ScottSpec

CAR, What are your suggestions? I have long considered just selling parts at my cost and adjusting my labor, or some other fee to compensate. I've suggested it here on AutoShopOwner before. It would reduce work load, eliminate a more and more harmful data point for customers to judge our pricing, and eliminate the need to explain to customer's why we need a margin on parts. As if customers really care about why we charge a markup at all. As shop owners we continually search for the best price on everything. From parts, supplies, tools, rent, insurance, etc.. We shop on Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, etc., but we get frustrated with customers when they do the same thing. If there is anyone here that pays supplier B more money for parts than supplier A because supplier B needs to make a higher margin to pay his bills, I would love to hear from them. Having said all that, I have just not been able to get myself to do it. It's a radical change and we would need to make sure we have a labor formula that works. Scott

I wanted to expand a little on the comparison to Doctors. While I completely agree that we should be treated the same way, and be compensated for our time and diagnostic test, just as doctors and other professionals are. There is a part of that equation, that really has not been discussed, and that is customer retention. I have not had much of an issue getting customers to pay diagnostic fees. However, when customers agrees to pay them, regardless of how you word it, or explain it to them, I believe most have an expectation spoken or not, that those fees will lead to a diagnoses. But, regardless of that, most are certainly going to leave having an issue that is still unresolved. Which is what led me to the original title of my post. Do you guarantees any results from your diagnostic time? I was reminded of this by a few recent events in my own life. First there is my 85 year old mom. She has been taken to the hospital multiple times in the last few years for episodes in which her blood pressure spikes unusually high accompanied by a number of other symptoms. The do some test, her pressure comes down, and then have her follow up with a doctor within a few days. She gets some test at the doctors, usually a prescription of some sort, and goes on her way. One even removed her gall bladder. It is usually only a matter of time before it happens again. Once it happens again, she usually starts looking for another doctor. She has been through this cycle numerous times. So yes, those doctors were compensated, but they also lost a patient/customer when they were unable to find the cause of the issue, and she had to go searching elsewhere for a solution. Earlier this year I had a kidney stone. It passed, but about a month later I started having the same symptoms, so I went back to the emergency room. They were not comfortable doing anther CAT scan so they took an X-Ray and said they can't see anything. So I made an appointment with my doctor who requested a copy of the original CAT scan, and he said everything looks fine. Guess what I made an appointment with another doctor, which I am still waiting for; because I need a solution, not a test. Right now I'm trying to sort out what will work best for my shop. I don't know the answer to that yet. Just throwing thought out here now. What I'm seeing is, if I send them somewhere else to deal with an issue I don't want to lose hours and hours in, I may lose a customer, If I have a customer's car for a week or two sorting something out, I might lose a customer, and If there is an issue I can't give a definitive answer on I might lose a customer. So right I'm thinking sending them somewhere else prevents me from losing hours and hours. Just to give you an idea of the type of issue(s) I'm talking about, here is the latest we were working on. We had a 2007 Audi that intermittently would not start. It was there for a few days were we would go and try to start it from time to time. After a few days we started to experience the issue. There were no codes, and since it ran normally when it started, we were pretty confident that there were no mechanical issues, the coils were okay, and the fuel was okay. When it wouldn't start, you could smell fuel, so we knew the injectors were firing, the coils had built in modules, with ~12 volts voltage, and a good trigger signal. The cam and crank sensor tested normal when it wasn't starting. Then one day my tech noticed that when it wasn't starting, if he turned the key back to the run position quickly, it would start. He was able to do this several times, so that lead him to believe the issue was the contacts in the ignition switch. Pretty logical. He replaced the switch, but that didn't fix it. At that point he came to me to let me know he was out of ideas. So we started working on it together. I started by re-scanning the car. I got the same results. No codes. I was not able to get it to start the way he did when is was failing. But after a while, I noticed that if I let go of the key and it jump back quickly, while the crank with no start was happening, it would start when the key no longer engaged the starter. I was able to do this over and over. So I theorized that a voltage drop must be happening when the starter is drawing current. We check the computer power and ground. No problem there. we checked the ground from the battery in the trunk all the way up to the engine, and there was very little voltage drop. We did find enough of a voltage drop from the positive side to make us think we may have found the issue. So we ran a jumper from the battery to the front of the car. The problem continued. After a little more brain storming and testing, we finally found the issue. I'm going to wait a few days before posting what we found in case anyone wants to take a guess. The other one that comes to mind is a BMW that we replaced the DME. If you have ever done a software download on a BMW with the factory system, it will not allow you to do just one module. If you want to load one module, there are several others that require to be updated first. Well, the downloads failed half way through leaving 5 or 6 modules dead. I worked on it for a week or so. Sent it to another shop who said he could straighten out. He was not able. I had a mobile programmer come out. He was not able to do anything with it. It took me about 2 more weeks, but I eventually was able to get all the modules back online and updated. It was rewarding once it was done, but it didn't help my bank account.

