Hands On

I tried Repair Pal for a little. They were taking credit for clients I had for years simply because they used a tow service to arrive. I cancelled pretty quickly.

Anyone? Bump.

The emailed me a form to sign up to be a "service provider" The company Service Up will send me the client. They will bill the client and pay me after the repair. Look at some of the highlights from the terms: All transactions completed through the Platform are subject to a transaction fee ranging from 1.99% to 10% of the gross amount of each repair, with a baseline marketplace fee of 3.99% unless otherwise specified in a fleet-specific addendum. The marketplace fee applicable to a given repair is one of the following: • 3.99% (baseline) of the gross amount of all repairs completed through the Platform for all other customers, including customers to whom ServiceUp has referred you. • A rate specified in a fleet-specific addendum, which overrides the baseline, provided such rate falls within the 1.99%–10% range stated above. In addition to the marketplace fee, the following optional fee may apply: • QuickPay fee — an additional 3.50% of the gross amount of the repair if you elect to receive early payment (typically next business day). In the event a credit card is used by the customer for payment, the 3.50% QuickPay fee will be automatically applied. So, the fee they charge is any where from 1.99% to 17% if they pay credit card and you want funds next day Company reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to modify, increase, decrease, or otherwise change the transaction fees, early payment fees, or any other amounts payable under these Terms at any time. But those fees could go up with no notice at all The Company shall remit payment to you net of any applicable transaction fees as promptly as practicable after, and contingent upon, Company’s receipt of payment from the applicable fleet customer for the services rendered by you. They will pay you for the work you did, as long as they are able to get paid. You acknowledge and agree that the Company shall not be responsible for any delays or failure to pay that may be caused by a fleet customer. And if the customer fails to pay them, too bad. You further acknowledge and agree that (i) the Company may withhold funds in the event of any dispute between you and the Company pending the resolution of such dispute, (ii) you shall not collect any fees for services rendered hereunder directly from a fleet customer and shall receive payment for such services solely from the Company, (iii) in the event the Company determines that you have violated the foregoing subsection (ii), the Company shall have the right to charge a penalty of 10% of the gross value of the applicable services and may withhold that amount from future payments or debit your bank account to recover the penalty and any applicable fees for services. AND if they customer fails to pay them and you go directly after the customer yourself, tack on another 10% So basically, you fix our cars, and we maybe pay you after we take fees. Has anyone used this platform? What do you think?

Any Chance you would share the contract? I have 6 loaner cars ranging from a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee to a 2016 Nissan Versa. I pay about $9800 a year for the loaner car insurance policy. I am curious what others are paying to insure the loaner car fleet.

I have done my own for years with good success. The past 7 months or so it seems to be falling off. My spend is almost double for the same results. I am curious to see if anyone offers advice in this thread.

Find out what you have to do to be a licensed auto dealer in your state. It is a lot of work where I am. The license is not transferable in my state.

Thanks. What works exactly?

Anyone got the 3 sentence or less summary?

My techs prefer clean up pads over kitty litter. Those of you that use pads, which ones, how much, where do you get them etc? Thanks.

Most of the replies above answer your specific question, interstate = bad. I also use ACDelco as several others have mentioned. If I have a client call and they want to go buy a battery themselves, I tell them they should go to Napa or O Reilly's.

Man this sounds like a dream come true. I hope I can find something similar soon.

How did the move go, did you find yourself having to ramp up again, lose any clients, business drop off? Did you go to a bigger facility? Did you buy or lease?

That is positive news. Maybe I should just do the above ground. I would feel much more comfortable pulling the trigger on an expensive setup if I was not leasing my space.

I do maybe 2 or 3 alignments a week. Would that increase if I had a machine? I never did hear back from my landlord about digging up the concrete for a flush mount rack. I do have the ceiling height for non flush mount, I just worry about maneuvering around it. I would be looking at a 5 to 6 year pay off before I started making money with the machine. I pay $69/ alignment right now, it is just a hassle. I would prefer to know they were being done properly in my shop.. Decisions! I still like the idea of the 20k unit, It would pay for itself in a year and a half. If we find ourselves doing way more alignments, I could maybe sell it and upgrade.

