DUFRESNES

Sometimes it does not seem to be appreciated. We also pay a monthly bonus based on gross shop sales. It begins at $75,000 and increased every $5,000 dollars by $25 topping out at $125.

We also do a monthly bonus if earned. It is based on the best month such as December versus all other Decembers. The bonus can range per person from $50-500. 1/2 is paid on their check and 1/2 goes to their Sar-Sep. Our Cpa said this was best, so we didn't have to pay taxes on the part that went to the Sar-Sep. It is an expense to the company.

I am curious to hear what other shop owners do for employee bonuses this time of year. I realize there is no one-size-fits all, mostly because we have shops of different sizes.

 

I don't have any special formula. I do show my appreciation for my employees and give a bonus. The amount of bonus depends on how well the company did for the year, how long the employee is employed and how well the employee did for the year. Younger techs may get a tool gift certificate.

 

I also take everyone out for dinner at a nice restaurant. Each employee can bring a guest.

We used to do Turkeys and Bonus. Now only bonus. We do up to $500.00 depending on how long a person has been here. Sometimes I wonder if it is really appreciated or just expected.

That's too bad. The pit is right on the plans. It's not your fault and you have to pay? A simple pit to drain any water is all you need. Our pit is just a holding tank, that's it. Nothing fancy and no added expense.

Where did they put the holding tank in the cement or ??? Somebody is supposed to be out to talk to me today, but haven't seen them. Thanks for all the information. Love this forum. It is a useable one. People do respond. Thanks for doing it.

Thanks for answering so quickly. Yes, we will be able to do the angle adjustments. I was excited, but now there is a fiasco with the drain. They took ours out and said it wouldn't work. Except, they never came and asked me or told me of this, they just cemented over. This drain, drains into the next one after it fills partially up Yes, because it is lower, it would have to have a small pump or ??? It is a lot of money, but I think it will pay off before too long.

Great choice!

 

According to Hunter, they will not honor the warranty unless you have a pit. We installed a small septic tank for our drain. In the two and half years we have had it, we only had to pump it out once. It works fine.

 

We never did a free check. We do a lot of alignments and we promoted the machine to other shops. We have nearly a dozen other shops that give us their alignments. You must have the new system with the tire clamps. That system is real nice. I want to see if they have an upgrade.

 

We did not run any special either, but we do promote tire sales. I did run a contest with my techs to see if they could increase the number of alignments, which they did.

 

I like the machine and I like Hunter as a company. We also do the steering wheel angle adjustments. I think that comes with the program, you might want to ask to make sure.

 

Good luck!

My last align machine was a snap-on, it was good. When I built my new shop, I purchased a Hunter. Very happy, great product, great support. I sunk the rack in the ground, level. This way you pull straight onto lift, no ramp. This allows all low profile cars with no chance of damage to front bumper or spoiler. I also opted for the extended rack to do extended pickups. I have the optional TPMS program and steering angle sensor also. Hunter is a great company and one that keeps pace with technology.

 

Hopes this helps?

We are in the process of installing the Hunter also. I took your advice and are sinking the rack. The problem is when I came back in they were finishing the cement and I said where is the drain. They had left it out. It is in the plans, but not there. It has to be because it empties into the the next one and then every couple years, we test it and have it pumped. Hope they get it figured out soon. We had a demo here for a couple weeks. It hooks up in about 40 seconds. Pretty neat. I wondered if you did a FREE check when you first put it in or ran a special. Thanks for the good information.

Everyone should celebrate their Holidays the way the are meant to be celebrated. As a society we sometime fear that we may offend somone, I don't think that's the case.

 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas also and a happy New Year.

we will open for that monday as well as new year monday

We will close at noon on Christmas Eve and be open Monday AM as usual. Same with New Years.

We will be open the day after Christmas. My tech will be on vacation all that week so it will be me and the secretary. It will be a long week. LOL

Welcome to the world of Automotive! Our shop foreman is gone to Hawaii for 2 weeks and our service writer is out. This is our busy month with our Food drive and Free brakes.

I am a woman owner of 43 years. I started out in high school as treasurer, then went to work for service stations as a book keeper. Got my start in service stations. I have been aroung cars for ever, but no mechanical history. Years ago, I was told if you took the best mechanic and a person who had business training; the person with the business training would succeed over the mechanic, probably. A person with good business tools could actually run any small type of business. The principals are the same. Yes, you have to have business sense, common sense and want to work really hard. LOL. Get lots of training, get in a mastermind group. Watch for a successful owner and pick their brain to what classes or group he or she is in. Good Luck.

I am wondering if any owners out there are not mechanic and doing well. Any pro and con? Any training I should get?