Wheeling, We use the doctor explanation as well. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't go over so well. While I agree with this analogy, the customer on the other side of the counter usually sees it a little differently. First, most of the time, the insurance company is paying those bills. So while the customer/patient experiences frustration with all the test coming back normal, the cost for those test are not coming directly out of their pocket. Not trying to be argumentative on that point, just wanted to expand a little further on it. The issue I am trying to address is not really selling diagnostic work, it's stopping that gaping profit leak when that diagnostic work leads to a week long project. I know a big part of the issue is that both my lead tech and I love the challenging ones, and all we learn from them. But it causes such a loss of revenue and backs things up in the shop. So I think what I am looking for is a firm line in the sand to keep our love of the challenges from becoming such a huge drain on the shop. So right now one of my thoughts is that if after an hour, we are not relatively sure that we will be able to resolve the issue within another 2-3 hours, then refer them to the dealer. While I don't like sending customers to the dealer, I don't think it will cause us to lose many customers, and even if we do, it will probably be less of a loss than working on their car for a week. Scott

I think we all know that diagnostics is the most costly service we provide in the automotive repair business today. In today's automotive repair environment, you need to be selling diagnostics, and getting paid for it. I'm looking for feedback on when things don't go exactly as planned. Let's say a car comes in and you sell some diagnostics, by the hour, or from a menu. After you complete that work, and you still don't have an answer, do you go back to the customer and sell some more? Do you continue at your expense? If you do go back to the customer, and you have nothing conclusive after that, then what? Do you keep going back and selling more diagnostic work until you solve the problem? If you continue to go back and sell more, how many times can you do that? We've all had that car that we've worked on for weeks to find some strange problem. I doubt many customers are willing to pay for the 40 hours you spent on the car. Now lets say after 5 hours of work that the customer agreed to, you are no closer to finding the issue than when the car came in. Do you charge them for the 5 hours and send them down the road even though you have not provided them with a diagnoses? Do you start spending your time trying to solve the issue because you have a hard time charging for 5 hours and are unable to provide any answers? I'm asking these questions as I am rethinking my business strategy on diagnostics a little. Our shop is known for its abilities to diagnose problems. We have other shops bringing cars to us on a regular basis because of these abilities. I actually get several calls and emails weekly from across the county for help diagnosing problems. There are times, a lot of times, when I think this is more of a curse, than a blessing. I know we are in the business of fixing cars, and we need to be able to find problems if customers are going to keep coming back. But after my lead tech and I spent a considerable amount of time over the last 15 days diagnosing the strangest intermittent no start issue on an Audi, and watching his frustration grow everyday, not because of the difficulty of the issue as we both love the challenge, but because it held him back from addressing the other work that was coming in the shop. So, as rewarding as it was to solve that mystery, I can't help but look back at what it cost me financially, and the frustration to the technician, and realize we have to come up with a way to try to avoid going down those rabbit holes. Right now my idea is to give it 1 hour. If after an hour, we are not relatively certain that we will find the issue, with another hour or two, then let the car go. Let the customer know that it's not that we can't fix the car, but that we cannot fix it efficiently. If I lose that customer, it would probably still be cheaper that working on his car for 2 weeks. Love to hear your thoughts. Scott

