The $19.95 Oil Change Offer

[JustTheBest]

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[Dan Reichow]

4 hours ago, Stevens Automotive Service said:

Shop Owners 

If you are apposed to a 19.95 oil change that you are afraid brings in the wrong customer this is not a problem. Do something different. 

There is a very easy way that, you can charge your regular rate for an oil change, and get a ton of good customers. 

I agree with Matthew. If you can't track an advertising campaign don't do it.

You can have great numbers as well.

If your looking to get to the next level in the upcoming 4th quarter and have a great 2018 contact me for a free consultation. We can see where your at and where you want to be.    

We presell our oil change services  / we only use Synthetic oil /  last three months 85 presold packages - [ $8,500 to Bottom line ]   We sell them cheap but with that said how much does it cost you to advertise to get 425 visits from your customer.

[AndersonAuto]

On 9/17/2017 at 9:25 AM, JustTheBest said:

Hello everybody! I felt compelled to "chime" in on this topic again because of some interesting details. 

I read this topic from the start - wanted to get familiar with where it was going. And on top of that - I understand that it's somewhat of a touchy subject - I get it. 

But after reading everything, here's what I found:

In an earlier post, AndersonAuto said:

"One of my advisors who has been with me for almost 10 years used to complain non-stop about the coupon oil changes. He's on a 100% commission pay plan as are all my advisors and wanted to not include the coupon oil changes in his pay plan. He was absolutely sure they were killing his ARO and GP%. I just pulled out the tracking and offered to remove all the repair orders with mailer coupons for him. All $35,000 worth. He declined. "

Hmmm.... so if you're following, it's NOT about the cheap oil change - it's about what comes AFTER the cheap oil change.

Later in this thread, AndersonAuto advised:

"I looked up where we ended the month for June. $218,789 with a $447 ARO on 489 repair orders."

First of all, nice numbers. But can you see where the truth comes out?? 

With an ARO of $447, I'm pretty sure it's not 20 oil changes on each car, right?

I think (actually... have come to understand) is that most shop owners overlook the fact that from the time most people got their first car, the ONLY service they were told they need was that "oil change". In fact, it was probably "dad" that told them that - something like "be sure to keep your oil changed on a regular basis". 

Amy I right? 

So that's why the oil change works as an INTRODUCTION to your shop. 

Besides, I don't care how good you are - how many tools or scanners you've got - I don't care if you're the most honest shop in your market - Try to fix a car as it's rolling by your door. 

That's impossible.

Also, I wanted to mention to  "AndersonAuto" that it's nice to see that you're tracking your offers. I always say; "If you can't track it - don't do it." I'm not suggesting you've got to look at it every day - but it's nice to have something to reference... and that's why most shop owners don't "get it". If you follow this model - get the customer in the door with an attractive offer on the ONLY SERVICE THEY KNOW THEY NEED - you too can turn your shop into one that produces similar ARO's.

Nice work!

Hope this helps!

Matthew Lee
"The Car Count Fixer"

Get "The Official Guide to Auto Service Marketing"

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Matthew

 

Thanks Matthew. Whenever this thread pops up I always have a good laugh when I see the tags that Harry put on it. 

One thing I'd like to touch on is something that I knew, but it was even more evident to me a couple weeks ago. I happened to be in Maryland and I stopped by ScottSpec's shop to have a look at his operation, marketing, margins, etc. The thing that you have to consider when designing a marketing program is what you're doing now vs what you want to be doing. Scott currently runs very close to a $600 ARO with great margins, but his car count is up and down. He definitely needs to revamp his marketing, but he did have a good August. The reality of a cheap oil change marketing program is that a $425 to $450 ARO is what most shops can expect if you're doing good inspections and have a good advisor. Your demographics/zip code/vehicle mix obviously will have a big influence on this, but $425-450 is what I've seen. If you're a smaller shop like Scott, with a limited maximum car count due to a single advisor configuration and limited shop space, moving from a $600 ARO to a $425 ARO with higher car count might not make sense. 

