Inspection on every vehicle that enters your shop?

[babyhydro]

Hi everyone. We do a through inspection on most vehicles that come in the shop. I'm thinking about changing to a shorter "safety inspection form" because the tec's take almost an hour to fully inspect the veh and I have to pay them the hour to do it. Just seems more time consuming than its worth. (We are in FL and do not have state ibspections) What are everyone's thoughts on this process? BTW we use all data and they don't have digital inspection capability yet so we fill it out by hand. I thought about hiring a shop helper to do inspections, oil changes, clean up shop, run errands. What are your thoughts? Thanks so much in advance. Looking forward to opinions 😊

[tirengolf]

Hydro, I feel your pain, I am in Florida as well . I am about to go to Bolt On technology for this reason " I have no affiliation with Bolt On". I do a lot of tires, the inspection sheet makes my guys check all lug nuts. I resisted oil changes until 15 years ago, now they are a killer profit for me. I am at 49.00 Regular, 59.00 Dexos, 99.00 Synthetic, 119.00 Mobil One. I am actually installing a oil change only rack now. I, my father now me, have been here for dang nearly 60 years , I know who will buy and who want. I send those Walmart shoppers down the road. I actually have a shorter handwritten form if you would like a copy. I would be glad to share it. David

[HarrytheCarGeek]

Your tech's should have vehicle inspections as a second nature.

 

If you have been in this business long enough, you know what a car with xxx,xxx number of miles looks like underneath when on the lift.

 

Does the car look well maintained? Or does it look like all original parts are still on there? Worse, does it look like it has been patched more times than a soccer ball that has been bouncing off a porcupine?

 

You get the idea?

[babyhydro]

Hydro, I feel your pain, I am in Florida as well . I am about to go to Bolt On technology for this reason " I have no affiliation with Bolt On". I do a lot of tires, the inspection sheet makes my guys check all lug nuts. I resisted oil changes until 15 years ago, now they are a killer profit for me. I am at 49.00 Regular, 59.00 Dexos, 99.00 Synthetic, 119.00 Mobil One. I am actually installing a oil change only rack now. I, my father now me, have been here for dang nearly 60 years , I know who will buy and who want. I send those Walmart shoppers down the road. I actually have a shorter handwritten form if you would like a copy. I would be glad to share it. David

[babyhydro]

Hi tirengolf! Thank you so much for your input. I would really appreciate seeing your form. I think it would help a lot. Might look into bolt on if it will integrate with all data. My email address is [email protected]. thanks again!!

[mspecperformance]

Some pointers from my experience. Take it or leave it.

 

 

Inspections are the life blood of your business. If your techs are taking too long to perform inspections look and see what they are getting hung up on. I am a Bolt On power user and I will tell you that the digital inspection will not make the process any faster if you are using it to its full effectiveness. You will be snapping pictures, many time multiples of a certain area and also typing is a lot slower than writing. Even dictating to the tablet can take time in the editing process. What it will do for you is help you increase ARO if you have a sales system behind your inspections. Think about it this way... if your Techs take 1 hr to perform an inspection but it gives you $2000 worth of work on average to sell and you can close $1000 average ($1000) ARO then that is an hour well spent wouldn't you agree?

[Gary A]

I resisted oil changes until 15 years ago, now they are a killer profit for me. I am at 49.00 Regular, 59.00 Dexos, 99.00 Synthetic, 119.00 Mobil One. I am actually installing a oil change only rack now. I, my father now me, have been here for dang nearly 60 years , I know who will buy and who want. I send those Walmart shoppers down the road.

Happy to hear that someone actually charges an amount that should be charged for an oil change.

 

I bet if I raised my oil change prices my good customers wouldn't even flinch.

 

It's the ones that use the oil change price as a gauge on whether to use your facility or not that really make me wonder.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bbosselait]

We use Mitchell 1 and there is a short inspection sheet that is attached to every ro that the tech get. It's for the basics...lights, fluids, tires. It takes about 8 minutes to go through it depending on the tech and it's worth every minute. We have recently given the techs tablets so that they just check what is good/bad on the inspection sheet and type in any notes they need to then just send a copy to the service advisors printer. It's quick, simple and we are getting about a $350 ro average. I'm also in Florida

[mlilley1]

We do a Courtesy Inspection on every vehicle. I became affiliated with ATI a few years ago and they demonstrated to me and the techs that a thorough inspection can be done in an average of 15 minutes. On the older or more used up vehicle it may take longer, but as someone posted above that usually means that there is more opportunity for additional work and an increase in ARO. Then we moved to tablet inspections, we like Autovitals, and found that an inspection that is emailed to a customer with photos of the item in question was a very strong selling point. Autovitals customers that track things closely, (I'm not so good at that), can document that more photos turn into more sales. The customer can see the split CV boot, or the oil leak, or the scored brake rotor and have a much better understanding of what is being recommended. I'm sold on tablet inspections. Most systems allow complete customization of your inspections and also you can have several inspection sheets set up so that choice can be made if there is need to deviate from your standard inspection.

[mikerisich]

Hi everyone. We do a through inspection on most vehicles that come in the shop. I'm thinking about changing to a shorter "safety inspection form" because the tec's take almost an hour to fully inspect the veh and I have to pay them the hour to do it. Just seems more time consuming than its worth. (We are in FL and do not have state ibspections) What are everyone's thoughts on this process? BTW we use all data and they don't have digital inspection capability yet so we fill it out by hand. I thought about hiring a shop helper to do inspections, oil changes, clean up shop, run errands. What are your thoughts? Thanks so much in advance. Looking forward to opinions

 

Hi babyhydro,

 

You asked one of the most important questions to know the answer to. Fortunately, you’re already doing an inspection on most vehicles, which as M-Spec mentioned, is the lifeblood of your shop. Simply put, the more inspections you do, the more services you’ll sell.

 

The question, however, isn’t how to do faster inspections, but rather, how to increase the amount services you sell with the inspections you do.

 

Digital inspections with tablets are undoubtedly the way to go. Increasing ARO revenue is actually one of easiest and fastest changes you’ll experience, simply by increasing the quality of your inspections.

 

Service specific photos attached to digital inspection reports sent to customers via text/email will not only increase customer trust—leading to more services approved, but will actually speed up the approval process considerably.

 

I can go on and on about this, but I own BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY and would rather not use this forum to promote my services. If you’re interested in seeing what digital inspections can do for you, call us at the number below.

 

By the way, yes, we do integrate with ALLDATA. Hope this helps.

Edited August 15, 2016 by mikerisich