Anyone have a dealer license to compensate for slow times?

[Jay Huh]

I've been lucky so far but I couldn't escape the "slow" season forever. I'm in NC and we got 2 inches of snow and the whole city/county shut down for days.....

We got snow Saturday, had pretty much no customers Friday, Sat (closed) Monday and today and tomorrow doesn't look good either (no appointments).

 

Techs are getting frustrated with no work (they are flat rate and usually stay busy) and obviously not good for me or the business. Do you guys go to auction and buy cars to sell? I usually have 1 car that I work on at all times for myself to sell but I haven't bought a car off of a customer in a while.

 

It's a bit of a pain to get a dealer license here so wondering if you guys do it

[ncautoshop]

I didn't realize you were in NC! We got around 7" in the mountians, but that hardly enough to slow us down. I'm not sure that a repair shop and dealer fit together well, if you do. I'd create a separate company and maybe a separate lot, and hire someone to run it. Let the shop repair cars and the lot sell them. Combining the two seems like a good way to get lots of "I bought this now it needs brakes....for free. " type of situations!

 

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[Jay Huh]

Yea very true. Selling cars would come with its own set of headaches. I was thinking about just selling 1 or 2 cars a month just to subsidize income for when it's slow, not having any sort of lot or anything.

 

But yea we are in Raleigh, technically Durham but just on the Raleigh Durham border. Must be nice to be in the mountains. I love snowboarding, been forever since I've been

[ncautoshop]

Yea very true. Selling cars would come with its own set of headaches. I was thinking about just selling 1 or 2 cars a month just to subsidize income for when it's slow, not having any sort of lot or anything.

 

But yea we are in Raleigh, technically Durham but just on the Raleigh Durham border. Must be nice to be in the mountains. I love snowboarding, been forever since I've been

If you ever come to Boone let me know!

 

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[Jay Huh]

If you ever come to Boone let me know!

 

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Yea for sure. I've been to Boone many times. I'll come check out your shop one day

[ncautoshop]

Sounds good, it's just a little hole in the wall but we'd be glad to have you!

 

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[chrisoneil]

I do have a dealer's license. What normally happens is it gets slow so you find a car to buy. As soon as you start working on that car, business picks up and the car gets pushed outside. By the time you get back to it you've already robbed parts off of it to fix a customer's car in a pinch. It sits outside for a few years and then gets scrapped. If you make a point to stay on the car, it can and has been profitable.

[FROGFINDER]

An old employer used the time old method to obtain cars. He got permission to do tear down and inspection for report say for $500.00. Then when the customer declined to fix it he had the customer sign over the title instead of paying for the tear down and storage fees.

Edited January 12, 2017 by FROGFINDER

[alfredauto]

We are a full time dealer, it keeps things moving all the time. Plan on more time and money than you think and you'll be ok.