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Joe, EV will have no impact on my business that will effect me.  Where I live is one of the last places to adopt new technology and by the time it makes an impact I would be in my 80's if I live that long.

2 hours ago, Joe Marconi said:

Oh Boy!  There are some things that transcend business, and that human decency.   Why can't people just respect each other?  I tip my hat to your service manager. It's not about the mask at this point, it's about respect for others.  Let's get back to values, morals and ethics. Please. 

Joe, the worst thing was I wasn't there that day and missed the show. 

The experts now say Masks don’t work unless they are properly fitted N95s. People wear cloth masked forgetting at the start that Fauci said we didn’t wear masks to protect ourselves but to protect others. The masks do not protect us.

For a while Indiana had a mandate from the governor for people to wear masks and practice social distancing. As far as I am concerned we are not the mask police and we don’t make issue whether people did or didn’t. Maybe I am wrong but that is the way I feel and I just throw that in.

Anyways we had a long time customer sitting in our customer area waiting for his car when a young lady with a very cocky you owe me attitude walked in the door without a mask on. The older customer proceeds to ask her where her mask was. She proceeded to tell him she didn’t have one and wasn’t going to wear one and that it was none of his business.

He told her the governor required it and it was the law. Then all hell broke loose. She proceeded to cuss the older guy out and to call him every name in the book. It almost got to the point of fisticuffs.

At that point my service manager intervened and told the young girl with her language and attitude he wasn’t going to work on her car that day. If we were to work on it in the future someone else in the family would need to bring it back. He also called the girl’s mother and told her that we would not work on the vehicle if the daughter brought the car back in.

The girl had the attitude that everyone should kowtow to her, she was the boss and we owed her. That she would just bulldoze her way over everyone. Now this individual wasn’t being as rude to staff as to a fellow customer but I think it is close enough to count.

How difficult did you find it to implement tekmetric?

The most popular shop software products currently seem to be Tekmetric or Shop Boss. 

On 9/23/2021 at 5:34 PM, bantar said:

I've not had a single negative reaction to our labor rate rise.    We're higher than one of the local Honda Dealerships and some others too right now.   It did enable me to pay enough to steal a shop foreman from a local dealer.   Deal is done, but not consummated yet (vacation, and notice standing in the way).  I'll remain nervous until he's on board.   Having great people further supports our labor rate.   Price is only one variable in the value equation.

I did raise my European lube prices.   I'm only seeing reactions from 8-9.5 quart VW owners so far and had but a few declines.

Frank, $125 sounds the same as $129.99.   Push it a little more.  

You guys are great encouragers and I know you are right!

We are seeing back orders on quite a few items.  This weekend I was trying to source some 215/60/16 tires.  What I found was it was hard to find four of anything in a name brand.  Inventory was very spotty with a lot of variance in prices. 

Last year we were at $95.  The first of the year I raised to $100.  About a month ago I was going to $105 but was advised to go to $125.  Which I did.  So far so good!

Joe, if I wasn’t trying to retire I would definitely try to make at least one day. I don’t think it is a good investment for me at the late stage. 

Congratulations Joe!  I know this is exciting and bittersweet all at the same time.  

On 7/31/2021 at 5:23 PM, bantar said:

I've increased my labor rate by $20/hr yesterday.   The main reason for doing this is to pay the best technicians what they are worth and maybe a bit more than that.   

Related, but a whole different beast is that I'm about to significantly increase my Quick Lube pricing.  This one will be harder to implement as it's somewhat of a commodity with many other nearby competitors that may or may not follow.   I've absorbed many COGS price increases without increasing the oil pricing in 4 years.   My strategy is to let gasoline pricing hit $3/gallon (not there yet here in Texas... about $2.75/gal).   Once it hits $3/gallon, we can commiserate with our customers about those high gas prices...   "it's the reason" that we had to raise our prices.  My goal will be a big enough bump to last 1-2 years (but with this rampant inflation, it might be short lived).   I'm somewhat nervous about this move, but it has to be done and it will be done.

Well I did it too.  I was going to go up to $110 from $105 but a talk with my Car-x area manager persuaded me to go to $125.  Well I have jumped on the train lets see how this plays out!

Business is strong here. 

I am trying to go from one location to zero locations. I will be 69 in December. Anyone want to buy a good business in Indiana. 

We are on a national account deal with Safety Kleen and are being paid currently. Our deal has ranged from paid, no charge, or a flat stop fee depending upon the market. Of course our deal was negotiated for 1300 locations.  I think the last check was about $0.20 or $0.25 per gallon. 

What are you guys paying to someone just starting with no real experience or tools?

You are absolutely correct Joe. Everything is going up but especially wages. 

On 7/31/2021 at 5:23 PM, bantar said:

I've increased my labor rate by $20/hr yesterday.   The main reason for doing this is to pay the best technicians what they are worth and maybe a bit more than that.   

Related, but a whole different beast is that I'm about to significantly increase my Quick Lube pricing.  This one will be harder to implement as it's somewhat of a commodity with many other nearby competitors that may or may not follow.   I've absorbed many COGS price increases without increasing the oil pricing in 4 years.   My strategy is to let gasoline pricing hit $3/gallon (not there yet here in Texas... about $2.75/gal).   Once it hits $3/gallon, we can commiserate with our customers about those high gas prices...   "it's the reason" that we had to raise our prices.  My goal will be a big enough bump to last 1-2 years (but with this rampant inflation, it might be short lived).   I'm somewhat nervous about this move, but it has to be done and it will be done.

Man you have balls!

We have raised our rates by $10 in the last year but I may still be too low. 

I hope we are about done with masks. None required in the restaraunt today. Ya!

WOW! I think I will steer clear for a while longer. Somebody has to sort this out! 

Did you purchase the Nitrogen set up also?

Joe what machine did you order and what was the cost. 

On 3/8/2021 at 7:59 AM, Joe Marconi said:

I think the biggest reason why Yelp, Repair Pal and other similar companies don't work for the majority of the shops is that they don't find the profile customer for the shop. Think about, would YOUR customer contact Yelp or Repair Pal if they needed a repair?  Maybe if they were on the road, far from home, and the Googled auto repair. Most shops have a clearly defined profile customer.  Repair Pal and Yelp send us those that are not loyal to anyone.  For the most part, our customer perform their due diligence and we then cultivate the relationship. 

Just me thoughts...Yours?

Joe, you are right.  The people on those sites are the bottom feeders of the bottom.  They are uninformed and looking for the cheapest and are often very reluctant to spend any money at all.  I think people who know they have to have something fixed are more included to using Google search and looking at reviews.   

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11 hours ago, alfredauto said:

We tried it for about a year. Repair pal did a great job gathering reviews for my shop and generating calls. I'd say over 75% were calls from people who self diagnosed and wanted us to install their parts that they determined would fix the problem. Well it got old steering them into a proper repair so we dropped them. And some of the requested repairs were insane like "I want you to replace the timing chain guide on my Mercedes, the chain is still good according to the forums and you don't need to replace the coolant because it's less than 3 years old and the book time is wrong you can sneak it out in 3 hours not the 28 hours Mercedes wants and I insist on watching so I know you are doing it right and" so after a while it just got old. 

That is a hilarious one. 

I tried RepairPal too and got nothing from it. It was just a waste of money. The other thing that is a total waste is Yelp. People send me request for quotes and it’s just a waste of time.