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But here is the sad thing, the five best only have a shot. Truthfully from technical school graduates I have known I think only about 5% have a chance of becoming a really good technician. Last year I burned through 5 of these guys. They either quit or got fired and the longest tenure was about 5 months. All had technical school and some experience. Just growing up on a farm and working with my hands I had better knowledge and skill then these guys did and I have no claim to ever having been a technican.

A man brings his best buddy home for dinner unannounced at 5:30 after work. His wife begins screaming at him and his friend just sits and listens in. "My hair & make-up are not done, the house is a mess, the dishes are not done, I'm still in my pajamas and I can't be bothered with cooking tonight! What the hell did you bring him home for?" "Because he's thinking of getting married."

My initial thought is this guy is not a keeper. He will cost lost business and reputation.

The wheels of progress at work. Thanks for keeping it fresh.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

First The Basics - Diagnostics starts with powers and grounds NOT with parts and labor. That statement should be posted on a banner and hung up in every shop. A car diagnosed (actually not diagnosed but purported to have been) with a bad transmission by another shop was found to simply have a voltage problem caused by a bad battery and alternator.

After 15 years of working in the non-profit world I went to work in the environmental remediation/consulting/engineering world. The non profits spend weeks talking about spending $500. The average job in this new business was probably $10k-$20k with jobs up to $1,000,000. It took me a while to adjust to the kind of numbers I was quoting. However, it was the best training I could have ever had for starting my own business. Even with that experience charging enough has always been more of an issue for me rather than charging too much. I think that is an issue for the majority of owners.

Love it. Wish a shop owner will do a video like that.

I am also interested on what others do with fleet pricing?

What do you guys think about this statement?

Great feature. Don't know if it will be utilized but it is a great idea.

Gonzo I give this 👍👍. Good job.

Just had an almost identical situation except the rear axle was moving out of the rear end and binding the brake caliper. The guy just wanted to fix brakes but we didn't want to do anything due to the possibility of him losing the wheel.

Great post and a quote we should all remember.

Almost an identical experience to what I have. Be wary of independent sales agents telemarketing Mitchell. They will lie to you and Mitchell will hold your feet to the fire on the contract. I hate Mitchell. They are liars. They have no integrity!

Gonzo all I can say is now that you have hung up the wrenches a technician among technicians was lost. WOW! What a difficult swamp that very few could have ever drained.

Guts and brains is what it takes for us to succeed. A lot of us owners lack the guts to charge what we need to charge to really succeed.

For those of you who are seeking donations or giving donations for the hurricane victims I urge everyone to seek out charities that are effective at helping the victims. The more of your dollar that actually goes to aid the victims and the less that goes to fund the organization's operation the better. A good starting point would be Charity Navigator. Personally I favor organizations such as Samaritan's Purse or the Salvation Army over the American Red Cross. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=5239&order=charity

If you have a financial dispute with Mitchell they will never do anything to fix it. They just talk and do nothing. I am with mspec completely. Just hope you are never in that situation because I can guarantee you that Mitchell will do NOTHING to fix it. I am not sure that anyone has autority to do anything.

Same story here. Quality hires are not available. Too many techs have left the industry and went to other jobs where they can make more money. Young people are not interested in jobs that get their hands dirty.

We did not have a good AC year either.

Gonzo, that is a great article. Every DIYer should read it but sadly they won't. All of the time all of us get cars or have people want us to work on their cars where they have already hacked everything up.