The real issue that comes in is that the vast majority of shops need to replace half (HALF!!!) of your customers annually. Scott told me he was only losing about 10% annually. I showed him a pretty simple number which indicated that his losses were much higher, which he then back tested and showed just how scary it is. Scott is losing just over half of his customers annually (as am I) even with a great advisor taking care of his customers. My girlfriend sat in his waiting room and listened to/watched his customer interactions for a couple hours, and she concluded that Scott's customers LOVE his advisor, but he still has to replace half of them annually. That's the reality that most of us have to deal with. Customers are not as loyal as we all want to think they are, and the customers we see all the time give us the illusion that most customers are like them. Scott's numbers and mine have shown that over time customers are becoming less loyal every year.

So the question for shops like ScottSpec is how do you ensure you're attracting enough new customers to replace the ones that don't come back, while maintaining a high ARO? I know exactly how to do it for a shop that can handle 500 cars a month and needs a $425 ARO, but a shop that can do 160 cars a month and needs to carry a $600 ARO is a different kettle of fish. I wish I had better answers. Scott is going to do some A/B testing with a few marketing pieces so maybe he can enlighten us all in a few months.

I do know for sure that the oil change is the only service everyone knows they need, and you can't fix it if it isn't in your shop. I've been wondering though, given the current climate of customer loyalty (or lack thereof), if the way forward is going to involve consolidation of the industry into fewer larger shops, or chains of smaller shops where the owner can count on making his living on smaller net profits from multiple locations.

[3PuttFever]

Exactly how do you obtain a $425 average with 500 cars? I'm into this business less than five years and would like to know how you know how to do  this? Aside from listening to the customers, selling the dirty filters, overdue or due maintenance, pipelining upcoming needs like soon to expire brakes/tires, what else should we be doing? We inspect nearly every car and admittedly, we do have some lapses on finding things, but we do a good job for the most part. 

[Wheelingauto]

46 minutes ago, 3PuttFever said:

Exactly how do you obtain a $425 average with 500 cars? I'm into this business less than five years and would like to know how you know how to do  this? Aside from listening to the customers, selling the dirty filters, overdue or due maintenance, pipelining upcoming needs like soon to expire brakes/tires, what else should we be doing? We inspect nearly every car and admittedly, we do have some lapses on finding things, but we do a good job for the most part. 

In addition to Stevens points I would add....

Inspect every vehicle, the more consistent you can be the better. Identify all needs. Estimate all needs, present all needs to customer in order of importance, along with estimates to correct. Watch average ticket grow.

To improve results add in Stevens points:

Dont market to bottom feeders. Market to value.

Treat people well, serve them and consistently deliver.

Hire the best you can find and help them be as efficient as possible.

Also, get sales training. While you need (IMO) to be genuine knowing the tools and how to use them will assist in closing some of the more difficult sales and close more of the easy ones.

 

[AndersonAuto]

2 hours ago, 3PuttFever said:

Exactly how do you obtain a $425 average with 500 cars? I'm into this business less than five years and would like to know how you know how to do  this? Aside from listening to the customers, selling the dirty filters, overdue or due maintenance, pipelining upcoming needs like soon to expire brakes/tires, what else should we be doing? We inspect nearly every car and admittedly, we do have some lapses on finding things, but we do a good job for the most part. 

What those guys said. Remember, 500 cars is a lot of cars. Concentrate on figuring out exactly how many vehicles your shop can handle, and do an exceptional job with those vehicles.

