DewayneP

I have a Droid X from Verizon too. I love it. It does everything I need, plus it's a great phone (great call quality).

I'm only a one-man, very small shop so I comparison shop online. I still buy the vast majority of my parts from one supplier but if there is a large price (or quality) difference I will buy elsewhere. Doing it online saves a lot of time and headache. Considering that inventories are updated in real-time, I also know who has the part in stock. There is one local vendor that isn't online so I don't buy very much from them at all.

I think a lot of people equate "honesty" with price. In other words, they're "honest" so I know I won't get "ripped off". Of course, "ripped off" means pay too much.

True Joe, a "good deal" looker isn't a loyal customer at all. They can be turned into a loyal customer, but don't start out that way. Not only that, but you end up with less than 1/4 the actual cost of the service. The deal has to be for at least half-off and Groupon takes half of the sales price; $29.95 oil change costs the Groupon customer $14.90 or less, you get $7.45 or less. Definitely a loss leader, but as it says "no upfront costs". The costs are all on the back-end.

I don't know for sure, but I thought tampering with an airbag system and not letting the purchaser know IS illegal? That used car dealer set themselves up for a lawsuit if their customer was ever in an accident and the airbags didn't work.

Here's something to chew on: Per Consumer Reports: Consumer Reports wanted to find out if nitrogen is worth the price, so we purchased a Nitrogen Inflation System and checked out how well the inflation held up over a one year period. We evaluated pairs of 31 tire models of H- and V-speed rated, all-season tires used in our tread wear test from 2006. We filled one tire per model with air and the other with nitrogen. The test was quite simple: fill and set the inflation pressure at room temperature to 30 psi (pounds per square inch); set the tire outdoors for one year; and then recheck the inflation pressure at room temperature after a one year period. The tires were filled and deflated three times with nitrogen to purge the air out of the tire cavity. We also used an oxygen analyzer to be sure we had 95-percent nitrogen purity in the tire--the claimed purity limit of our nitrogen system, which generates nitrogen gas from ambient air. The test started on September 20, 2006 and the final measurements were taken on September 20, 2007. The results show nitrogen does reduce pressure loss over time, but the reduction is only a 1.3 psi difference from air-filled tires. The average loss of air-filled tires was just 3.5 psi from the initial 30 pressure setting. Nitrogen-filled tires lost an average of 2.2 psi from the initial 30 psi setting. More important, all tires lost air pressure regardless of the inflation medium, so consumers should check their tires' air pressure routinely. No evaluation was done to assess the aging claim. In other words, check your tire pressure! Don't fall back on a false sense of security because you had your tires filled with nitrogen. I see lawsuites in the near future claiming that the driver didn't feel as though he had to check his tire pressure because nitrogen doesn't leak out from the tire.

Until the Jets figure out that they need a decent QB they won't get any further than they have. Of course, I say this AFTER watching them lose to the Steelers. I am a great Monday morning QB.

It looks promising, but the website is horrible. There is also the Redi-Sensor by VDO or the universal one by Schrader. The VDO sensor, from what I've seen doesn't need ANY specific hardware. All you do is install the sensor and use your standard TPMS tool to set it for the vehicle. To be honest, they all look promising. I have yet to be able to find out where to purchase them.

Hmm, yeah the SBA isn't great, but my experience with SCORE wasn't much better. They did look at my business plan and made some comments about it but basically told me good luck. Not in a bad way, just good luck. They did give me 2 bits of good advise: Never give away your services, barter is OK but don't do anything for free!!! (diagnostics comes to mind). Also, be sure to pay yourself first. Never buy something for the business without taking your pay out first. You can't survive if you don't get paid.