 

I do have some some basic auto knowledge, work in it and have other business knowledge like customer service, computer operation, basic maintenance etc.

 

I am thinking of opening up a small shop in So CA. I believe with the current economic, more folks will keep their old cars. My mechanic that I goes are very busy and expanding. He said you don't have to be mechanic to be successful..maybe I can use him as a coach as he is a master mechanic too. Some of his challenges come from dealing with difficult customers who try to blame him for problematic item(s) that he didn't repair or touch.

 

 

Thanks

This is what we do, whether it is right or wrong. We pay 8 hours for a holiday to everybody (6 of them). The flat rate mechanics are based on their previous year average hour. The service writer is based on his average hourly wage (he is on straight commission). The hourly people get their regular hourly pay. If the holiday falls on their day off, they get the day off and get paid. This Thanksgiving we were off Thursday through Sunday. They don't get paid for the extra days just the regular holiday. Salaried employees get full salary.

My question to the group is: If a service writer is off for any reason, say 2 days, how do you handle it? He is on commission only. So when he is off, either myself or someone else has to service write.

Here is my pay plan for salaried employed service advisors. Service advisor are required to work 5 days per week and can choose to either have a day off during the week or rotate Saturdays. On weeks where there is a holiday, as in Thanksgiving, the day of the holiday becomes their day off, not the day they originally selected. If the company closes for two days, as in Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, they would obviously get paid their usual salary and have both those days off.

 

The issue with this plan is that if a service advisor chooses every Monday, for example, he will not have off Monday in a week where the holiday falls on another day, as in Thanksgiving week. And, if the holiday falls on his chosen day, Monday, as in Memorial Day, the service advisor feels that he as somewhat lost out because the shop was closed anyway.

 

I would like your thoughts on my plan, is it fair? Should there be an additional consideration for holidays.

 

All other full time hourly paid employees will get paid for a holiday if the holiday results in the employee not attaining his or her regular 40 hours.

 

I hope I made this clear, and would like to hear from other shop owners.

It seems to me, if you have had a I phone, you probably want to stay with it. If you have had a droid, you will want the new Razr. I can't wait until January to get mine. I love the droid but the new razr has so much more and it built much better. Check it out..

So...choosing a smart phone can be tough, because yes...there are allot of choices! When you choose your next smart phone, unless you buy off contract your next phone, you are deciding for the next 2 years, because you'll be locked in...in most cases.

 

Smartphones are really about the operating system and the hardware. It looks like allot of choices, but in actuallity, it's only 4 major operating systems..

 

Android (All your Motorola Droids, LG Revolution, HTC Thunderbolt, Samsung n Nexus, etc..)

iOS (iPhone only)

BlackBerry (All your BlackBerry devices)

Windows 7 (Nokia, HTC, and whoever else has started to pick it up..)

 

Android has now trumped iOS with 40% of the US market share, only because it's 1 iphone vs a bunch of various Android handsets on the market. Also has a huge ecosystem of apps and features. Android 4.0 is the latest/most appealing version, and available on the Samsung Nexus and most phones in January like the Droid Razr.

 

iPhone, well...it's the iPhone. It's got 28% of the US market share. It's on iOS 5 and has a neat little feature called Siri for a personal assistant. Huge ecosystem of apps, and easy to use. Great hardware.

 

BlackBerry is falling hard, yet they are trying to keep up...The Operating sytem is less appealing with less features, plus plagued with recent outages, unless they overhaul their OS, they're in for some more trouble.

 

Windows 7 is really just starting, growing slowly. More and more apps and is said to be very easy to use. It's based on a tile system for activity. I think it will grow more with windows 8 on both mobile and pcs.

 

There are some other operating systems like webOS (Palm, HP), Meebo..etc. I currently use a Palm Pre 2 which is webOS, and that's because I love the operating system, but it's a dying phone with discontinued hardware. I'm hoping it gets revived, otherwise I will need to make some choices myself here...

 

 

The other big factor to look at is 4G/LTE and how fast it's growing. If you are going to be with a phone for the next 2 years, do you want 4G? It's growing fast, especialy Verizon.

 

In summary...

 

1. Choose an operating system that you like most.

2. If Android, choose good hardware (Nexus or RAZR, etc). The iPhone has one choice and it's very good already.

3. If you want 4G, at this time it's mostly Android phones only. Some carriers have Windows 7 4G.

4. Read online reviews.

I am going to check out these suggestions Joe, thanks. What would you estimate your response to the purchased lists is?