One metric that I used to measure, and I really should get back into, is the number of jobs found per RO. We all work on pretty much the same vehicles, 10 years old with 120-150k on the clock. Things are broken on most of those cars. Your job is to find what's broken, and tell the customer every single time. When we were measuring jobs found per RO, we were looking for about 5 to 5.5 jobs found per RO. Some cars need nothing, some cars need 13 things, but in the end we looked for the average. If a tech could only find 2.5 items per car, we knew he wasn't doing a good inspection. We also tracked the sales closing ratio by the SA, and broke it down by technician. If I have 3 advisors and 2 of them sell everything a particular tech gives them, and one advisor doesn't sell anything for him, we have a personality conflict that I need to get involved in. If I have 3 advisors and 6 techs, and all my techs are finding 5 items per car, but all the advisor closing ratios on one of those techs is complete crap, I know I have a tech who's pencil whipping his inspection and the advisors don't believe him. Lots of interesting things you can find out when you track that stuff.

When we do an inspection, I have the techs give the advisor the list in a specific order.

1. What the car came in for.
2. Safety items. Actual safety like metal to metal brakes and ball joints that are about to fail.
3. Things that will become a safety items in the near future.
4. Things that won't become safety items, but get more expensive if you wait.
5. Needs fixed but won't get more expensive.
6. Maintenance. 

[JustTheBest]

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[3PuttFever]

Just had a car in here from a new customer. Complaint was grinding noise. We assume brakes and look the car over. He's got high mileage, two broken springs and blown struts, a bad RF wheel bearing. Manager asks me what to do. He's thinking we just lead with the wheel bearing. I tell him to let the customer know all that it needs because that's what we're here for and broken springs may result in other issues that if we don't tell him and something happens how is that not on us? I follow MAP standard of communication - a broken or failed part is a 'required' fix and other worn parts are a 'suggested' fix. On this case - the RF wheel bearing and two springs/struts are a required fix and the other two springs/struts are suggested since both broken springs were on the driver side. Customer declined all repairs. My Manager is upset we let the wheel bearing walk out the door. We didn't let him walk out the door unless we purposely omit the other issues on the car to simply get a $275 wheel bearing ticket. The customer applied for financing, was declined, and didn't do anything with us. My Manager thinks someone else will get the bearing work and we lost a sale. I like he's fighting for the business but if a customer has multiple things that need attention now and they pass with us because they can only afford one thing so be it. I can live with that rejection knowing I did what was right. Customer may go to another shop, ask for a bearing R&R, and that shop may take his money and then mention the things I hope they find. Any thoughts on how we could have done better? A little off topic but in the vein of inspecting cars and presenting findings...

[gandgautorepair]

Thanks everyone. Very good stuff here.

[mspecperformance]

8 minutes ago, 3PuttFever said:

Just had a car in here from a new customer. Complaint was grinding noise. We assume brakes and look the car over. He's got high mileage, two broken springs and blown struts, a bad RF wheel bearing. Manager asks me what to do. He's thinking we just lead with the wheel bearing. I tell him to let the customer know all that it needs because that's what we're here for and broken springs may result in other issues that if we don't tell him and something happens how is that not on us? I follow MAP standard of communication - a broken or failed part is a 'required' fix and other worn parts are a 'suggested' fix. On this case - the RF wheel bearing and two springs/struts are a required fix and the other two springs/struts are suggested since both broken springs were on the driver side. Customer declined all repairs. My Manager is upset we let the wheel bearing walk out the door. We didn't let him walk out the door unless we purposely omit the other issues on the car to simply get a $275 wheel bearing ticket. The customer applied for financing, was declined, and didn't do anything with us. My Manager thinks someone else will get the bearing work and we lost a sale. I like he's fighting for the business but if a customer has multiple things that need attention now and they pass with us because they can only afford one thing so be it. I can live with that rejection knowing I did what was right. Customer may go to another shop, ask for a bearing R&R, and that shop may take his money and then mention the things I hope they find. Any thoughts on how we could have done better? A little off topic but in the vein of inspecting cars and presenting findings...

No offense but it sounds like your manager needs a lesson on ethics. Will someone get that wheel bearing job? Probably. Some hack shop. If the customer couldn't afford to properly repair their vehicle and you exhausted all of your options to help them then there is nothing you could do.