How does this work on a two post lift, do you have to set the car on stands, or does it take measurements on the floor then adjusts for droop as you lift?

Thanks for this. I lose an employee for an hour each time we need to send out an alignment. I feel like it would eventually pay for itself in that aspect alone. I do worry that the bay would get less use due to the difficulty of pulling wheels on a rack style lift. Decisions!! Thanks for the input.

Right, like we have outgrown the building, but I am reluctant to get a larger building, as I hear more headaches more problems. I usually just advise clients to use the local Valvoline for their routine oil changes, and hit us up once a year for the inspection and maintenance stuff. My ARO is at 962.73 right now. I could use another super tech that can produce 60 Quality hours per week, but have trouble attracting the good talent in my little tightly packed shop. I would not mind getting a larger place, but I am intimidated by the process of finding the financing and location, and nervous about moving. If I could find two more 60 hour a week techs and convince them to work here, I could hire a good service writer and go open a second location or expand ect.

How do you handle this when your shop is too busy to schedule more then what already shows up with out any effort?

Hi folks. A quick search and I did not see any recent alignment machine posts. I have a quote from Hunter, $86,000 includes a scissor life and the concrete work to flush mount it, shipping, the machine with wall mount cameras. Some accessories. If I do conservatively 3 alignments a week my break even is approx 4.5 years, a bit longer depending on financing cost. I lease my shop, and one of my biggest fears has been getting kicked out of here. Should I be looking at obtaining a location instead? I am always nervous about taking on the massive cost of a bigger building, especially when I struggle so often to hire good people. I talked to a friend that went from a small shop like I have to a larger facility and he said it was a lot more headaches with very little increase in income. I want less headaches, less stress. Maybe it is my small shop that makes it hard to hire? Is this the right time to try to get a new location? How do I even start finding financing, I do not have a ton of cash saved up right now. Should I get the alignment machine now, and continue to save up for a new location? How much do I need down for a new spot? Should I keep my eye open for other shops that might fail in the coming year and hold off on the alignment machine and continue to stack cash? I am kind of tired of loosing an employee for 30 minutes to an hour to run an alignment across town that may or may not get done to the same quality standards I hold my employees to.

I am well aware of how it works, I did not want 500 people who had 50 different phone numbers for my shop stored in their cell phone. What happens when you cease using that call tracking number?

I do all of my own advertising. I raise and lower my budgets on both Ad words and Yelp as I need to control my car count. It works amazingly well. With a few clicks I can fill my bays in a couple of hours. I do not use tracking numbers. I do not want someone to put a number in their phone book that might not be valid a year form now. Yelp is way better then Adwords these days. Google is being super sneaky, they put you at the top when someone searches for a specific shop. I get too many calls form people asking if there car is ready,and the car is at another shop across town.

I envision my self standing at my front counter until I can not stand any more. I hope one of my kids wants to take over, or expand... I thought of doing them as rentals, but honestly, it is more for my convenience then the customers. I just do not like the pressure of when is my car going to be ready, and the amount of good reviews and word of mouth the free loaners have generated is way better then any of my advertising dollars. I do carry a commercial insurance policy on them. In the end it is an expensive program, but has paid me back many times over. I also have them constantly listed for sale, so they make nice little cash bonuses from time to time.

I give out free loaners also. I also bill $20 more per hour then the shop literally right across the street. It is pretty rare we have to do pickup drop off, the loaners are used way more often, and I use the loaners because it takes the pressure off of me.

We do offer pickup and drop off, and we offer it for free. Most of the people requesting I come to them are trying to save the cost of a tow, and think , for some reason, that it would be cheaper to have someone come to them. I have seen some horrific stories form Mobile Mechanics first hand. There was or is an app that was released, where you could hire a mechanic like you would call for an uber. One woman had her van left on blocks and lost cash she gave out for parts. You can not save people from themselves unfortunately.

Nice. I was thinking of it like this, sitting in my office, with three techs working, I am generating $569.85 per hour. If I have to give up after hours family time, travel to your location, then I would like to make more then that. I have gone out of my way to help clients that we did work for like you mentioned, but I usually just eat the tow cost, unless it just needs a jump or something, and they are close by. If we are doing it for free as a courtesy, It does not make sense to me to lose an hour of labor to save half that much on a tow.