CMillet86

I'm thinking about motologic.

I just bought a Hunter Hawkeye Elite, Now I didn't get every option in the book or the scissor lift. But the machine itself was $27k, the top of the line Atlas is $21k and to me is a unknown quantity. So the Hunter was a no brainer.

I get a verbal ok on the phone, and then when they pick up the car, they sign the Repair Order stating that they authorized all the repairs before they get the car back.

I've been there, had a Later model cadillac come in with a headlight bulb out, when I told the woman it'd be $120 or so to fix it I about had to duck. Then I had to explain to her that we had to pull the whole front bumper.

I checked out your whole shop on your website. I can only dream of a shop like that.

I get where LMCCA is coming from, a small shop that does low number and volume like mine it's crazy to think about that kind of money. For me as a single person shop I find it impossible to do the numbers that allow real profitibility. But thanks to this forum it's something I'm working on.

The Mastercool tool has been worth every penny.

I'm not an experienced sales writer by any means, but I bought Elites Elites Auto Repair Sales training package and it has helped me immensely . It's audio based but it comes with PDFs and so forth. It's $30 so I wouldn't expect it to be anything great, but it gave me a ton of perspective.

Well, why do you have issues with capital for your parts? Do you not ask for a deposit upfront? I mean this is not a brake job here. if you are rebuilding engines, I would have the customer give you at least the cost of the parts up front. The rest when you are done. Oh, and you don't start the repair, until you have that cash or w/e in your hands.

 

When I do a big job for a customer like say a head gasket, I will ask for the cost of parts, and machine work up front. No shame in that.

I do get a deposit on any job over $2k. But if I'm working on a few big jobs at once and not doing any cashflow work I still burn through that deposit money.

You have to be firm and consistent. The only time I will install a customer supplied part is if it's a performance application, say a customer bought EBC rotors and brake pads or borla headers, something along those lines, labor rate goes up to account for lack of part profit though. Also a good idea I've heard a lot on here is to quit giving prices over the phone, sure you can price a brake job, but what if it needs a caliper, hose or both. Now you have to call that customer and tell them it's going to be more then it was quoted etc.

They are seperate companies on the same property. I have full authority to excute a plan in my shop. Lack of working capital does cause a delay at times, I don't have any net 30 accounts for my parts, I write checks for them as they come. Which I'm realizing is killing my cash flow. Turn around time from him is fine most of the time. I pay him just as a walk in would. He has one employee that works for him. Also our prices are usually much cheaper then a Jasper but we don't offer the warranty that they offer.

I share the building with my dad who runs the automotive machine shop, when my grandpa retired he split the business between my father and I. That's why I rebuild them because I just disassemble them and have him do the machine work without even leaving the building.

I was the same way, and I still do some of it. But it's just not profitable in either of our situations. If you intend to keep doing it, you'll have no choice but to bill by the hour!

 

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That would be a surefire way to get rid of all that type of work thats for sure.

Take it from someone who's been in you shoes and in reality still is to a point. Get those big jobs out of there, they waist to much time and money for a small shop. Quit building engines, start selling engines. Quit building transmissions, start installing transmissions. Stop wasting yourself on jobs you can't turn a profit on. That's what we did. We're a 6 figure shop and it's still a struggle. Props to you for keeping your head above water. I agree with the above, hire some help and quit taking on big jobs. Market some brake jobs and maintenance services. Once you build yourself up maybe take on some big jobs. No offense, but your not capable of big jobs right now.

 

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It's so hard for me to quit doing that work because thats what were known for, thats our niche so to speak. But I understand completely, and with the help of some guys on here, I'm re-evaluating every thing about my shop. I've already placed an add for a entry level tech, and had some response in a day so we'll see how that goes.

I'm a couple hours from Mario, and my labor rate is $70, thats on the upper end of the independent scale in my area.

I've got a C5 corvette in one bay with the front timing cover off for a warranty issue as I built the engine in it, that requires pulling the rack, and I also don't feel comfortable leaving that vehicle outside every night. I've been trying to finish it, but also trying to finish the engine job to get some cash to make sure all the bills are paid this week. The other bay is actually the F150 with the valve covers off of it, I'm going to push it out Monday morning, was just trying to get an idea of what they are going to do with it before pushing it outside. I'm going to put a help wanted thing up as soon as I can. Andre are there some affordable apptitude and IQ test that I can give prospective employees? Like you said I don't want to hire someone based on like or dislike, did that with a guy part time and it ended up burning me big time.

