alfredauto

Called on a 30lb can today $280 no thanks I'm not stocking up at that price.

This is what we've been doing for years but it's 30%. In the rust capital of the world every job takes longer and uses more oxy/acetylene than we want to admit.

2 topics here I'd like to touch on. 1st up is technician shortage. It is real. It doesn't matter what you offer for pay if the guy doesn't want to work or loves his boss he's not working for you. Every shop is hiring. I don't know of any that aren't. 2nd is shop labor rates. I'm in the poorest county in the state and my rate is over $100/hr. Being the nice guy wearing out my body and equipment for next to nothing is not an option. Basic business I add up all my expenses and divide by working hours and came up with a number. Add for the bad word profit and depreciation and I can't understand how anyone is under $100/hr in today's world and staying in business unless they are under insured, running into the ground. or independent wealthy.

I bought some bins and fill them myself from tractor supply. That's for the grade 5 hardware by the pound. Can't help you with companies that do it they all frustrated us with their reliability. About once a year I buy 50lbs of hardware and fill the bins. Fastenal did a great job while it lasted but they left our area.

Autel all the way. The bang for the buck is unbeatable. There's very little it can't do that another aftermarket one can.

In case anyone has been under a rock home prices rose 20% in the last year. Food prices almost doubled. Parts prices went up a lot. Gas is 89% more. Half the shops in my area closed for good. So I raised my prices. No more $19.99 oil change. Nobody really complains about the labor rate but they do vocalize about their 8 quart silverado synthetic oil change.

We tried it for about a year. Repair pal did a great job gathering reviews for my shop and generating calls. I'd say over 75% were calls from people who self diagnosed and wanted us to install their parts that they determined would fix the problem. Well it got old steering them into a proper repair so we dropped them. And some of the requested repairs were insane like "I want you to replace the timing chain guide on my Mercedes, the chain is still good according to the forums and you don't need to replace the coolant because it's less than 3 years old and the book time is wrong you can sneak it out in 3 hours not the 28 hours Mercedes wants and I insist on watching so I know you are doing it right and" so after a while it just got old.

It's no secret when shops are advertising $17.99 oil changes they are hurting for customers bad.

Not much to do here so I've been studying last years numbers. January and February 2020 were on the level with 2019. Car counts around 195-210. March 2020 - 45. April 2020 - 31. The rest of last year followed the pattern. No activity. It went up some in the fall but we are down 70% as far as car counts go last year. A bonus if you want to call it that was the cars we did see needed a lot of help. The average RO was up almost 35%. Overall we will survive but we aren't swimming in gravy. Over the past 11 years our sales charts looked like a right triangle. Up every year. Very linear. Then came 2020 that sent us back to 2014 sales levels. This year so far is looking positive but we are still way off our goals. Car counts are at an all time low. And that's with a lot of our competition closed down permanently. Get ready folks it's going to be another tough year.

After a while you get to know who's probably not going to show up and just plan accordingly. I have a couple dozen customers who are pretty absent minded I don't make a fuss its really not their fault they can't get their shit together I just put them down and when they call to reschedule I just say don't worry about it no problem. They are good customers btw very loyal they just can't keep their appts.

After a while you get to know who's probably not going to show up and just plan accordingly. I have a couple dozen customers who are pretty absent minded I don't make a fuss its really not their fault they can't get their shit together I just put them down and when they call to reschedule I just say don't worry about it no problem. They are good customers btw very loyal they just can't keep their appts.

I've been working by myself since this all started. My main tech has underlying health issues so he's collecting and happy and I'm busy as a bee doing repair work. The auctions aren't running normally so the car sales are in the tank I literally have one vehicle on the lot for sale.

During the 1918 Flu pandemic historians said it took people 3-4 years to get back to "normal". I am staying positive but I'm concerned. I think if everyone goes back to work in a few months it will be a miracle. I'm thinking 12-18 months minimum. I'm hoping that there will be school in September but I'm not even too sure about that at this point.

I'm glad you kept him. I understand what running a business is about but people aren't tools that can be thrown away when they become obsolete. I'm sure your customers notice the same mechanic there for 20 years how would you explain it to them he stopped making you rich so you let him go.

A few days makes a difference. We got all our work done that was here and I closed the shop today. It hurts me, I enjoy working. I enjoy talking to people. I like steady income. But I couldn't sleep the last couple nights worrying what if? So that's that I paid my help a couple weeks time off and I got enough groceries for a couple weeks so I'm just going to chill out and do nothing and just hope we get this thing under control quickly.

We charge by the job but we do breakdown parts and labor on the ro. Once in a while someone will question the markup I reply "the Amazon price is if you do it yourself" end of story we don't put in your parts I need to buy groceries like everyone else. Some people complain about the 8.5% sales tax i tell them to call Albany it's not up for discussion. I suppose we could just raise the labor rate to compensate but I'm afraid its going to be a race to the bottom once everyone starts wholesaling parts

Read my negative fb or Google reviews they are all because I charged someone to "just look" at their car. That's why people are shy to do it. I charge for diagnosis. My doctor charges me for it. My dentist charges me for it. My electrician charges me for it. Every professional on earth charges for their expertise. I do the same. Toughen up folks.

The people that ask the labor rate are not normally good customers. We price by the job brake pads and rotors $335 plus tax for most cars just an Example but that's all they want to know how much to get my car fixed. Tell someone its $90/hr next thing you know they show up with half the bolts taken out and parts in the trunk "imma pay you 30 mins to put it together right now quick" so I just price the job so we can pay everyone to work another day.

With everything closed some folks take advantage of the extra time to get their car fixed. We've been busy the last couple weeks but I expect everyone will stop spending money and going out very soon. I must say that this year has been the slowest on record since we opened in 2010. I just paid the lowest tire bill I've ever had in 10 years. Maybe it was fear of the virus in January and February who knows but we didnt sell very many tires this quarter that's for sure.

Thank you Joe for the well written post. I have weighed the option to close as I'm sure many of you have. Here are my thoughts; I am fortunate enough to be able to go a few months without worrying about the financial repercussions but I do worry about my customers. My shop is in a rural isolated area and I would feel terrible not helping people that need emergency services. We fix flat tires and broken cars every day. We aren't doing upgrades we are getting cars back on the road. I certainly clean the counter more frequently but life goes on for us.

Carfax lies and says they are calling from Mitchell they need to update your system. Liars. Once you catch them in that lie they go over the benefits of being affiliated with carfax. I an very clear with them that if I'm supplying them with saleable information I want a discount on carfax reports. Like a co-op system. Carfax doesn't see it that way, they want to take from us and give back nothing. They give me nothing I give them nothing, that's how it works in my world.

I like to say online parts are for do it yourselfers. You can do it yourself cheaper than we charge. There's no sense in denying it.

We use the cheapest autel code readers and plug into identifix or sure trac then test the old fashioned way. I own a Maxisys elite and it works well for bidirectional testing and the coding. We’ve used about every scanner out there these tool trucks try to sell magic but there’s no avoiding hands on component testing.

We had a good local company, then they sold us to a bigger chain that showed up 3 weeks then fired us because we don't spend enough. Now we DIY.