alfredauto

It appears the blacklist site is free now, but I'm hesitant to use it. I'd rather keep positive thoughts flowing. I did get burned for $21 this week, we did an inspection for a guy and while his car was here another shop owner told me that guy owes him $$$$ and keeps changing phone numbers. Yea yea whatever I'll inspect him - long story short he forgot his wallet was going to swing back in with my $21 for the inspection. I'm still waiting. What a jerk, this is the type of guy who probably skips out of restaurants.

This only applies if you have over 50 full time employees.

Have you ever considered where your customers are getting their tires patched if you aren't doing it? We pick up at least one customer a week who's regular mechanic was too busy to fix a flat tire. I agree there's no profit in patching tires unless you charge $50 for it, but I'll take a half hour to keep or gain a customer. Its cheaper than advertising.

I've got the hyd. Tool, but its faster to just stock and use the pre made lines. Cost wise its a wash.

When you're working for half the money the full money jobs are going somewhere else. As a rule we don't put on customer supplied parts unless we're sweeping the floor and washing the walls.

Do it right, do it twice. Three times sometimes. That's our motto applied to diy'ers

Its in my blood. That's the reason I hear time and again when talking to old guys at the auctions or trade shows. "Bob, after the merger you became a multi millionaire, why do you keep woking on junk?" "Not sure really, its in the blood I guess" Its interesting.

There's a fine line between preventative maintenance and unnecessary repairs. Be cautious. As far as the engine stop leak/conditioner/etc its mostly garbage. Ask yourself, are any of the additives approved by the manufacturer? With very few exceptions, notably coolant additives for diesel trucks, the snake oil is detrimental.

The good news is the local garage can't be easily replaced. Anyone can buy pop tarts or glue at Walmart vs mom's grocery, and with no detrimental effects to the consumer. That's why mom and pop grocer's and hardware stores disappeared. Same product, easier acessability, lower prices. Walmart and AZ cannot simplify complex unique repairs. I don't forsee it happening in my lifetime. They try with batteries but even that will probably go away soon, too costly when burger man hooks up a battery wrong.

If you can get your customer to laugh it really helps. Say a new guy comes in asking for a headlight. You know the drill " I couldn't get it out I don't know what to do" No problem throw the keys on the counter we'll get right on it, I've got some tricks. I'll go out to the shop grab my 4' pry bar and the sledge hammer, or my chop saw, or something equally large and destructive and i'll come back in the office with my "tools" and get the keys. With the customer staring out the window in horror of what I'm about to do I throw the tools in my pickup and pull their car in. Lol.

I've got a 16' counter that separates the customers from me, on top is mostly art and sculptures and an assortment of weird foods I offer for free. The rest of the waiting area is carpeted and has 60's funky furniture. Free WiFi, a candy bowl, and a keurig. No TV. I have some yak hides too. I can't post pictures from my tablet but I'll try with my PC. This time of year there's tires in the waiting room, people like looking at the different treads. No joke. Overall its a nice quiet place to relax, like grammas house 40 years ago. I painted it as couple years ago bright yellow. The overall idea is "this place is not like any garage waiting room I've ever seen". No sales pitch material. If you haven't noticed I'm opposed to selling. I dont even like the word. I'm in business to fix cars, and fixing cars right costs money, that's what I assume people understand. What I don't have but should is a nice customer restroom. Its so important, yet to put one in my place will require some demolition and a new septic so its on hold. A new alignment rack or a customer restroom. Hard choices.

If an employee is on Facebook at work he's stealing your money, plain and simple. I am very fair with paid time off for any reason, with that comes some commitment to the company, from 8-5 excepting lunch I expect 100% involvement in the job. I wear a uniform as well, when my uniform is on I'm working. These kids that think life is all personal time need to grow up. I'm closed weekends, I'm closed holidays, I'm closed at 5:30pm. There's plenty of time left for Spacebook.

The average RO for brake line repair (towed in, no brakes) is around $700. Changing brake lines sucks, no doubt, but overall a couple hours fixes the lines and then another couple hours of gravy work to replace calipers or wheel cylinders when the bleeders are rusted off makes up for it. The lines aren't hard to replace, but getting covered in rust and brake fluid is inevitable and we all prefer to not get all oily during the day. There's really no way to stay clean, and I find brake fluid just plain nasty.

If you haven't heard Bridgestone bought out Pep Boys. Monro Muffler is buying out smaller chains at a steady rate. With a lot of big mergers in the news i got to thinking about this topic. My shop isn't for sale, and probably wont be until I retire or get injured or something but what if someone offered to buy it? Say a big competitor wanted to buy you out. What would you do? Lets assume your business is doing well and you have good employees, and you are still healthy. I'll also assume someone is willing to pay more than book value for it. Would you just say goodbye to your employees and customers? Say you built up a small chain of shops, could you just give it all up for some cash and take up golf? Its really something I never considered but is interesting to contemplate.

I'm not opposed to the nickel/copper lines, and I'm sure they are superior, but inspection guidelines in NY say no copper lines. If it looks like copper it flunks. So I don't use it.

I run one phone line and a message machine. if its busy they can call back. Anyone too impatient to call back in a few minutes or leave a message I don't really want to deal with anyway. I make a point of limiting phone conversations to less than 2 minutes. They call, I address the concern, make their appt. Done. I don't like getting put on hold, I assume nobody else does either. Parts get ordered through internet so thee line isn't busy with the parts stores.