I think we all know the endless list of reasons why it's a bad idea to install customer supplied parts. Many are listed here in this thread. If you do, or are considering using a customer's supplied parts, keep in mind, that you are 100% liable. You need to provide the same warranty, and liability insurance for their part, as you do to any other you sell. A signed waiver from the customer will not change the situation in any way. You may end up buying them new parts if theirs fails. You may also be held liable for any damage a failure causes. I highly suggest that you check with your insurance carrier to see if you have coverage for this. I know our garage keepers does not. I'm fighting with a customer right now. We did not install her part, but she came to us and asked us to replace her cam position sensor. When a customer comes to us and requests a part be replaced, we usually have a long discussion about why they want it replaced, and we recommend the customer have us do diagnostic work to confirm the part is in fact faulty. This customer was not interested in any of that. She just wanted the sensor replaced. So we did it, and when she came to pick up the car, she lets us she requested the wrong thing based on a miss-communication she had with someone else. Within 2 weeks she filed a complaint with the local consumer agency, the BBB, and then disputed the charge on her credit card because we did an "unnecessary repair" on her car by not testing the sensor first. Despite providing the CC company with all the documentation that she received exactly what she requested, at exactly the price quoted, they found in her favor saying I didn't present any documentation to address her claim. I'm now suing her in small claims court. The invoice clearly states replace cam position sensor at customers request. We'll see how that goes. Now to the real point of my post. How to handle when a customer asks you to install their part. Rather than trying to have a discussion where you are trying to get the customer to understand your position, which is almost never going to happen because their desire to save money is just too strong. It becomes a negotiation, and they will keep at it. We tell our customers that our insurer won't allow us to install customer supplied parts. Sometimes I take it a little further and explain to them that my business license, landlord, and many of the other organizations I depend on, require me to have a minimum level of insurance and I cannot afford to lose those. Scott

Alex, I really like the improvements to the topic email. Scott

We do a fair amount of flashing. I've looked at RAP a number of times over the last several years. Quick disclaimer, I have never actually used one, so my post here is based only on my reading/research. The coverage is rather slim. Especially for us; as we do mostly European cars. I have contacted Drew Technologies numerous times to find out their plans for expanding the coverage. I have never really gotten any straight answers, and most of the times, I never even get a response, or a call back that was promised. This lack of service always concerned me. I don't believe the coverage has changed much over the last several years, which again makes me a bit skeptical about future expansion. A few other things that concerned me is the need for scheduling and the hours for those appointments. The following is from their site. What are the RAP® Service Hours? Monday – Friday 8:30am – 6:30pm ET Saturday 9:00am – 2:00pm ET ‡ ‡ Special instructions for Saturday appointments! • Appointments must be scheduled Monday – Friday for a Saturday appointment. • Inbound calls will not be received on Saturdays. Only outbound calls will be made to those with scheduled appointments. • Appointment scheduling will be available beginning at 9:00am ET with the last appointments being scheduling at 2:00pm ET. • Nissan Valve Body/Transmission Programming appointments will be scheduled no later than 1:00pm. • All currently supported OEM makes will be supported (GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Nissan). • Level 2 Tech Support issues will be pushed to the following Monday for processing. If you are someone who likes to come in early, stay late, or work weekends, this will greatly limit you. If you are on the West coast, you will not be able to do anything after 3:30 pm. Another consideration is that you still need to pay a tech to monitor the RAP and talk to RAP support. Something else that concerned me is the cost of the flashing. $125.00 seems reasonable for a flash, but I'm not sure if that is per session, or per flash. When I do a BMW, it's rare that you can flash only one module. The last two I did needed DME updates. To do the DME, the CAS, and the Instrument clusters had to be done together. It was all or nothing. I did a GM ECM recently. It also required flashing the Security Module. If each vehicle session is $125.00, that is not bad. If the BMW is considered 3 flashes, or the GM 2, that could get pretty pricey. Now, while I have just beaten up on RAP, it still sounds like RAP could be very useful for some shops. If you work on a large percentage of the vehicles covered, and you don't want to invest a lot in tools and training, and can work with their schedule, it could be a great asset. You could avoid sending cars to the dealer. Drew Technologies also changed their pricing model. When I first started looking at them, I believe it was about $100. 00 a month if it wasn't being used. Free if you did 3 downloads. Now I believe it is $19.95 a month. At that price, there is not a lot of risk to having it around, and I still consider it from time to time. Scott