[3PuttFever]

That was my concern (ethics). He knows and understands that we did the right thing. If I ever find we're selling 'what we can get' he'll be terminated immediately. 

[gandgautorepair]

16 minutes ago, 3PuttFever said:

Just had a car in here from a new customer. Complaint was grinding noise. We assume brakes and look the car over. He's got high mileage, two broken springs and blown struts, a bad RF wheel bearing. Manager asks me what to do. He's thinking we just lead with the wheel bearing. I tell him to let the customer know all that it needs because that's what we're here for and broken springs may result in other issues that if we don't tell him and something happens how is that not on us? I follow MAP standard of communication - a broken or failed part is a 'required' fix and other worn parts are a 'suggested' fix. On this case - the RF wheel bearing and two springs/struts are a required fix and the other two springs/struts are suggested since both broken springs were on the driver side. Customer declined all repairs. My Manager is upset we let the wheel bearing walk out the door. We didn't let him walk out the door unless we purposely omit the other issues on the car to simply get a $275 wheel bearing ticket. The customer applied for financing, was declined, and didn't do anything with us. My Manager thinks someone else will get the bearing work and we lost a sale. I like he's fighting for the business but if a customer has multiple things that need attention now and they pass with us because they can only afford one thing so be it. I can live with that rejection knowing I did what was right. Customer may go to another shop, ask for a bearing R&R, and that shop may take his money and then mention the things I hope they find. Any thoughts on how we could have done better? A little off topic but in the vein of inspecting cars and presenting findings...

If they tried financing approval for just the wheel bearing, as well as the whole job, and the guy didn't get approved, and he didn't have money to fix it, no sale was lost since no sale was there. Really though, this guy is not your customer...has no money to fix or maintain his car. If trying to get a single job creates a pattern of the advisor not being thorough on his process, many more jobs will be lost, not just a single wheel bearing on a cheap customer.

[3PuttFever]

He had $300 to spend. He needed $1500. But I still feel we didn't lose a sale - we did what was right and can live with our advice. My SA is young but good. He's trying. True, I was concerned with the reason for being disappointed but it was the right thing to do. Hindsight, my question was kind of dumb. 

[3PuttFever]

I'm with you...it would be a decent daily driver if these repairs were made. He can't afford it and I can't afford to only do what he can afford. 

[xrac]

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[tyrguy]

Obviously you did the right thing by making the customer aware of everything you found upfront rather than sell the wheel bearing and tell him about the rest after the fact. My question is, if after being informed of all the issues he had asked you to do only the wheel bearing would you have done that? I believe we would have.

[gandgautorepair]

If the customer had the $300, we would have done the wheel bearing. That was the most immediate, and most safety related repair, and it gained a new customer. If he needed financing to do anything at all, and got turned down, not much there. Hard to second guess the situation not being there.

[AndersonAuto]

17 hours ago, JustTheBest said:

With all due respect - I don't think it's a matter of right or wrong. I think it's a matter of which business model do you want to run. 

Using the math and numbers from what I quoted above, the difference is this:

160 cars/month x $600 ARO = $96,000
500 cars/month x $425 ARO = $212,500.

Of course if the 96K is returning a 10% profit, it's still better than 212K at 5%. Now, I'm not saying those profit numbers are correct-  I am just making a point that it's not all about gross sales - it's about "what sticks". I get it. But I'm thinking that with the tracking and work you've put into your business, the 212K is doing better than 5%. 

No, not right or wrong, but like with everything, it depends. You could choose to run my business model in a two bay shop with one tech, one lube dude, and one advisor. Could it work? yes, depending on your expense structure. If you're in a high rent area, then I would guess probably not. I'm happy to be proven wrong of course. Choosing which business model you want to run is not to be taken lightly. You have to analyze where your bottlenecks are, and whether you can do anything about them.

