarify, our cars are not yet on the road. I think the first thing we all worry about is the liability. What if someone gets into an accident and you get sued. For starters, all of us in this business run the risk of being sued everyday. If something goes wrong after we repair a customers car, we can be sued. We all manage that risk with procedures and insurance. If you have loaner cars for your customers, they can essentially be owned 2 ways. By your company, or you can set up another company. I have chosen to register and insure them as part of my company for several reasons. First, I don't believe that setting up a separate company will provide you with much protection. Legally a company must be created to for profit, not as a means to protect assets. I believe any good lawyer would successfully argue that the purpose of your "loaner car company is to protect your business, not to generate profits. If they are not successful with that argument, they will still say you are responsible because you provided the car. Then there is the cost of insurance as well as the setup and maintenance costs of the "loaner car company". The quotes I have gotten for insurance on loaner cars is $1000 when they are added onto my company policy and $3000 when set up as a rental car for $2,000,000 worth of liability. So here is the way I see it. If something happens, the customer and their insurance will be first. Then the 2M liability policy on the car, then the 1M shop liability coverage, and I am looking at adding a 1M umbrella policy for a few hundred dollars more a year. I don't see many people winning all that, and then still coming after the assets of my company. Scott

We are a Bosch Service Center and are in the process of becoming a NAPA service center. Bosch offers a lot, but we probably don't take advantage of it as much as we could. We do offer financing to our customers through Bosch and my techs have been using the online seminars for training. There is no down side to become a Bosch Service Center as the is no cost to you. Scott

We have been RepairPal Certified for about 2 years now. I've been pretty happy with the program. We have gotten customers through both their website and the towing program. I heard complaints from other shop owners about the RepairPal pricing tool, but I have found that there tool gives very realistic pricing. So when customers do come through the site, price is not usually an issue since they are already informed. The only downside is a lot of price shopper phone calls. While I believe RepairPal pricing is fair, by its nature, it will attract price shoppers.

When I hear "but it comes with a Lifetime Warranty". I always respond with, "Good thing because you are going to need it"

We replace the seal on just about every car we work on and charge as a line item on the invoice. Scott Folley Scott's Automotive Specialties www.scottsautospec.com

I can't answer your question specifically, but we have recently begun several marketing programs. I looking at advertising as an investment. While impressions, leads, clicks, calls, conversions, etc. are nice metrics to talk about, the real measure is ROI like the above posts states. How much am I making from my investment in advertising is the question to ask. This however can be very difficult to calculate. Do you look at the short or long term value of the customer? What about customers referred by them? Right now I am looking at what that customer spends over a 3 year period plus what any of their referrals spend over a 3 year period. Scott

Selling someone 4 oxygen sensors is not necessarily ripping them off. In fact one of the models we work on if all 4 sensors are not done at the same time, the check engine light will come back on in a few miles. The last bosch article I read on the subject stated oxygen sensor life was 60,000 miles. If a vehicle has over 100,000 miles and you don't suggest 4 oxygen sensors, I think you are doing them a dis-service. Suggesting them and explaining why, is different than telling them they must replace them. Scott

Selling someone 4 oxygen sensors is not necessarily ripping them off. In fact one of the models we work on if all 4 sensors are not done at the same time, the check engine light will come back on in a few miles. The last bosch article I read on the subject stated oxygen sensor life was 60,000 miles. If a vehicle has over 100,000 miles and you don't suggest 4 oxygen sensors, I think you are doing them a dis-service. Suggesting them and explaining why, is different than telling them they must replace them. Scott

We explain how we added the dye and to return if the AC stops cooling. Like the post above, there is no point in the customer returning if the AC is functioning ok. Scott

I don't know what part of Maryland you are in but we just went to $100 after being at $95 for over 5 years and we are in the most affluent area of Maryland just outside of Washington DC. I know of only one other independent that is $100 or more. I'm with M-Spec. I'm moving to Florida. Scott

I pay all my employees a salary plus a percentage of the total sales of the business. This gives them stability, incentive to produce, to work as a team and to do quality work. It has been a little painful for me the last few years as sales have dropped, but over the last 25 years I have not had many employees quit and I have heard many times about the great attitudes of my employees and how well they all work together. Like we tell our customers, quality is not cheap. Scott

If you are a small shop and just want something simple and free to use, I have created a web app that is free to use. It is pretty basic, but with a few powerful features. It is web based so you can use it anywhere on as many devices as you choose. You can email customers sending them estimates, invoices, pictures or other documents. I is a little pet project of mine. There are about 80 shops using it including several that are doing more than 500k a year. Support is limited to when I can get to your email. If you want to check it out go to www.smotgo.com and use the demo credentials. There is also more info at www.smotgoinfo.com. You can also email me if you have questions info@smotgo,com. Scott

We get these from time to time. We just ask them if they are hiring us to install the parts or fix the problem. If they want to hire us to install the parts, then we let them know that all we guarantee is that the part is installed correctly. This usually leads to a longer conversation about a real diagnoses and quite often they end up having it done properly. For those that don't, we make money installing the part(s) and quite often more afterwards to diagnose and repair it correctly. You just have to make it work for you.

