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I have done my own for years with good success. The past 7 months or so it seems to be falling off. My spend is almost double for the same results. I am curious to see if anyone offers advice in this thread.

I purchased my shop from my friend and boss in 2000. There were 4 of us. My brother wrote service, 2 techs and myself. In 2005 I joined ATI. Today there are 13 of us and we purchased our own property in 2006. With the cost of overhead and the high rate of inflation you must find a way to charge more for your service. We do not quote jobs broken down. We quote the finished job. Do not make it easy for people to shop around. We charge $48.75 per 1/4 hour. Seems a lot less than $195 per hour. We use a parts matrix. This allows you to charge more for low price parts. a 20 cent fuse should sell for $2. A 10 X mark up. Obviously you can not charge this for a $100 part. Your average margin at the end of he day needs to be above 50% and shoot for 65%. How are you calculating your margin? Part cost X 1.5 is not a 50% margin. Part cost divided by decimal percent yields the correct margin. $12.50 cost divided by .50 % margin is $25 . You cannot survive on the suggested margin of the parts store or dealer. Remember your competition is manipulating the hours charged for jobs even though they may have a lower rate. Also if you cater to cheep customers that is all you will ever have. Never sell on being cheep. Always sell on the high quality parts and skills you provide. You must take off your mechanic hat and put on your businessman hat. If you do not learn how to charge appropriately you will never grow and likely not survive.

I was a one man shop with 2 bays for about 10 years and just last year hired my 1st tech. I made money from day one but my overhead was extremely small compared to yours. I started out small with no debt and bought tools as I went along. I also didn't have issues with having enough work. My focus has been quality and honesty. Sounds like you need different customers. Whenever I have someone complain about price I usually don't end up working for them. They are the price shoppers and are only loyal to their wallet. Don't let them persuade you to lower your markup, that's a dead end street. You may need to raise your prices which may scare those price shoppers away and attract good customers that don't ask how much is it going to cost but when can you do it. If you could bill 30 hours a week that's $14400 a month. Some weeks I would bill 30 and some I would be able to bill 40 plus, just depended on the jobs. It takes some serious organization when you're by yourself to bill 30 to 40 a week. I usually don't work late either. My production went up when I switched to Shop-Ware for my management system. Wish you luck!

I did the same exact thing. Sometimes we need to take the emotions out of the situation, and do what is right and for the greater good.

I would say yes, but my issue was I kept a tech to long because I liked him, he was a nice personable guy, just took advantage. I had several talks with him but he continued his non productive ways. Issues that arise from that are: the other guys in the shop think that they can do the same because he got away with it and they did not see me doing anything about it. So you could say this is a culture issue from poor management.

After the pandemic, we don't give rides period. We have 5 loaner cars with Liability insurance only on them at over $800.00 insurance for each one. It has made all the difference in the world. We don't give out a loaner for oil changes, only for any other work We do give them to our Business Builders group even for oil changes. It comes to them full of gas and they need to fill up with gas at the service station a few blocks away. If they don't fill it up with gas for the next person, we charge them $2.00 per mile. It makes a big difference in getting people to commit to bigger jobs. Its not always the money, it is time without their car.

I give discounts to my dad, otherwise the rest of my family gets treated like everyone else. I will make exceptions once in a while but it's just so much easier to treat everyone the same and not do this favoritism thing. Same with my fellow church people, I charge them normal prices. If you are proud of what you do and honest, why would you give discounts. Whenever I hear of someone giving discounts then I often question their honesty because it looks like their normal prices are too high. Just my $.02

I ran across a quote from a Batman movie, The Dark Night. I almost immediately thought of this thread and wanted to add it. ============================= "If you’re good at something, never do it for free." The Joker, "The Dark Knight" (2008)

My niece owns a dog grooming shop, her rules were no discounts, period to family or friends. If you want me to work I get paid. I thought that a smart way to operate, so I made a zero discount to family or friends. Employees got cost plus 10% on parts, 25% off labor done by anyone other than themselves.

Sometimes the shop owner makes decisions based on the greater good for all. It has to be a win for all, and the shop owner. And I agree, "Make your rules and then stand by them totally."

We give employees cost for their cars and IMMEDIATE family's cars. They can't use their CC or add 3%. With all that said, No to buying parts to use fixing other peoples car for their profit on their own time. If family wants us to fix their vehicles through the shop at regular prices, then discounted 25% Not sure this will make sense. Employees did not like this at all. They felt I was taking their extra profit away. Make your rules and then stand by them totally.

The problem you guys are experiencing sounds eerily similar to the Right to Repair legislation for the automotive industry we have in our country. (R2R) I've yet to see this issue pop up in any published article. I don't even know if the European Union deals with this issue. Read this article and see if it doesn't sound the same as what the American farmers are dealing with...

I am no longer in the business, sold my shop after 41 years. As a coach now with Elite, I can tell you that things are spotty around the country. Many shops have shifted their focus to the customer experience and also being more proactive about getting customers to return for their next service and for any deferred work. That is making a difference. Advertising is tricky these days.