I try to keep one bay open for the quick stuff, but it's hard to keep one bay empty all the time when all your doing is big work. My average RO is $540, but I have as many ROs In a year as some of you guys do in a month

I use all data currently. The biggest thing I can implement I believe is getting my parts margins up. They are at less the. 40% average. And next is getting car count up. Like Andre said, too much wasted time. It looks for the year I've basically averaged 15 hours a week billed.

Improbable goals, seems hard to think about those because I've been thinking about just trying to do baby steps. My business goals are to be able to expand the shop I'm in and make it state of that art, top of the line aligner, balancer and so forth. I want a nice clean shop with a few good techs. It's hard for me to imagine anything too crazy. My personal goals are simple, I just want to be able to do things that I want to do when I want to. I don't want to work 7 days a week, every week like I am currently. I want to be able to enjoy my life, have a decent house and some toys.

If I complete both Jobs, I have 2 more fairly large jobs in the parking lot. One is a engine overhaul, I spent most of the day cleaning and preparing parts to assemble that engine. Incoming phone calls vary on the day, I'd say 2-4 phone calls that could be prospective customers, maybe 1 walk in a day that could be a customer. I'm not bad at commuicating with people, If I have bad news for a customer I sometimes have trouble calling them and letting them know. Had to do that today, customer brought in a 08 F150 that needs an engine, I don't rebuild those because of a few issues, had to give him a $7000 quote for a reman Jasper. I don't cower from talking to people, it just seems like by the time people make it to my shop they are at there wits end. I tend to think people like me, I have some loyal customers, have lots of friends.

On a main road, County Road, In an industrial area but residential is just 2 blocks down. My shop is directly facing the road with letters on the building with just my name. This year so far has been less wholesale work, mainly because I ran one Dealer away because of slow payment. Last year was probably 30-35% wholesale. This year is only about 10%.

City Population 21,000, 80K within 20 miles.

Have Autozone, Advance, Napa, and O'Reillys all delivering parts.

No Rent Building is paid for from my grandfather.

Overhead is Roughly $2500/Month, a good chunk of that is tools/equipment because all the equipment that was here was completely wore out. That will go away in a couple years if I can stay afloat. Then I'll have property taxes which are only 2k a year in a Our Tiny Town.

I have 2 bays with lifts, I have a 3rd bay in the back of the building where the chassis dyno is, it's not useable for much else. Currently there isn't anything In the shop that can be done today. The majority of my work takes multiple days or weeks with rebuilding an engine, ordering parts etc. I diagnosed and scheduled a car yesterday for today, but they were a no show.

Your biggest problem is you are wasting your time on too many non profitable actions. If your hourly rate is $70.00 an hour and you worked 8 hours a day. You should be making $560.00 a day in labor. If you worked 250 days out of the year you would make $140,000 a year without any parts sold or marked up.

 

So let's assume you made $75,000 last year. If you did then your labor rate is effectively $37.50 per hour. If you made $50,000 last year your labor rate is $25.00.

 

If you worked more than 250 days last year your hourly rate is obviously less than the above figures. If you are including parts with your double digit income you very well could be working for less than $10.00 per hour.

 

So quit screwing around and get back to work and reality. This sounds more like a hobby than a business.

 

You need a goal, a purpose, a plan and some discipline. What you have is a floundering start-up.

 

If you were my employee I would tell you to audit your day. That's what we do with a below standard production level employee to see where the time is being wasted and document problems/reasons/excuses. Then either handle or terminate.

I totally agree with you, currently I'm waiting on parts. I have both bays tied up with fairly major work, waiting on parts that weren't in stock for both. I haven't done a brake job in probably 2 months, I've probably done 3 stand alone oil changes. I need to market to more general repair and clean my shop up. I don't have tire machines or balancers, no alignment machine, so I don't get those jobs. I gave myself until June of 2016 to get this place on the right track or I'm closing shop and going to work for someone else.

The first thing that a consultant from Elite or similar would probably do is have you revisit your labor rate and markup. Last October I attended a meeting sponsored by Jasper Engines and Transmissions with a presentation by the CEO for independent shop owners. Upon registering Jasper asked for the labor rate at every shop and reported the results at the meeting. We are here in the hinder lands in the mostly rural Midwest/southeast. The shops represented were from Southern Indiana, Southern Illinois, and Western Kentucky. The reported labor rates ranged from $48-$109 per hour. The average was $78. If one had excluded the shops from the smaller towns I am sure the average would have been in the low to mid $80's. Our current labor rate is $90.00. Your labor rate is lower than average for this area.

 

Here is a good thread on labor rates: http://www.autoshopowner.com/topic/10160-labor-rates/?hl=jasper#entry26198

Based on my actual City I'm on the upper end, the local chrysler dealership is only $85/hr and they just recently went from $80 to $85. The highest independent I'm aware of is the next city over at $77 or $78.