I've been doing this for 26 years. For the first 20, it was pretty predictable. Jan-Mar really depended on the weather. The colder is was the busier we were. The end of March and into April would be slow till after tax time. I have always dealt with a wealthier / established clientele, so I never really understood that one. As soon as the weather warmed up we were slammed till August when everyone went away on vacation. We would have a lot of missed appointments in September until everyone adjusted to the their kids new school schedules. As soon as the weather got cold, we would get slammed again. The last 6 years, there has been no rhyme, reason, or pattern. Some of our slower months in the past, have become better months recently. A roller coaster it has been for some time. Scott

Update on my experience with Autel. After many months of unreturned calls and emails, I finally decided to file a law suit against them. I sent them an email letting them know my plans, and within a few hours a rep was on the phone with me setting up the return process. I sent it back and they gave me a full credit. Scott

I get your point about the adaptation of technology. I'm not sure the progression of the acceptance of the cell phone is the best analogy, but I'll go with it. Right now you are in complete control of your cell phone. Cell phones give everyone freedom and empowerment. If you had a choice between your current cell phone and one that decides who and when to call, what apps you could use, or how fast they can operate, which would you choose? Even as great as cell phone technology is today, calls are frequently dropped, you have to walk around a room to get a signal or maybe outside. How often do you still here "let me call you back on a landline". I have to reboot my phone every so often. Unintended calls are so popular that they have their own term "butt dial". And the number one cause of distracted driving accidents of course, is cell phones. If my cell phone fails in an unpredictable way, it is not going to cause me to veer off the road into a tree. I don't even trust the GPS on my phone to get me to the right place every time. We accept all the shortcomings of cell phone technology because there is no other choice and no one gets hurt if their cell phone malfunctions. Unless of course the text we intended to go to our girlfriend actually goes to our wife. A few other questions I just wondered about self driving cars. Will they be able to detect a failing master cylinder? What about the vibration of a wheel whose lug nuts are coming loose after someone forgot to tighten them? Or, the flap, flap, flap of a failing tire before it flies apart. How will they deal with the snow, and what about the patch of ice in the road up ahead. How will they detect that? What about an obstruction in the road, will it come to a stop and sit there until the obstruction is moved? How does it interpret the police officer tell it to turn around or continue on the opposite side of the road because there is an accident ahead? The list goes on and on and it changes everyday.

I think the idea of self driving cars is going to look much different once the realities show up. Right now all we are seeing is perfect world scenarios. Can't help but to think about the Marlboro man and the realities of smoking. Anyone who has been in this business for a while learns very quickly that electronics and software do not always act as expected. Some manufacturers are still struggling with unintended acceleration and ignition switches. Then there is the maintenance side of it. How many customers have you seen that ignore the check engine light or many of the other warning lights? What are they going to do when the "self-driving" failure light comes on for the third time after spending $2000 - $3000? What about the second and third owners of a car that don't fix anything unless it is broken? I won't even get into computer viruses or malware. I'm sure fail safes would be the argument, so does that mean these cars would shut down or drive themselves at 5 mph to the closest dealer every time an issue is detected? There are just too many unknowns to deal with. What does the car do when you are sleeping and your 3 y.o. gets out of her car seat and starts to climb out the window? Flying an airplane from point a to point b is a much easier task than driving a car from point a to point b yet there is still no commercial system to do this. There are auto pilots which can maintain heading, speed, and altitude all of which must be set by the pilot and cannot be engaged till a certain altitude is reached. There are automated landing systems that most pilots will not use unless they have to. Even those only get them on the runway where they must take over. Just wait till there are a few unexplained fatal accidents with self-driving cars. Here is a great experiment that I have been doing for some time. I continually ask people, would you ride in a self-driving car? Would you really get in the back seat of a car with no steering wheel and let it drive you to work? I have not even gotten a maybe. Do a quick search on Google, and you see some of the following headlines. Most Consumers Say They'll Steer Clear Of Self-Driving Cars, Survey Says People ‘horrified’ by self-driving cars, says survey, as trials begin

My suggestion would be to stop worrying about a few customer's who say "unhappy with the service" I have many customers who say our prices are too high but the other 90% of my customers believe our prices are fair. I'm not going to entertain changing our prices because of the few that are unhappy with them. If your system of selling alignments is working for you, then I would stick with it and ignore the small percentage of customer's that do not like it. Scott

If a customer comes in with an already diagnosed issue, we try to hard to get them to see the value in having the diagnoses confirmed. But if they insist, we make sure they understand that they are purchasing parts and labor not a repair. We make no guarantees, and we usually end up making more money since there original diagnoses is incorrect quite often. Scott

I called my insurance company several months ago to get a quote for insurance for a loaner car. I was told that they could not find anyone who would write a policy. My question to those that have loaner cars is this. When you got insurance, did you tell them exactly what the car was being used for? Scott

I left you a message and send a message via your contact form. I have a 1998 S70 here now if you want to see if you can get the Pro to communicate. Scott

Can you help me get in touch with anyone at Autel? Scott

You sound very knowledgeable and like you provide excellent customer service. I appreciate your offer to help, and will keep you in mind if there is something I need in the future as we are moving into other makes and models. We have specialized in Volvo repair for the last 25 years and we have that covered. As I said, we have the VST and VIDA. We do software downloads almost daily. I decided to purchased the Pro after watching this Motor Age video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnXrvlqn-yM of Art Jacobson the president of Autel. He stated that the pro would have dealer level diagnostics for all makes and models. And he touted how great there support for the tool was. Since we were starting to move into servicing other makes and models, it sounded like the Pro would be a good tool to have. When I first got the tool, I wanted to see what it was capable of. That was when I tried it on the 1998 70 series and could not communicate with the ECM. The VST is rather slow and VIDA is not the most user friendly, it crashes a lot, and it can take some time to connect to a vehicle. Especially the first vehicle of the day or after restarting the laptop because you have to log back in to Volvo central system. VIDA is also not the easiest thing to take out into the parking lot to hook up to a car. So in addition to a scanner for other makes and models, I liked the idea of how quickly the Pro would boot up and connect to a Volvo. At this time the only help I could use is getting in touch with Autel. If you think you can help me with that, email me at [email protected] and I'll give you a call. Scott