Your math is right, but not all of the story. If a guy is running 160 cars/month at $600 ARO and getting a 20% net, I wouldn't want to move him to 200 cars/month at a $425 ARO and a 20% net. Not only less sales, and less net on those sales, but the advisor doesn't have time to do a good job consistently. And, if a guy is doing 20% net on $96K/mo, I'd bet anything he'll be at 10% net or less on $85K sales. Sales fixes a lot of evils, but it's hard to get around a bottleneck like limited shop space/advisors. 

I'm obviously a firm believer in oil change marketing, but I'm also realistic about the ARO it will generate. ScottSpec runs a good operation and gets a higher ARO than cheap oil change marketing will likely get him. Is it possible that his advisor is such a rock star that he could prove me wrong and maintain that ARO? Possible, but I don't like the odds.

If a shop is running 100 cars/month, and a $200 ARO, then very likely a discounted oil change and proper inspection/sales process would dramatically improve the business and the bottom line. Like I said, it depends. 

 

17 hours ago, JustTheBest said:

A loss of 1/2 of the customers a year is rather surprising... and this is what I talk about with my clients. When it costs between $75-$150 to get a new customer, would you spend $15/year to keep your old customers?? I have to think the answer is a "yes". 

Everyone is surprised when they find out what their customer attrition rate is. The absolute lowest customer attrition rate I've seen is 35%, from a shop in a small town with limited options for auto repair, and an owner that the entire community knows and loves.

 

17 hours ago, JustTheBest said:

But the issue I always struggled with is that when you're smaller - fewer people - and fewer customers - there just seems to be more room for the bottom to fall out. In other words, if half of the 160 customers left - it would a much bigger problem than if 1/2 of the 500 customers left. See what I'm talking about. Now, with that said, of course, nobody wants to (or likes to) lose customers. I'm just looking at extremes. 

There's absolutely more room for the bottom to fall out in a small shop. If my car count goes down 35 cars in a month I might notice, but I'm certainly not worried. The shop that's doing 160 cars a month and drops 35 RO's just went into a loss for the month. It's a big problem for any shop to lose 50% of it's customers a year. In fact, it might be a bigger problem for the bigger shop. I literally have to come up with 1000 new customers every year. Can you say that about a shop that runs 160 RO's per month? In either case, if you don't replace those customers who are lost, you will perish 100% of the time. Marketing is critical, I don't care who you are. It's just that I think the marketing needs to be well thought out to produce the car count/ARO/repeat business that you need to be profitable, not simply car count. Oil change marketing certainly does that for me, but I'm not about to say one size fits all.

 

[3PuttFever]

My SA said the customer was scared to even do the bearing at this point. Could he have salvaged a bearing RO out of this? Not likely. I could have but if I have to survive on people whom I can clearly tell are having money issues by taking what little they have then I don't want any part of it. I talked with the customer a little when he checked in to welcome him in and thank him for choosing my shop. A different guy, car was in ROUGH shape, neglected, older, different color quarter panel, etc etc. I feel good about not pushing and getting this poor guy's money. I pray he's safe and finds a way to get the work done somewhere. 

[Dan Reichow]

On ‎9‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 2:28 PM, Stevens Automotive Service said:

Great, both you and Wheeling do a great job . Good reputation, business decisions , marketing and staying on top of the numbers with great customer service. Both real deals. 

 

On ‎9‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 6:44 PM, Stevens Automotive Service said:

Hi Dan 

Your pre paid card is for 5 oil changes per customer (20.00 each) cost them 100.00 bucks gets each of them in 5 times = 425 visits these are existing customers correct? And yes 8500 in hand is great.

The program I am talking about above is for new, never been in your shop customers that will get them in the door for that service and leaves them some tease money to get them back a second and third time by then you know there spending habits, your building a relationship and your charging 29.95-39.95 whatever it is for your regular service. 