Find out what you have to do to be a licensed auto dealer in your state. It is a lot of work where I am. The license is not transferable in my state.

Wow! you were digging deep, but good for you for wanting to educate yourself. Most operators are open to sharing and helping others when they can. All of what I wrote still applies today and believe me, I've made my share of mistakes, or as I would like call them "Training Expenses". I have just spent the last year and a half cleaning up and reorganizing our whole corporate structure to reduce the number of tax returns and just make it easier to operate and package to sell at some point if I choose to. Since I wrote the original post, I have added a 10K sq ft ground up build, and an acquisition of another shop and the real estate. I am in the process of another acquisition coming online in March, but I did not purchase the real estate and chose to lease the property instead for cash flow and balance sheet purposes because I have another ground up that I am working on for 2026. Our structure is a holding company that is a "S" class Corporation, and the shops are all Single member LLC's operating as disregarded entities, owned by the holding company. We also have a Management LLC under the holding company that everyone actually works for, so we have one set of 940's 941's and we just use GL entries to place the labor expense in each shop. It allows us to move people when necessary or as needed and not have to enter in them in another company as an employee. Each shop pays a corporate overhead fee to the management company. The management company is not designed to be a profit maker and the corporate fee is divvied up based upon each shops overall sales contribution as a percentage and adjusted throughout the year. Currently our corporate overhead is to high and we need to get the other shops online to spread the costs as we built the structure and staff so that we were not lagging the sales. I'm okay/not okay with taking a hit for a year or two to get these other shops online. I will say there are a number of smart operators on here (much smarter than me) but I've gained knowledge and wisdom from them as well and have never hesitated to reach out to someone. I only wished I had these tools and forums when I was much younger. I just don't want to work that hard anymore. Good luck to you and the education never stops.

What matrix are you pricing your parts at? Our company marks up a minimum of 50-65% on aftermarket parts, 30-40% on special order and dealer parts. (We are located 10 minutes from D.C.). We offer a 2 year/24k mile warranty and remind our customers that we offer that warranty only for parts that we supply, no warranty on customer supplied parts. Our labor rate varies from $149-185 depending on whether it's a standard vehicle or a larger fleet vehicle, but we also keep our labor rate a bit higher as a cushion to cover payroll, parts, rent, etc. and also so that we can offer our loyal customers a 10%-15% discount depending on their affiliations. We work with multiple different referral and affiliate programs such as AAA Automotive Program, Costco Auto Care Program, and RepairPal for referrals as well. Maybe try targeting a specific consumer in your area, ex. 1/2 off oil change for local teachers to pinpoint your desired customer base. You could also get certified to become a state inspector, or Uber/Lyft if you have them in your area. Hope 2025 is a great year for you!

My thoughts on this is low productivity is a result of time loss: two killers in my shop: late waiters and time between jobs. So it comes down to management, and communication. If you have a tech that does the job in timely fashion but takes 30 minutes between jobs or a 25 minute road test for an alignment this brings productivity down. So this is on management. The tech will take thier time if allowed and they are paid hourly. Set expectations from the start and stay on top of it or you have to make changes.

I agree with your assessment. While we need to track and improve tech production, I too spent a lot of effort in making sure that we wrote proper estimates, and paid great attention to labor hours per invoice. Great assessment!

"We check out EVERY car that came in. And not to make more money, but to take care of the customer and their car." This is me! I am the owner/service advisor and the tech. ....lil by lil, I am transitioning to my original position, the man with the vision. I am not a Sales guy. We as a shop, care more about taking care of the customers than pushing sales, as a shop, we care for our customers. We advertise on Google and social media. it works for us. I said it in the past, We're a specialty shop, we do Brakes and Suspension. I run the shop as a Business and it should . I could be wrong but taking care of our customers has worked for us for 12 yrs. We still a young growing business. It has been an uphill battle to consolidate our self and be considered a reputable shop, since I started the business from scratch. We work with the idea of fixing a problem, not creating sales, Keep in mind the specialty shop. Our customers know us as an Honest shop and clear in the work we do. we let our work do the sales and our customers referrals. when things gets tough and by now I know the time frames, I personally send out text messages to our customers and follow through with previously given quotes. I created different advertising campaigns for the different seasons of the year, so that helps. Our avg sales growth is in the last 5 years 13% . sometimes the economy don't help but that's life.

Wow, I applaud you for taking ownership of the problem. If want a change in our life and business, WE must be ready to accept responsibility! Great job!

Business has slowed a bit for us, so I decided to look at me. I have gotten lax in making sure our processes are being followed. The techs have slowed a bit in getting their next jobs, they got a little lazy in the vehicle inspections and documentation. (A missed low brake measurement is a big deal.) So I wrote a new SOP for documentation while working on a vehicle, it includes road test expectations, post job discussion with the front office, etc. We just need to get better at finding and selling work. It was all on me, the boss.