I'll input my $.02. We don't use any formal inspection procedures (except state inspections), no aggressive selling, no gimmicks. What we do is consistently treat every customer like they are a cherished family member and give them more than they expect, every time. My prices are fair. We check what they ask us to. There's no shopping a car and cold selling. By gaining customer trust we are booked solid with work most of the time. We let the customers tell us what to look for, its far easier. "My brakes are squeaking, can you guys look at it?" It makes selling the job pretty simple. Of course when we check out a brake job we inspect the front end, tires, and hydraulics. We don't check the spark plugs when their problem lies in the wheels. Inspecting cars on loss leader oil changes leads to distrust if you ask me. Fix what they want fixed and they will call you when something else breaks down the road. Just look at the customer turnover at the chain wallet flush outfits, its disgraceful. So in a nutshell if you can get more good customers with broken cars through your doors the hours per ro will be up, the $/ro will be up, and you will be better off. If you are undercharging for labor or parts all bets are off. I don't know any specifics about your garage so I'm sorry if I'm too general here. But look at the jobs your doing and see what's going on. If your techs or sales guys are lazy you will suffer.

I tell everyone a $500 car is like a free boat, there's a reason its cheap. The reason is usually the cost to repair exceeds the value of the unit. With junk prices being so low we're starting to see them more and more. When a junker comes in I inspect it really well and when I show the customer his rotted out components its easy to dissuade them from wasting money on junk.

Lately our local Auto zone has been quoting labor prices, I wonder if this is the result of openbay . People call all the time, AZ says its $60 to change my xxxx. I say let AZ do it then I can't quote a price without looking at your car.

Lately my parts store started stocking beck arnley pads which are reboxed advics. The Advics fit perfect on imports.

I mark up every tire a fixed dollar amount. I do offer free flat repair and free rotation. Its not to be the cheapest joint in town, its to ensure my tires last as long as they should. My customers come in for an oil change and I rotate my tires for free. The tires last longer, I'm making sure their pressures are good, and any front end issues get resolved right away. Like Les Schwab said people don't buy Michelin tires they buy my tires. I love doing tires, we can bang out 12 an hour and the comeback rate is so low I can't even measure it. There's no greater profit center than tires, period. $400/hr x 8 hrs = $3200/day profit. We don't do 500 tires a week but I'd love to if I could. Tires are a commodity and as much as anyone wants to feel special a monkey can do them. Sure there's care needed with tpms but its popping a rubber tire on a metal rim, no rocket science needed. We break a tpms sensor at the rate of 1:1500 and we rip a bead 1:10,000. I invested in good equipment and I maintain it. When I started out we struggled with 30 series tires, a machine with a helper arm makes it so simple. Back to pricing, my suppliers web site allows for $ markup, % markup, and markup per brand. In 2 seconds I can quote installed price, so can anyone else at the counter. There's no mystery, no gray area, its the same for everyone. There's guys that try to take over making $5 a tire, they fuzz out quick.

I worked at a place where they required me to clock in/out on every job. As in a time card, old school. Seemed like a waste of time so I didn't last too long there. I keep track of technician time the easy way. Every week I see how many hours each tech billed and compare it to their clock hours. It doesn't make sense to micromanage their time as long as overall productivity is near 100%.

I bought the place I was renting, it was the best thing I've done for my business yet. I got a 10 year mortgage from my bank for the property, it wasn't that difficult. I put 30% down, and personally guaranteed the note. I met with the bank president, explained what I do and shared some alternative uses for the property and that was about it. 5.75% for 10 years fixed rate. I probably could have shopped around and saved a couple % but I like my bank and I know the people from doing business there for years. The drawback is rent is 100% tax deductible, the mortgage is not. Only the interest and taxes. My monthly payment is lower and my investments are making more than 6% so I hang on to the mortgage. Renting was so much bullshit I couldn't take it. I had buyers coming in at night rummaging through my tools and inventory with the landlord as he had my shop for sale while I was leasing it. How many times do you have to tell someone "the equipment and inventory does not come with the building and is not for sale" before you punch them for touching it? I had first right of refusal so when he did find a buyer I had 30 days to get out or come up with money. Luckily it was a lowball offer that he took so i got a pretty good deal. It was a little stressful to say the least. What good is $50k worth of inventory with no shop? I wasn't about to put tires on in my barn or send them back and permanently piss off the wholesaler (assuming they would buy them back) but the thought was there. No need for regular haircuts any more I pulled it all out

Carbtech, I was feeling the same way a few years back. Long hours, not so much money, too many problems. I think Andres summed it up, I was good at fixing cars and good at running a business but sucked at taking care of myself. I came up with a solution; I went on vacation and left my cell phone home. Try it, it might work. I mean take a real vacation. Don't stay home and fix your house or work on paperwork, get on a plane and go somewhere far away from the daily grind. I can cash in some credit card points and be in Croatia in 14 hours. Sunshine, The sparkling Adriatic sea, hot girls everywhere, cheap beer, cevapi. I hone my foreign language skills. That's what I do. I dont even rent a car, I ride the trains or hire a driver. My thoughts are so far away from the shop I completely forget about it. The guys run the shop when I'm gone, and because its impossible to contact me they figure out what to do. When I'm burned out I'm not running the shop effectively anyway. Its much better for everyone if I'm relaxed and happy. I've seen too many grumpy old shop owners who chased away their clientele because they got tired and discouraged and turned into miserable shells of what they once were. Once you get yourself fixed, fix the business. Stop running discount coupons. Lay off the slackers. Spend some quality time focusing on what type of work is profitable and what type of customer brings you the most happiness. Focus on that, leave the losers for someone else. I started out with a low price strategy - it brought in garbage cars, miserable customers, and endless work for little pay. I cleaned up my act fast, and all those people I gave a deal to are at the next low price shop. It didn't buy me any loyalty. If you can take a step back and analyze what's going on and what direction you want to go I think you'll have a paradym shift. Its better to feel burned out because there's too much money in the parking lot waiting to get fixed and not enough hours in the day than too many cars and too little money.

We don't warranty off road tires. I don't think anyone does.