alfredauto

Opposite problem here. All the college kids needed to go home this month in the snow. Non stop tires brakes batteries and wipers. I'm not complaining. Sad part of the story is I'm in a ghost town now until the end of January.

I won't be surprised if Mitchell or identifix get in on the remote programming wagon. The drewtech idea is awesome.

Figuring all the costs 50% pay would leave me with minus money.

Autozone/napa/advance/parts plus all stock complete units. Subaru/Kia/Toyota quick struts come from the Internet, nobody has them locally. It's much better for everyone to install a complete strut. We just had to build some for a Suzuki the cost was very high, but nobody had any complete.

I raised mine and nobody noticed. Well, the same guy that complained $7 to mount and balance a tire was too much still complains that $22 is too much. But he still pays me and comes back. I simply learned to not care about the bottom feeders. I don't put in your parts, I don't let you use my tools to save money. I still charge a fair price for quality work, it's just more than it used to be. The dealer closest to me charges $175 to read codes, then $175/HR to diagnose. Fixing is $150/HR. Whenever I think I'm too expensive I take a ride and see what it'll cost to bring my car somewhere for service. The hourly rate is one thing, billing the time is something altogether different. We all need to eat. Most of my customers make more than me for doing much safer work, that's something I contemplate.

Not all Chinese tires are good. Some shake bad when cold, just for a mile or so but still unnerving. TBC is the largest tire manufacturer I believe. We sell Sailun China hoops they hold up good.

As much as it pains me I keep my personal beliefs off the service counter. It seems every day a customer has very strong opinions about some hot Facebook topic, and it occurred to me that whatever I say will cost me profit in lost sales. Everybody is entitled to their opinion. When a customer has a safety pin I smile and talk about their car. NRA or Trump hat same. "No Fracking" same thing. Even if I share their views I keep quiet. I feel like a hypocrite sometimes listening in silence to someone who thinks I share their wacked out beliefs but it's all for the sake of business. Do you guys ever get into it with customers?

When I opened my garage the epa made me fill in all the drains with concrete. No oil down the drain. We use mats for spill response and maintain a clean shop.

I've seen many good mechanics give themselves a good paying job as a shop owner. That's called being your own boss. Most struggle to keep any of the money they are raking in. Being successful in business requires a lot of effort and time doing mundane boring pencil pushing tasks that most techs don't want to do. I used to hate spending time figuring out profit, I really just wanted to fix cars. It used to bother me to pay employees to do what I can do myself, but that's part of shop ownership. I've come to the conclusion that it takes an endless amount of time and money to be an Auto shop owner, but my shop provides a good living for good people who deserve it and provides a needed service in my community and I wouldn't trade that for anything. My next business will be a liquor store. Everything is sold as is no refunds. No comebacks.

It would be more convenient for some customers to come in on Saturday, but we need a break. I found trying to close at noon or 1 impossible. If we are open Saturday and a guy traveling comes in at noon needing a fuel pump it's too hard for me to say no. I'll stay until the job is done, and then another emergency shows up at 4. Then I'm coming in on Sunday to get that one back on the road because Monday is booked up.

meh the wheel bearings will still wear out there's no defeating that with electronics.

I do a fair amount of work without authorization. I chalk it up to common sense. When a customer trusts me to fix their car I fix it. If a put on a couple tires and a tie rod is shot and I can't get a hold of them I'll put a tie rod end in. What's the alternative? Have them come back after they ruined the new tires in a month? I try my hardest to get authorization by text, phone messages, you name it but sometimes I just make an executive decision. I think you were right by aligning the car. I would have done the same. At our shop we believe in humanity. Can someone lawyer their way out of paying a bill? Sure, and it has happened, but I'll hang it up before I have to distrust every person that walks through my door. Common sense dictates that the alignment is cheaper than ruining new tires. Someone once said though "never let the guy selling you tires do the alignment"

They (salespeople) are all swinging for the fences this month.

I quit the whole business and sold all my tools in 2001. Done. Finished forever. I paid shops to fix my cars. I didn't last 10 years as a "civilian", it's in the blood.

I personally would be happiest if we never did another heater core ever. With the exception of oil leaks which we shy away from cooling system problems cause the most headaches. The heater core failed because of an acidic cooling system. Caused by neglect. Every other gasket/seal/part has been affected. We provide a service our regular customers that's the only reason we do these garbage jobs.

50% is a partner not an employee. I'd gladly pay any tech 50% if he paid 50% of the bills. That's every week, not just when times are good.

Super old topic but I hope you've learned that there's no profit in the inspection. The profit is from the increased customer base. Inspection today, oil change next week, brakes next month.

Ours is a vacutech 2000e, same one in the Toyota dealer. $1500 or so and works great. One tank of fluid lasts literally years using it daily. We use it for everything.

We charge book time to install struts. I can't justify a flat price when some take 20 mins and some 3-4 hours. We do quick struts or other brands complete units, it's better for the customer. In the rust belt 99% of the time the strut mounts and springs are shot anyway.

It all depends on your competition. We do a ton of tires for not that much % profit but the volume makes up for it.

No doubt it's the future and essentially a basic skill that all techs will need to know. We do enough brake/tire/suspension work (about 80% of our business) to keep the wolf away from the door but the time will come when shops that don't flash won't be open.

I take them to the dealer. Last one I tried programming I screwed up a new key for a 2013 Nissan. Drove in, towed away. Lesson learned. Not all functions on aftermarket scanners work as well as the factory scan tool. The only way to know is when something goes wrong, and that ruins my day.

Just over the wire today is all nys inspection stations will be required to test window tint as part of the inspection starting Jan 1. Anything blocking more than 30% light fails. More equipment to buy, more time, not to mention how does the average shop deal with removing window tint? I'm not opposed to keeping police safe from thugs with limo tint on the drivers window but I feel that's the police's job not the "safety/emissions" inspector.

I think the reasoning is "service advisor" is in the same category as "service manager" meaning the job description entails working on/around/under vehicles. I would welcome a change! I have a huge beef with parts store counter people installing batteries/code scanning without incurring the same costs as the rest of us. I feel NY should force these huge corporations to pay up in the way of facility licenses, WC, and insurance like any repair shop.

Trust me, the customers learn pretty quick who's who. Everyone's an "expert" when they are selling themselves. I used to stress about the incompetent wood butchers opening up all around bragging of $25/hr ads but paying customers learn fast that they didn't save anything by having uninsured dirt bag low bidder hacks replace unneeded parts. Stupid equals expensive. State licensing doesn't solve anything they just take your money. I must disagree that ASE Techs can be ignorant about cars. There's no way to cheat and the tests are pretty hard for a hack to pass. There are techs that claim to be certified but are just liars. You can check on the ASE site. I also know many excellent techs that aren't certified in anything. I haven't found a master tech yet that didn't know how to properly fix a car. Slow, lazy, and/or sloppy maybe but they all knew the right way to do things.