Your way is getting them to come back so that is a good thing, but remember 8,500 is not profit it's costing you 20.00 to do the 20.00 service so that's breaking even (not a bad thing by no means) and I am sure you are getting the upsale when it's there and going after the 2.0-2.5 labor per RO.

Again your getting them in with an opportunity to sell them what they need and build a relationship.  Track it and make sure your getting the repairs as well.

We do not restrict to one vehicle and or family member so we have opportunity for more vehicles we have not seen , [ as any offer it needs to be effective  question is what does it cost in advertising print radio etc. to get 425 clients in . when you factor this their is no loss of oil change revenue.  we hit Average RO last month of $568.00 we do not separate tires and or oil changes.  

[Framingham Auto Service]

Great discussion!

I have been debating my self, on which marketing strategy to adopt.

Like AndersonAuto, we only use synthetic (Name Brand) at $4.38 Qt cost and the average price on Oil Filters of $4.55 each ( Price to stock 1 of each is $236.95/52 part numbers =$4.55 ), lube Tech cost $15.00 an hour and we pay 0.5 for Oil Change and Digital inspection.

That been said, my Oil Change cost is $33.95 (5 qt) not including any other cost.

Been a small shop with 2 bays + an alignment rack, and seen an average of 5.6 cars a day. I CAN'T SEEM TO FIND A BALANCED APPROACH.

[JustTheBest]

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[Dan Reichow]

2 hours ago, Framingham Auto Service said:

Great discussion!

I have been debating my self, on which marketing strategy to adopt.

Like AndersonAuto, we only use synthetic (Name Brand) at $4.38 Qt cost and the average price on Oil Filters of $4.55 each ( Price to stock 1 of each is $236.95/52 part numbers =$4.55 ), lube Tech cost $15.00 an hour and we pay 0.5 for Oil Change and Digital inspection.

That been said, my Oil Change cost is $33.95 (5 qt) not including any other cost.

Been a small shop with 2 bays + an alignment rack, and seen an average of 5.6 cars a day. I CAN'T SEEM TO FIND A BALANCED APPROACH.

First you need to understand where you want to compete and why. My belief window I want to do things that will bring in clients and lock them in. I stated in recent post we presell different packages.  Our oil synthetic / Dexos compatible in bulk is under $2.00 per Quart.

Oil filters if Wix protect  average $1.80  Napa Gold we charge extra over and above package price.  My goal has been keeping clients from shopping around for oil changes   / if I can hit my goal of 600 packages sold this year x 5 visits that is 3,000 cars . This will drastically change my cost of marketing, which savings can be put to the loss of the oil change. 

[gandgautorepair]

Individual shop and personal goals are a big part of why we do certain things. For me, I had two goals. First, I wanted to quickly grow the shop to have enough personal that I didn't have to work in the shop. I started from scratch 7 years ago, and I haven't worked in daily operations for over two years. The second goal is to get my customers in the habit of coming to us for everything, not just when something doesn't work. The inexpensive oil change has been an element for us reaching both of those goals.

We also reduced the cost of an oil change, which helps. And, we do a complete digital inspection on every car and regularly do alignment checks. It has to be part of an overall strategy.

[xrac]

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[Framingham Auto Service]

1 hour ago, xrac said:

Your costs of goods are high.

I recently made the switch to Castrol Oil only. A good portion of my sales comes from European and newer vehicles, the name brand sales it self.

So far I have received no complains from existing and new customers about the oil price increase, it just take a little extra time explaining to them that we only use Castrol and why.

But, I do understand your point, especially when trying to create a promotion  and that's why I said I CAN'T SEEM TO FIND THE BALANCED APPROACH. 😁

The Oil filters, i'ts the same thing. With longer service intervals recommended by the manufacture (7.500 +), we had to upgrade to an extended service oil filter.

[xrac]

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[xrac]

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[Framingham Auto Service]

10 hours ago, xrac said:

Are you using Castro European formulation?  

We stock both Euro and non Euro specs.