It seems to me that the forums have been much quieter. I'm not sure if that is correct or not, but I know when I get that email every week, and I see the topic list, I get turned off pretty quickly. Then I stop looking at them all together when they come. Scott

Victor, I see what you are saying now. I thought using the forum for marketing would be prohibited, but I just found out it is actually encouraged. I found this on the site while checking out the sponsored membership. "Sponsor Membership to AutoShopOwner for 1 year, which will renew annually. You will receive all the benefits of a Premium Membership. In addition, you will be able to market your business to our member base by posting about your business in our community forums, start your own blog, write articles..." Scott

newport5, I understand the need to have ads to generate revenue. Using the forum to make pitches with click bait, is not the proper use of a forum. I'm pretty sure no revenue is generated from these posts. It's someone abusing, and degrading the system to get free publicity. Scott

Slowtech, I'm glad you posted this. I was just going down the list of topics in the weekly email thinking to myself that it looks like the forum is turning into more of an advertising platform. So I started going down the list and came across your post. So you are definitely not alone in your thinking. Scott

After reading this I had to share a story my dad told me many times. He was an electrical engineer that started a side business repairing TVs back in the 70's. He gave it up after a few years because he got tired of hearing "it's doing the same thing". He would repair a set with no picture, then within a short period of time, he would get the "it's doing the same thing" call. When he asked what that was, they would say that there was no sound. Being a very logical based engineer, it drove him crazy. Scott

That is pretty impressive. With 7,500 and 15,000 mile oil changes being pushed by the manufactures, I'm finding it challenging to get customers in more often than that. I'm curious what others here are experiencing. Scott

And we can probably all agree that except in unusual circumstances, car owners are not going to have their tires rotated every 5k. Scott

I've been struggling with this for a while. Being in this business for a long time, I was always taught you want your best tires in the front because 100% of your steering and 70% of the braking is done with the front tires. Now, I have also read the recommendations, and reasons for having the best tires in the rear which also makes sense. My question is, if we adopt the belief that the best tires should always be on the back, doesn't that eliminate the need for tire rotations on most cars? Looking forward to hearing feedback on this. Scott

defiancetire, We started in 1989 as Volvo specialists. I started with the name Scott's Volvo Specialties. Shortly after I started, my lawyer told me I could not use Volvo in the name. So we were officially Scott's Specialties, Inc. We stilled used Scott's Volvo Specialties for marketing at times, and figured we would stop if Volvo ever hassled us about it. By 2010 we had become a general repair facility with a majority of our work still being Volvo's. Over the years I can't tell you how many times I was asked what is Scott's Specialties. So about 4 years ago, we changed the name to Scott's Automotive. The name has worked much better as it more accurately described the business, and people no loner ask what we do, but there can be some confusion at times. Old customers, suppliers, etc. still think of you by the old name. It takes your staff a while to stop answering the phone by the original name. And I am still correcting the name on utility accounts, licenses, etc. It sounds like Defiance is the name of the city you are locate in, Defiance Tire and Auto is pretty generic, and since it has only been 4 years, there is probably very little risk in changing it. I'm also guessing that you are already know for want you specialize in. My only suggestion is to make the name communicate as clearly as possibly what you do, or make it so catchy that people just have to investigate what you do. The latter can be very tough, so I would pursue the first. Scott

