xrac

Joe I think it will definitely impact. We have a house rented in Destin Florida in four weeks. I am trying to figure out what to drive to Florida instead of my gas guzzling Lexus GX460.  I have to drive some thing. The house rental is paid and can’t be canceled. Should I take my wife’s convertible or our granddaughter’s Lexus ES350? Just thinking out loud. 

What a brilliant idea. That is a fantastic video but Larry you looked younger. 

10 hours ago, rpllib said:

Here are my cliff notes from last weeks leadership meeting with my front counter staff:

the incredible importance of offering financing, all the time, and especially in times like this
if your concerned prices are getting out of hand, offering financing to offset
even folks that have the money will consider financing, "until things cool off"
maybe no better time to offer financing to those that don't need it. 
folks that don't need financing will not let financed accounts go past free period, but still appreciate
 

Our shop is in a area where the average household operates closer to their "breakeven" point for household expenses, than many. Any bad news typically effects us earlier then markets with more affluent households. Traffic was off by 11% in April and sales by 24%, after a record 24 month period right up thru the end of the first first quarter 2022. We tend to attract the "higher" income households in our market, and rarely have any kind of "payment" issues. If I compare my financial diligence and attitude that i practiced in my lifetime, to those households, then I believe that those customers that can afford repairs, may still be interested in financing with free periods as a cushion, against uncertain times. I have used hundreds of thousands of dollars in "free money" financing over my lifetime very effectively, without accruing interest charges, even though I could have paid for most of those dollars, for most of my life. 

If you are worried about driving your customers into higher debt, then make sure you are putting your extended financing in the hands of the ones that don't need it, not concentrating on the ones that do, or only offering as a last resort.  We use Synchrony Card for as many as can be approved for it, which offers 6 months interest free. This is most of our financing. 

We brought in Easy Pay, for those that can't be approved for tier one credit. I still believe it can be used effectively for those with credit issues, and comes with 90 days interest free. We strongly encourage payoffs within the free period. 

We run 6-8% of sales that are financed, average throughout the year, with tire season months running 15-20%. I would like to see the average in the 15%-20% range for the year. 

Right now, maybe more than any time in my business career, I believe we have the best opportunity to offer free money to those that don't need it, but would appreciate it. 

% financed, is now a monthly metric that we track and discuss weekly. 

 

 

As Joe says welcome to the forum.  It sounds like what you are doing is pretty much what we do.  We offer Synchrony to people with credit and Snap Finance to people without credit. 

I tried Tekmetric but found it too difficult to master. Shop Boss seems easier. Also Shop Boss was built by a master tech.  The same company that now owns Omnique also owns Shop Boss!

Have to be breathing and show up. Seriously the shortage of help had me hire people I didn’t want just to stay open. Fortunately that is currently behind us and I have good people. 

Currently use Omnique but wanting to change to Shop Boss due to superior scheduler and DVI capabilities. 

Joe, I agree but the plus side is there is plenty of engine work out there. Lots of timing chains and engine swaps.  Some of the younger customers do not have a clue as to why they should not trust the car to tell them what it needs. 

2 minutes ago, Joe Marconi said:

That's what I heard too. The shop has to pay $1200 to sign up, and then give COSTCO members a 15% discount.  I really don't know about this. How does the shop know that the COSTCO members fit the profile for the shop? 

Happy Easter! 

I don’t think the club shoppers are the best demographic for us. 

When Costco came to town I was approached about it and was going to try it but drug my feet too long and someone beat me to to it. They will not sign you up within a certain distance of a participating shop. I had my doubts that it would be worth it because you have to discount 15% on everything including dealer parts. It also cost $1200 a year to signup. Might be more now. 

Here's my answers:

1. Definitely

2. Most likely

3. I am working on it

Business was good last year and had been strong so far this year. 
 

46 minutes ago, Joe Marconi said:

Wow, tough position to be in.  Are you sure you can't find a place for him?  It is so hard to find superstars.  

Joe, my issue is I don't have enough bays!

Would you believe that yesterday someone I consider to be an A technician that I tried hard to hire a year ago came in looking for a job.  Unfortunately, I don't think I can afford to add him currently.  He is probably a better technician than three of my current guys but they are all good, hard working guys who are gaining experience everyday. 

Hopefully you will not think this is unethical but desperate times require desperate measures.  For weeks I haven’t been getting any decent responses to my advertisements. Recently I noticed a competitor with a large ad on Facebook with several comments posted. I read through the commments and found one that looked like it might be from a real technician.  I sent the individual a friend request and he friended me. I told him if he was a real technician we would pay him more than X dollars and had a job for him. That started a conversation that lasted about three weeks. Two weeks ago we interviewed him finally and he started to work last Monday. So far he has done a good job and we are glad to have him. 