I've never used either of those, but bluetooth isn't very far reaching. It's only good for about 10 feet. You may get further away and still have a connection but 10 feet is about it for a dependable, accurate connection. I would look into a WIFI scanner. Also, make sure you get one that can at least scan the 2D barcodes found on many vehicle registrations (3D would set you up for the future). I know, here in NY, our window registration stickers have both a regular barcode and a 2D barcode. The regular barcode gives you a bunch of useless info along with the License plate number while the 2D barcode will actually give you the VIN. I use a standard barcode scanner to scan the regular barcode on the doorpost but you wouldn't believe the number of vehicles I get in that don't have a barcode there. If I had a 2D scanner I could easily scan the registration. I have also found that it is difficult to scan the barcode vintag on the dashboard. The windshield seems to distort it so it won't scan. I hope I didn't take you off on a tangent...

I can't help you too much but I'll try. I would think you would want to start out small first, build clientel and then go big. Since you are starting a business where this is none you may find out why there's no competition, because no-one needs or wants those services. I think you should try to find a place you can lease on a temporary basis, buils up some repair/maintenance clientel. Those clientel will be the ones that will get you through the tough times. You also say you are totally new to this, never been in the "business" before. You need to find a "partner" (but he/she doesn't have to truly be a partner in the business) that can help you with the mundane tasks at hand like what equipment to purchase, how to set up the bays, what inventory to stock and what to purchase as needed. You may want to talk to a local parts store or parts wharehouse rep and see what they have to offer as far as what inventory moves in your area and what doesn't. I'm thinking a rep from Mighty, NAPA, CarQuest, ServiceChamp, etc... You can talk with them without comitting to purchase anything. They can get you going on the repair side of things. As far as equipment goes: A good Rim Clamp tire machine is a must these days as well as a spin balancer that will handle the same size tires/rims that the tire machine will handle. No sense buying a tire machine that'll do 48" tall tires and a spin balancer that won't balance them. I'm not saying go out and buy the biggest and best, buy smart. Think of who your clientel will be and go from there. A workbench and great vise (notice I didn't say good vise, mechanics are hard on vises) is a necessity. A shop press: H frame 20 tons at least. A strut spring compressor (like a brannick or similar, OTC makes a good one). One other piece of equipment you might not think about is a good computer infrastructure. Make sure if you are building that you have cat 5e cable run everywhere, even out in the bays. Also a good wireless network is a good idea. A lot of the newest scan tools offer a technician repair database that is accessed via the internet via a WIFI connection. No wifi, no fast fixes, longer repair times. A good PC that has no moving parts would be ideal for a POS computer. No moving parts means no hard drive to fail. The biggest thing I can think of is this: You don't have to buy the biggest and best of anything. Spend your money wisely. There are $15,000 tire machines that can mount a tire without anyone touching anything and there are $4000 tire machines that will do almost the same job but they are manual. I have been at this only 3 years myself. I wouldn't change much if I had to do it over again. I'm not big, just a one man shop, but I've learned the hard way to not stock too many parts and not to buy equipment at an auction without trying it out first no matter how good of a buy you think it is.

Here's the link to the Texas lawsuit article: Tire lawsuit And here's the article supporting installing new tires on the rear: Always install 2 new tires on rear axle

I read that article too, and several others. They all said to put the tires with the most tread on the rear. The article I read even referenced a lawsuit from a woman's family in Texas that is suing because thew tire place should have known to put the new tires on the rear.

That's a good point. Different areas of the country will have different reasons for junking a vehicle or buying another one. Up here in the rust belt, it's usually rust that kills them. Down in the deep south the rubber components and interiors tend to go first, while out on the west cost you fight with the interiors and paint. Whenever I go down to Florida I notice that people tend to hold on to their vehicles more than they do up here. Ours rot out around 200,000 miles or 10-15 years whereas a southern vehicle you keep until you simple grow tired of it. This is why broad Federal regulations may have some unintended consequences when enforced from region to region.

Me Too. I'm a one man show show I do whatever I can to keep the cars coming in. I am actually ONLY open after 5:00pm. Some people say it is convenient, some not so much.