CCS, I stopped creating new accounts a few years ago. The system is still up and running with about 75 users, but it never developed they way I hoped, and since my time to continue supporting it is limited, I had to stop adding new users. Scott

If you can get customers on board, it sounds like a great way to build loyalty. Scott

Pam, After writing and posting my response to your post, I realized that it was Aloha's post you were commenting about, not mine. Scott

Pam, Thanks for letting me know how the post came across. I did not mean to sound accusing, and I'm sorry if it came across that way. it sounds like Aloha runs reputable shop they care about their customers. I just want to point out that sometimes what we think is best for the customer, may not always be what is best for them. This is something it took me a while in business to understand. At a seminar a few years ago, I heard a story from a shop owner. An elderly woman came to him with an old car that probably had little or no value. The car needed several thousand dollars of work. Doing what he thought was the right thing, he told the women to get rid of the car, and use the money to buy another. The women started crying. She then went on to tell the shop owner that this was the last car her husband bought for her before died, and it was very upsetting to be told to get rid of the car, and she didn't care how much it would cost to fix the car. I don't know if the story is true or not, but I think it does a good job of demonstrating that what appears illogical and or worthless to us, may have a completely different value or meaning to the customer. I do want to reiterate what I said in my earlier post that this does not mean we take money blindly, or take advantage of customers. We have an obligation to disclose as much as we can to the customer, and to answer all their questions honestly. We don't have to do work if we don't feel right about it, but I think we need to be careful when it comes to deciding what is best for other people, because we don't fully know their situation. Scott

Aloha, A lot of what you say makes sense, but I think you may be missing part of the picture. First, I gave up on offering customer financing. The people who needed financing never got it because they had no money or credit. Back to your point. Seeing a customer put $1500 into a vehicle of questionable value and or reliability may seem like an illogical thing to do, and it may seem like a shop is putting profit over people. However, that person most likely needs transportation. They need to get to work, transport the kids, get the groceries. If they don't have the $1500, or struggle coming up with $1500 for repairs, it's highly unlikely that they will be able to secure the funds to purchase another vehicle, or they probably would have already. So by doing what you think is moral or ethical, you may actually be doing more harm than good. This does not mean you take the money blindly or take advantage of the customer. I believe you have an obligation to disclose as much as you can to the customer, and communicate your recommendations. You don't have to do the job if you don't feel right about it, but I think it is important to let the customer decide what is best for themselves. Scott

I'm big into computers and technology. There are a lot of advantages to scanning everything, but there are some drawbacks. It does take a considerable amount of time to scan and organize everything. It can also be challenging to find what you are looking for at times. Did you file it by date, supplier name, category, or something else. If you are looking for a specific part, unless you know what invoice it is on, you may have to find and review numerous invoices to find the part. My service manager is great with customers, but no so much with computers and technology. Which means he would be coming to me a lot to help him find things. Right now he can open the file cabinet, grab the folder for the month he is interested in and recognize invoices quickly, because most of the suppliers have unique invoices. What I was doing is keeping a years worth of the paper in the file cabinet for easy retrieval. I would scan all the older stuff and recycle the paper. I would create 2 files for each month. One for parts, and one for everything else using Adobe Acrobat DC. I would then use OCR to recognize and save all the text. Then when I needed to find something, I would just open the file and do a text search. I have gotten away from scanning and back to putting everything in file boxes that is more than a year old, and at the start of the year, I recycle everything more than 5 years old. Also, so much can be retrieved online now (WorldPac invoices, bank statements, NAPA invoices and statements, etc.) that there is less and less of a need to save a lot of this. Let us know what you decide and how it works for you. Scott

Alex, Thanks Scott

Alex, When you get a chance could you try searching Volvo Repair Rockville. I think Ihave made it to the first page. Also I would like your feedback on a design idea I have had for awhile. I have made the site to look like a smart phone. If you click on the icons, a modal box opens to display more info. This way the user does not have to go from page to page and it really works great on mobile devices. Thanks Scott