On 3/25/2022 at 3:33 PM, Transmission Repair said:

It's comfortable for me, Joe.

I was banned from 2 other technical automotive sites for talking too much business. 😞

I found a "home".  Thanks for all you do!

We are glad to have you here!

This is such a frustrating business not only do we have to deal with customers who may not understand anything but competitors who love to cut our throats.  This week I got a 1 star review because we were 3 times the price of some unnamed shop (or shade tree guy) on a repair.  Of course, we don't know what was done or not done or what quality parts were used or what skill the guy working on it had.  We had quoted pads, rotors, and calipers front and rear on a rust bucket with 200,000 miles that the owner wanted to pad slap.  Who knows someone else may have pads slapped it bad mouthing us all the way and the car may still have noise, pullsation, and a caliper still sticking and the owner is happy as a clam as he drove away with the radio turned up thinking it is fixed.  No consideration at all that we looked at it at no charge to him.  I also got a 3 star review from a phone shopper because she was able to take the car to the ghetto and save $60.  Is that enough rant for today?  Joe, be glad you are out of this rat race.    

A few months back a guy called us about a Ford F-250 superduty.  He had put an engine in it and didn't have the time to finish putting everything back.  He wanted us to finish it and it didn't sound like there was a whole lot to do.  We never made any promises and told him we would have to look at it.  He got it towed in and we found that instead of removing the cab and doing the engine the proper way he had removed the front end and the engine through the front.  The bumper, grill condenser, radiator, etc. were all off. 2/3rds of the engine compartment were in the bed of the truck.  We told him it would be at least $5,000 to put it all back together.  He freaked out and had it towed off.  Didn't hurt our feelings one bit.  Boy he saved himself a lot of money by being a DIY.  

If we would listen to our wives more it would keep us out of a lot of trouble.  Soon to be married 49 years and I have learned that the hard way.

Joe, it is hard to predict or to stay on top of things.  This whole sutuation can change rather rapidly. The one thing that is certain is you cannot predict what the future will hold especially with the group of liars, thieves, and thugs who now run our government (Do you think that is too strong?).  In my lifetime I have saw interest rates as high as 18 1/2 percent to as low as 2 1/4 percent (my current mortgage).  I have paid as little as 18 cents for gasoline to over $5.00.   We can only try to spot trends and plan accordingly. 

I cannot see how a EV as a primary vehicle would ever fit my life style.  What I love is the people who buy the used hybrid vehicles because they are cheap without a clue as to what it costs to replace a battery in one of those or how long a battery typically last.  

Who wants to spend 30 minutes or more for a fill up or wait in line for a few hours at a supercharging station to get hookup? I heard a guy say that a replacement Tesla battery was like $23,000. Those are current realities that don’t fit my life style.  

We have an interesting situation on our hands.  We have a 2016 Hyundai Tucson 1.6L Eco that needs and engine.  There is about 100,000 miles on it.  The owner has an extended warranty so I started to price out an engine replacement and call the warranty.  First I check with LKQ and found nothing. They had had 64 requests for that engine in the last 30 days.  Check with other used vendors and found nothing near us and nothing on Ebay except a couple of used engines around $8,000.  I then called Hyundai and nothing was available except maybe an engine at a dealer in Birmingham, a dealer in Phoneix, and possible some in California.  At that point we just punted it to the warranty company.  We told them what it needed and that we could replace it if they found us an engine.  This is a first for me. Unable to find and engine for something that new. 

On 3/12/2022 at 5:48 PM, Transmission Repair said:

As most of us already know, Aamco went into General Repair.  But did you know that was back in 2006?  I have a 2017 franchisee brochure from an Aamco insider who is a good friend.  His wife was the general council (attorney) for Aamco although they are now both retired.

Here's he brochure.  Aamco Franchise Information  Pay particular attention to page 3 where they say transmissions are only 34% of their business and G/R is 66%.  Wow!  That's incredible.

It seems like we are headed to a time that there may not be any true Transmission repair shops but just transmission swappers.  In our local area I can think of several different transmissions that almost no one will touch.

8 minutes ago, Transmission Repair said:

Here's an ad out of the old Sears catalog.  This was waaay before baby seats and seat belts.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nO9OhyHJVT4hC1LVWx-uN-fLtWhTH-e_/view?usp=sharing

Wow that’s a really old ad.