mspecperformance

you would be surprised. I have 2 options for my go to parts which is Northside Imports and WorldPac. Both give me nothing. WorldPac starting giving me SOME freebies but to get them to agree to any type of warranty claim payouts would be a dream. They won't even fix my delivery route. I am in between 2 warehouses and 1 of them is about a 15 minute drive. I explain to them that they are losing out on 20k in sales a month. Falls on def ears.

I wish that were the case around me. I do not believe any part vendors offer to pay ANY warranty on labor at all which is sad when I pay over $7000 in parts weekly on average.

Great Success story! Believe me I am as cynical as they come. Being from New York City and seeing all the trash I see every day... case in point going to Ikea of Brooklyn of all places, worst experience ever. Crowded, rude patrons and even ruder employees... anyway my point is we can all learn something here. There are times where customers are just d-bags and there is nothing we can do about it. Other times (many other times) there is a miscommunication somewhere or the customer was in some sort of mood that day. If you don't approach the situation in a calm manner and try to resolve the issue as professionally as possible you will have Zero chance of making the situation better for yourself regardless of the outcome. In this day an age, customer opinions hold a lot of weight. Unless you are gifted with a business that has a decades long reputation and a steady stream of business you have to keep on top of customer satisfaction. At the point where a customer is upset with us for any reason I look beyond what their value is to my business, I look at how many other people their negative feelings will touch whether its online reviews or in person bad mouthing.

Cars and car makers are becoming more and more complicated. The industry is trending towards having to have separate scanners/computers for every car make. Sooner or later 1 scanner fits all type of tools will be obsolete or very very limited. If you want something for general repair I hear the newest Autel is pretty good especially for the money. If you are looking for something that flash, go OEM tool.

Document everything. Liability is a hell of a thing.

Man this week has been a swing and a miss down the order! We are getting a lot of cars in for specific problems and we are having a tremendously hard time closing sales. I am unsure if its a bout of back luck, August blues (back to school) or are we doing something wrong. Very frustrating!

2 possible scenarios I see... 1. It is possible you did not properly communicate everything you just laid out. Did you personally speak to the customer? Did a service advisor speak to the customer? Maybe something got lost in translation when you were explaining you did not want to service the front brakes due to them being very new. 2. The guy is a total douche bag. Do you perform digital inspections? If you had visual proof that his rear brakes were in need of service then you could have rebuttal stating facts and proof instead of your word against his. Man I feel for ya. I am really tired of these whiny baby customers as well. Besides that we are having a record slow week so far so I am pulling my hair out.

CARMandP, $2000 all the profit?

They have been working well for me. Although here is a tip... your marketing rep will work hard for you however if you want to see more results you have to be an active participant in the process. For instance I am currently writing content and uploading my own landing pages. Something Kukui has not done for me in 18 months. I had been looking for ways to boost SEO and exposure on a few car makes we work on and waiting on them was like watching the grass grow. I have been doing it myself but the kukui dashboard makes its pretty easy to make any adjustments and changes I want.

had a similar situation happen on a 1987 325i. Took care of the timing belt, guy drives upstate 200 miles over July 4th and car breaks down. Local shop up there inception'ed his stupid ass and he was telling us it was the timing belt. Got the car towed down here, took a look, timing belt was intacted, oil pump pulley exploded, bent some valves. Explained to the customer that we don't believe it was our fault due to what we see (timing belt and tensioner completely find, belt a little shredded but still 85% together). Guy flips out tells us hes going to sue us etc. Bite the bullet and offered to put another engine in for him. Have another retard customer that wants to take us to court over $1300 in which he acknowledges $900 he authorized (he actually authorized $3200 but doesnt want to pay). We still have his car and I have to go through the process of throwing a lien on it. Also the car is worth 25k in poor shape and this fine example of a human being wants to argue over $400 (which is the machine shop charge for his cylinder head that we had to pay).

I dread that I'll experience the same come December / January.

Most German vehicle have a specific requirement which can be found in most information sources such as All Data and Mitchell. Many off the shelf oil brands do not have the required certification from the manufacturer. Does it really make a difference? That is debatable. Is the correct method set by the manufacturer in performing an oil service on a German vehicle? Yes. As for the coolant, I would have to strongly disagree. Incorrect coolant is a consistent red flag for a previous service shop not knowing what they are doing. It is a personal peeve of mine since before I was a shop owner and just a BMW owner I would hate to have a shop poor green dex death into my cooling system. The two fluid examples are easy sells when we meet a first time client. When they don't know the oil that is going into their car or if we pop open the cap and see green coolant its a wrap. I am pretty sure Asian Imports have stringent specifications especially with the new vehicles.

I know a shop across town from me that puts up great sales numbers. I also know that they use subpar fluids, synthetic blend oil in cars calling for specific synthetic oil, and wrong coolant. They also scam their customers by charging their customers for fluid flushes and do the old suck a little out and top off method. Sucks for the industry, I don't know how these people sleep at night.

Since we are a German Car Only shop it peeves the crap out of me to see anything other than make specific coolant. Actually this is the only time I point it out to my clients that whoever was servicing their vehicle was completely incompetent and did not know how to service their vehicle properly. I don't throw other shops under the bus but this is one of my only exceptions. I have replaced several head gaskets over the years and cracked open several more engines and have seen the damage it causes (rust, metal eaten away from corrosion, etc). I really hope my ASO brothers out there use the proper coolant!

I never have this issue but dealing with particular customer has gotten me to rethink my processes.

Running into an issue lately. Most of the work we do the customer drops off the car and we give them a call after. Generally we usually send them our findings via e-mail or text from our inspection report and then we discuss the recommended work. Customer authorizes over the phone, we do the work, they pick up. Done deal. Normally we have no issues... normally I mean years I have never encountered a problem. Recently working with a knuckle head and he is claiming he didn't authorize some work to be done. He also never signed an estimate due to all correspondence through telephone. Also to keep in mind most of my tickets are $1000+ and I have not had any issues thus far. This is situation is causing me to rethink my procedures. Unfortunately having a customer authorize via signature can be difficult due to customers going to work, going away, living far enough distance from the shop etc. What have you done in your shop? Obviously there are state laws and such to consider as well...

PAP if you have not read the E-Myth you HAVE TO!

40k over 3 years isn't so bad.

im moving down to florida!

40K???? Over how long of a period??? That is a ton of money... If you are seeing gains 6 digits to your bottom line I suppose its worth it...

Good luck and you are on the path. Educating yourself is the first step to freedom.

If you go with their service please let us know if you are satisfied. Curious to know if the premium service is consistent throughout the process. As we know its very easy to charge a bunch of money. I hope they can deliver!

I think its more of the fear that i have. I have spent years not understanding how to run my business and it wasn't until about a year ago that I started truly educating myself and seeking help. Comparatively speaking winter months are tougher to work through due to the weather, shorter days etc. We don't completely die off during the winter of course but also with Christmas and the after affects it always seems December and January are the most anemic months. I just want to do everything I can to counteract that potential problem.

If you have a high car count and there is a lot of traffic on and off your lifts I think that it may be worth calculating. When you calculate a techs worth per minute you'll see how much you could potentially miss out on

Sorry to hear. Bolt On has been good to me. Mitchell can be hit or miss