BOBBYK

I’m sure it been said before but I look as it that we are in the Auto Repair industry not the hang your parts business. The only person that we makes out is the customer when they bring in there own parts is the customer. Why would anyone give up there profit and open themselves up to a problem if the customer has a problem with the work. In Maryland you must honor the warranty even if the customer supplied the parts. We do not install customer parts at all. Also you will never get this person as a customer that will just go to the lowest priced shop they can find. Is that really a good business model for our industry.

We sell AC Delco batteries for the most part, and after they stopped having some of there batteries made in Korea the warranty problem went away. Most of our customer like the free replacement period and not the prorate. We had lots of problems with Interstate and warranty but that may have been the driver not the company but they still lost our business. I had to eat several batteries out of our own rental cars because the driver never had a replacement on the truck and I wouldn't wait for him to bring one later in the week.

We see this from time to time but once we explain to the customer that they are getting a club tire. Even though they say Goodyear or BFG on them they are made to the big box store spec’s and are not the same tire that they would make to sell in a retail store or to a tire distributor. We also point out that the big discount chain stores do not provide the same level of service they we do and if they have a problem with a tire we will be there to help. Do they even know who they talked to in Walmart or who to talk to about a tire problem or concern after that we make the sale.

I have a time clock and everyone must clock in even the flat rate techs and they clock out for lunch

I pay my tech's .2 to do a courtesy inspection. Which if they are moving slow takes them 10-14 mins depending on how offen we have seen the vehicle. If we have never seen the car before it can take 15-20 mins. But if we up sell the maintenance it can be 1-4 hours worth the work. We use Repair Shop Solutions for our check sheet.

If we use a service like Identifix for technical help we charge a computer access fee of 69.95. I have never had anyone complain about this charge once it's explained to them that without the technical help the time to diagnose there problem would have taken a lot long and cost them more money in the long run. I also let them know that we as tech's can't know everything about every vehicle out there and anyone that thinks they do run from them. Even doctors get outside help from other doctors on some problems with there patients.