I attended my first ever industry management conference. What a great experience. If you've never gone, I would encourage you to add it to your do-now bucket list. There was a lot of open and detailed sharing. For example, in a work session talking about bay efficiency analysis, they used real numbers from the audience. Monthly Overhead, Gross Profit Percentage, desired bottom line profit. It showed multiple paths to success that were immediately relatable. None of the presentations were about perfection. As a matter of fact, most presenters shared information about how they did things stating that this may or may not apply to your situation. No one told you what to do, but rather offer tools for analyzing your own situation. None of the presenters were making sales pitches. In other sessions, real shop owners share tips and techniques on a number of topics that we see here. Being a live event, these were more dynamic conversations. I've returned from the conference with a renewed sense of urgency analyzing my numbers to see where we had success and where we need to improve. I do expect to make real changes, but don't yet know exactly what changes I'm going to make. Got to crunch some numbers first. I signed up for the conference when it was first published, but sat on the CC screen for a while debating the value of this conference. Should I go, or should I stay? I reluctantly pushed the GO button. However, looking back, I should have enthusiastically smashed that GO button! The next one is in Denver. I recommend that you consider attending. A side benefit is that I got to meet Joe Marconi and in a session that we jointly attended, I overheard Joe say that he was mentored by Jerry Holcom. Later in the conference, I had the pleasure of talking with Jerry as well. In the many networking sessions, we met many different shop owners and had great conversations. --brian

I considered other transmission shop owners as colleagues, not competition. I got along with most all of them and a few of them I would take to lunch occasionally. It was more of an atmosphere of cooperation, not an adversarial one. We wouldn't tow a job out of each others shop. However, there was one shop that was so Neanderthal that I simply couldn't get through to. Talking to him was like doing battle. The only good thing was the few times he towed jobs out of our shop, it was a customer with no money. I didn't mind losing jobs like those. He towed one dead job that had been sitting in our back parking lot for 2 months. What I did mind is when he would tell the customer we didn't give him all the nuts/bolts/parts to the vehicle. For the most part, the time I spent with other shop owners was definitely worth it.

A great message. The customer's perception is the one we need to understand. It does all come down to marketing, and letting some terms go.

IMO, "mechanic" is only frowned upon within the auto shop. Your average consumer does not know the difference between a technician and a mechanic. A mechanic works on cars. I have a car that needs work. I need a mechanic. I'm not denigrating anyone by using a common term, mostly because I don't know the other term. I probably don't even understand that cars are hard to work on. I can't work on my car, but I bring it to a shop and they have that computer which tells you what is broken, so how hard can it be? Doesn't really matter. Customer comes in. If they don't value your service, they go out too. Otherwise, you help them fix their car. Heck, I overhear many people telling their ride-home that they are at "jafj fdkjfakj", not even knowing my proper business name.... but they are here, so my marketing worked. It only matters later when they go to recommend my business to their friends and can't get the right words. I generally explain automotive repair in this manner: Cars are very complex. The most talented technicians want to be paid what they are worth. If you are seeking out the least expensive car repairs, you will find technicians that work for low pay. Good technicians don't work for low pay. You get what you pay for. Sometimes this resonates, sometimes it does not. Caveat Emptor. Don't try to change the general public's language. Match their language with your advertising. Focus on your reputation. Good reputation implies that you have good "mechanics" working for you!

Raise your prices and eliminate the bottom 20%. Work less make the same amount of money is one thought on how to move forward. Maybe your labor rate is way too low?

Jay, Owning the real estate is where you will make easy money. In my opinion there are two basic schools of thought when it comes to owning or leasing the real estate. They are both applicable in various situations and I could see using a combination of both strategies to your advantage. 1. It is a drag on your balance because of the capital required to purchase The asset is appreciating over time so it's a longer term investment with a stable return. 2. Leasing allows you to expand rapidly with less cash. In many cases you can lease a building and get 1-3 months discounted or even at no charge to ease cash flow on start ups. I prefer to own the properties in a separate company and lease to buildings and equipment to the operating companies. Part of that strategy is then I can set a reasonable (high cap rate) lease rate for the store which the manager can see and make them responsible for the entire P&L of the company. I don't run any type of personal expenses to his store, I do it through the property company. That way we have clean books in the operating companies and the managers don't feel like I am "stealing" profits from their company that they are responsible for operating. Any type of rebates, gift cards, or cash that is given to me for the store, gets handed to the center manager. This is so that they understand I am not taking anything from their company and I expect the same level of integrity from them. A couple of items to note is a number of owners run a great deal of personal expenses through their company and then wonder why they are not making any money. When you go to sell or think about selling you have dirty financials and the sales price will be discounted. All those personal expenses that you ran through the company ends up costing you much more than the actual benefit. I try to run financials as if I was going to sell the business today. Some of it is also physiological as I hear owner talk about how hard they work and that they are not making money yet the business is paying for all their toys, vacations and entertainment. They then cry to employees about how they are not making any money which hurts morale. By setting a higher lease rate then you can run your expenses through the property company which typically have very few expenses and it makes it much easier to value the operating company because you can make an easy adjustment to what you "overcharged" on the lease. My disclaimer is that I am not a CPA, Tax Attorney, Financial Advisory or anything of the sort, and you should consult with professionals before making any decisions affecting your future.