I use list lady for my lists. She will NCOA your list for about $25.00 that will bring it up todate. Here is her e-mail [email protected] . Tell Her Nancy Scheewe referred you. She is really easy to work with and will help you get a good list. The least expensive way for new customers we use 3 zipcodes and then clean out the addresses that are too far away. We then cleanse it against our list and send 3 mailings about 2 weeks apart. We track them so we can see if it is worth the money.

Without mentioning part companies, has anyone been having issues with brake squeal and noise lately with brake pad replacements.

Because we live in the hills, we use only really good pads. We haven't had any problems since switching a few years ago. Not sure I can mention the manufacturer that we use here or not.

There are a bunch of them, but what you need to do is think about what operating system you want on it. Apple iOS? Then get an iPad. Android? then get an Android tablet with good hardware, like a Samsung Galaxy.

 

The majority of them are Android based. I would stay away from Blackberry Playbook, bad reviews and OS, and no updates until February. You can get Amazon's tablet, but I wouln't...it's a hacked version of Android. Wait a little bit if you like Android, until a tablet is released with ICS "Ice Cream Sandwich" Android version, optimized for Tablets.

 

You don't need to have a data plan with a tablet, just tether it with an app, like you said.

 

I would also wait until the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday...you should be able to pick a good one up between $250 - $350.

 

Keep an eye on this page as we get closer to Black friday, it will list the sale events for tablets... http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/BlackFridaySales/Category/Tablets

Thanks for the info. What do you mean about the Amazon Kindle Fire being a hack job. I think you are right about waiting until Black Friday

Several of us are looking for a tablet. We are totally confused. We are looking for one that doesn't have to have a data plan. I can always hook my smart phone to the tablet with an APP like I do for my laptop. I have tried comparing them on the internet, but now more than ever confused.

My last align machine was a snap-on, it was good. When I built my new shop, I purchased a Hunter. Very happy, great product, great support. I sunk the rack in the ground, level. This way you pull straight onto lift, no ramp. This allows all low profile cars with no chance of damage to front bumper or spoiler. I also opted for the extended rack to do extended pickups. I have the optional TPMS program and steering angle sensor also. Hunter is a great company and one that keeps pace with technology.

 

Hopes this helps?

That is a great idea. Did Hunter install or did you have someone else. Thanks for the info.

Joe, I agree whole heartedly with you about charging for diagnostics. If you believe in your techs and equipment, you can sell diagnostics. I draw a picture for new customers for check engine lights. Then off each code, I draw four branches, down to 2 to finally get the fix. We do not deduct the diagnostic charges. What do the people do that say they include it in the price of the fix, when the person says Thank you and walks out. How do you pay your technician. Our techs would rebel, if they didn't get paid for diagnostics. Not sure if I can post here what are charges are for 1st step and pinpoint tests

Sometimes I feel like I’m alone on a deserted island. I charge for diagnostic analysis. Why? Because I know what cost is to buy the tools, equipment, information systems, training and pay a technician to professionally and accurately diagnosis a check engine light, air bag, ABS or any other complicated problem. But, I feel a lot of shops are willing to give this up in hopes to get the work. In my opinion all they are doing is digging themselves in a hole.

 

And, I have heard all the reasons:

“If the customer gives me the job, I waive the analysis”.

“I package the analysis into the repair, so the customer does not see the diag charges”

“I will lose customers if I charge analysis”

And the best yet: “It only took me 10 minutes to diag the O2 sensor, so I can’t charge diag labor”.

 

Waiving the analysis is the same as a doctor waiving the x-rays and blood tests. They don’t do it, we should not either. I will also challenge those who “package” the analysis into the repair. You mean to tell me that after taking 1 hour to find a faulty mass air sensor, you will add the 1 hour to the 5 minutes it takes to install a new mass air? Come on, we all know the truth.

 

And let’s address the 10 minutes it took to find the failed O2 sensor. Did it really take 10 minutes? NO, it took years of training, years of experience, the investment in the right equipment and the investment in the right information systems. Why we sometimes diminish what we are truly worth is amazing. No other profession does that.

 

Sorry for being so tough on this topic, but business is hard enough these days and people question everything. If shops don’t realize what they are giving up, it makes it bad for all of us.

 

Please tell me what you think. Agree? Disagree? Or any other thoughts....

We are looking to purchase a new alignment center. We now have a John Bean Visualiner 3-D. It has served us well and is working fine. I think it is time to get one that does it faster to be more efficent. Thank you for all your suggestions that I know you will tell me. Please also tell me how long it takes to do a standard alignment.

I just copied and sent to my e-mail friends. This is great.

So did I. I hardly ever listen to You Tubes, but this one I played it 3 times and sent it. Thanks

I just copied and sent to my e-mail friends. This is great.