We currently stock 55 gallons drums of 0W20/5W20/5W30 and 5W30 Euro Specs. The other grades we order as needed.

[Dan Reichow]

7 hours ago, Framingham Auto Service said:

We stock both Euro and non Euro specs.

We currently stock 55 gallons drums of 0W20/5W20/5W30 and 5W30 Euro Specs. The other grades we order as needed.

 

7 hours ago, Framingham Auto Service said:

We stock both Euro and non Euro specs.

We currently stock 55 gallons drums of 0W20/5W20/5W30 and 5W30 Euro Specs. The other grades we order as needed.

We use Service pro for full synthetic Standard vehicles  in our prepay package and wix protect filters --//  for our euro and other high end we use  Castrol / Diesel we use Purus   . We up charge for euro and diesel We use Napa gold for these.

[xrac]

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[gandgautorepair]

Currently, our normal oil change is $29.99, which is 5 qts, filter, inspection, and battery test, and alignment test if there is any slight indication that it should be done. My goal was 50% of cars getting alignment check, but we are far from reaching that goal. Full synthetic is $59.99 and includes the premium filter. We also have a special price on diesel oil changes, $79.99 for Duramax, $89.99 for Dodge Cummins, and $109.99 for Powerstroke. This is what we do, FWIW.

I admit we seriously struggled with ARO, hanging around $300, with 30-40% of our RO's being oil changes. Going to digital inspections and higher expectations from me to be consistent in our processes has moved it to over $400 most of the time.

[tyrguy]

The problem with the free alignment check is that more and more we are finding that fewer vehicles need any adjustment. We have always offered a free alignment check with the purchase of tires. And as little as 10 years ago it was rare that the vehicle didn't need at least some adjustment. However, my latest audit showed that upwards of 1 out of 3 cars need nothing adjusted. So 33% of the time I'm paying my tech a half hour to do the free check. I suppose if you have one of those Hunter drive over alignment checking devices it might make sense to include the check with the LOF. However, I have my doubts about the accuracy of those units. We have sold tires and through the free check found vehicles needing aligned that the customer states was just checked by one of those systems and declared to be okay.

[Wheelingauto]

Complimentary alignment inspection with the purchase of tires...

Has so much more value.....

Free= Bad word

Check=means its free

Look= means its free

JMHO

[Hands On]

On 6/26/2017 at 7:18 AM, AndersonAuto said:

This is something I've struggled with. On the one hand, I completely agree that we need some sort of system to ensure that technicians are qualified. In the state of Kansas, as in most states, there are licensing requirements, tests to ensure competence, and continuing education requirements for a whole array of professions. You can't call yourself a Dr without passing medical board exams, you can't call yourself a CPA without passing the CPA exam. You also can't cut someone's hair or give them a massage. Or pull a permit for new construction for plumbing, electrical, or to be the general contractor. And probably a thousand other professions I can't think of at the moment. The qualification requirements to be a technician is to simply say "Hi, I'm a mechanic". 

But.....   The states that do have auto repair regulatory bodies (the BAR in CA and other states) the main focus is on the front counter, not the techs. Those states seem to believe that the most damage comes from unethical shop owners, not incompetent techs. And if we did end up with a technician licensing regulations, would we end up like hair salons with the constant harassing of the techs by the state? I have a friend who was fined by the state because she had a spray bottle on her station that was unmarked. It contained water. After paying her fine, she had to make sure there was a label on the bottle that said "water". I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in that sort of meddling. 

If you have un marked spray bottles in your shop you best nip that in the bud ASAP. OSHA does not take kindly to unmarked spray bottles in the shop.

[Guest]

We raised our synthetic blend oil change price to $52 just because it isn't worth less to me. Now of course, we're doing more of them than we used to. Go figure. One person wrote a review that he would rather pay a real mechanic an honest price than go to a quickie place and fight off $150 of upsells from a teenager every time.  

[JustTheBest]

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