CMillet86

I've had my best year ever so far, were talking a 100% increase over last years sales at this point. This last month has been a little slower, but I'm not worried yet. I'm taking on as much work as I can by myself, my biggest issue is finding help.

I'm 28, Third Generation Technically, although my dad wanted nothing to do with the Auto Repair side, he took the machine shop. I've been running this place since I was 22, I butted heads ALOT with my grandpa then. But as the years have went on it's been less and less.

I'm assuming newer Nissan? I've done at least a handful of the older ones. Hondas also.

It's the same exact tool as the Maximus. The Chineese brands bring a lot to the table but Support is not a strong point.

It's just a Launch X431 Pad II is all it is.

These are the things I struggle with immensely as a single person shop. I try to implement them all but being pulled in so many directions means I usually forget.

I have a Maxisys and the speed of it blows the older maxidas out of the water. My only issue is at less then 2 years old I can't use it unplugged. And they want $900 for a new tablet. I believe I'm going to pick up a OTC Encore for day to day, and keep this thing for when I need to do something oddball like program immobilizer on a honda or nissan.

I did a free trial with them a year or two ago. I don't remember much about it honestly. So it must not have been something I saw as worthwhile. EDIT, I was thinking this was a labor guide and repair data thing like all data. I agree with Mspec, it's a terrible thing for the industry. They can sign up some lowball shops, then people can check those prices and tell you that your too high.

I purchased a Lite version of the program in 09 I believe for somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 grand, has service for another year after that. Never needed support for the last 5 years until now, Ran into an issue because my computer is taking a crap. And can't install R.O. writer on my new one, they want to charge by the minute for help.

Any one got any updates on this stuff. After getting off the Phone with RO Writer today, I'm going to do everything in my power to never give them a dime of my money again. I bought my program, and now I can't get upgrades any more because they've switched to a subscription based program at almost $300 a month.

Vin Waterhouse has a deal you can purchase, it's customized with your shop name etc.

I've been trying to push this a little more, still not seeing steady car counts which results in fluctuating advertisng capital if I have any at all.

Interested in this as well, this is the next big step I need to take.

It'd be hard for me to justify putting any kind of money into a 6.0 with all the issues they have.

I'm in the same situation, I hope 2016 is the year for me also. I've learned a lot in the last couple months, and finished the year pretty good, the last couple weeks hit a rough patch. I'm trying to recoup from that and focus like I was. I'd also like to double my numbers this year, the last 2 months I hit numbers close to what I needed to do that so as long as I can keep going I should be there.

I understand what your saying, it's a struggle to decide which is the right move, the problem for me, is seeing the immediate benefit of someone up front all the time vs someone in the shop all the time. I'm better suited for the shop for sure, as I can struggle with dealing with people.

I haven't done much with the quickcheck feature yet, working on that. I have low car counts currently, it's taken an uptick the last couple months. I don't currently have a car coming in each day.

I went with the Hawkeye Elite, I'm in a unique situation where I don't have any rent basically so it allows me to use money that would be for that on other things. I'm having my best 2 month streak ever, thanks in large part to this site but I'm still shy of 15k/month in gross.

I'm still new to the alignment game, just got the machine and stands operational within the last couple weeks. I make it a effort to make sure that the bay where everything is stays as open as it can so I can do alignments when needed. I'm not doing alot currently, but I've done about 1 a day since I've gotten everything operational.

I use a 2 post with stands only because I have a 2 bay shop, with bays that are really smaller then average. So the flexibility for me was the big thing, it's much faster with a drive on lift for sure but it was another investment at the moment.

Be careful who you hire, I thought I vetted my last hire well. I knew he was limited in his skill set but said he could do brake lines no problem. He did a whole Chevy truck yesterday, and I got to looking at it and he had the brake line ran through the clutch fan. I was speechless, I immediately sent him home and let him go this morning. This was the 2nd time I had to redo the entire brake line job I had him to do, the first one I chalked up to a learning experience.

I've been trying to do it, but I just don't see it as feasible anymore. Like mentioned above, everything is tied to you, you get sick or hurt, everything stops but the bills. It's too stressful. Find a kid who wants to learn and just have him as a helper at first, thats what I'm doing now and it's a huge help to productivity and he's not costing me anything hardly at the moment.

I should match my numbers from last year, and thats including a little 3 month sabatical where I took a day job at a dealership because I thought I was done. I just had my best November that I can remember recently. My area has a lot of price shoppers, and a lot of unproffesional shops that will undercut everything to get the job. I refuse to do that, as Elon said your selling value. I've become staunch on the no customer supplied parts this year, that has helped weed out some bad customers.

We got really lucky and had a friend who owns a machine shop give us a 10HP Mattei Rotary Vane Air compressor, talk about volume.

The Autel 908 is bang for the buck the best scanner out there in my opinion. I never see myself owning another Snap On Tool after the debacle that was the first wireless verus I had, that thing was insanely expensive, slow, and crashed repeatedly. And Snap On couldn't fix it, best thing that ever happened was my shop was broken into and it was stolen.