alfredauto

While preached by many, I feel 20% net is a poor goal unless one likes paying a ton of tax. I try to keep net about 4-5% max. The shop can use a new truck, another employee, and new equipment more than it can use a 35% tax bracket.

I buy a fair share of cars from customers, if we've been servicing them I'm confident to pay full price. I buy trades from local dealers too, if they serviced the car its odds in my favor. The auction is a fun and exciting way to lose time and money, like a casino. I try to buy repos at the auction from the banks, they usually need extensive cleaning but at least I know what I'm getting into with the CR's. The good news is most dealers are impatient, if a car doesn't bring the money 3 weeks in a row they will usually give it away the 4th week. Nobody will touch it at that point. The auction takes up a full day, plus 2 full days reconditioning. Money is spent, I wait to get it back. Hence my negativity, I make more in 3 days behind the counter or wrenching than I do when a car sells, a lot more. No cash tied up, no mystery when I'm going to get paid. No mystery if it comes back with a warranty issue. That being said, when I have 5 or 10 cars waiting for lift time we are always busy. Customers notice busy shop activity and are attracted to it. They also notice an empty parking lot, which is avoided like the black plague to passer by's.

Yikes! These theft stories scare me. What's the solution, security cameras? Full time loss prevention personnel? Threat of bodily harm? I'm not sure I could handle a trusted employee robbing me in a professional manner.

I've figured it out, when someone comes in and says "I'm a good customer" they are lying. I have hundreds of very good customers, none of them make a statement about it.

Get your smokers hooked on vaping, e cigarettes are a great alternative. No smell, no smoke, and they can vape all day long with nobody noticing.

I worked for pep boys for 7 years or so, my stock yo yo - d from $2 to $15 per share, up down up down some things never change. They sent me to sunroof school, that idea didn't go too well. People brought in new cars and they had me cut roofs to install $299 sunroofs, at pep boys, think about that for a minute.

According to the latest auction report new car sales in western and central NY are way down, I wouldnt worry too much.

I should add that I also have a farm, we raise yaks. Talk about poverty, there's absolutely no money in small scale hobby farming. I sell 1 or 2 calves a year for $1000 if I'm lucky, I buy $1000 worth of hay a year. Do the math. It keeps me grounded that's about it. I used to sell on eBay out of the shop, that was good money but eBay took 10 hours a day, plus the regular 10 hour work day. Something had to give, I gave up the internet sales.

I expanded into used cars, it keeps the bays full during slow times. Its fun to go to the auctions. The dealer plates are handy. Headaches increased 1000x, for me its a lot easier to fix cars than sell them. The profit on a used car from the auction is so low you wouldn't believe it, the only money I make is when the trade sells if its a good one. If I just sold cars for a living I would quit.

We offer free rotation with every new tire, its part of buying tires they join our family. Rotations are required to get any warranty from their manufacturer so we remove any excuse for the customer not to rotate. Do we look at the brakes when we do a free rotation? Of course. That's not the intent though, our intent is to sell tires with a lifetime (tread wise) of services as a thank you. This keeps them coming back. I suggest they get their free rotation the same day they get their oil changed, its more convenient for everyone but we still will do a 100% free rotate a LA carte if they want.

The parts stores near me that do the best never say no. One store only sells at a 50% profit. Take it or leave it. Another store strives for 50% but they will always sell a part unless its at a loss. They do better. I'd rather gross 300k a month at 30% than 100k a month at 50%. Its not like a shop that only has so many labor hours a month to maximize, the amount of parts handed over a counter is really unlimited.

We just started selling road hazard warranties at a fixed price, averages out to 10% of the tire price. In NY it is illegal to sell warranties without them being underwritten by an insurance company so I had to join a group offered through a supplier to be able to offer it. Customers like the peace of mind, and with a National average of less than 5% payout, seems like a win/win. At first I completely rejected the idea, but I'm warming up to it. The wording is very specific to exclude off road vehicles, one ton or heavier vehicles, racing, alignment problems, neglect, and abuse among other things.

I save a hard copy of the printed invoice with the credit card slip stapled to it. The customer gets one, I get one. Habit i guess. I have filing cabinets full in chronological order. Computer saves it plus I save it, there's maybe 20 signatures total on 5000+ invoices. I went to small claims once, I lost because the customer didn't sign the repair order and I couldn't produce it. City guy thought $200 was too much to pay for me to put a power steering pump on his plow truck. Court said no signature = no obligation to pay. I lost $250. $200 plus his $50 court fee. Oh well I got over it. The correct way to conduct business is have the customer sign when they bring in the car, document the phone conversation for the approval, sign when they pick up the car. I don't do any of that, I'm in a small town. I trust my customers, they trust me, no problems 99.99% of the time. They all sign the credit card slip, seems unnatural not to.

Thanks for the advice, I'm going to have him just shadow me for a week to get the hang of things. He just finished his 2nd part time week, no mistakes except for taking home a set of car keys in his pocket. Its been the busiest February on record which is good but not good for training. I was figuring February would be a good month to start a new guy so I could spend some time breaking him in, but Its been balls to the wall 12 hours a day.

I hired a new guy out of tech school. Nice kid, arrives on time, is polite. I understand he's green but willing to learn, and that's OK with me. Here's my issue; he's slow. It takes him 5x longer than normal to do anything. I'm not sure if hes nervous or what so I have been giving him basic jobs like used car prepping so hes not hurting the customers. Even basic detailing takes him way too long, like 4 hours to wash and wax a car with no buffing or any kind of paint restoration. Tires - forget it, 45 minutes each. How long do I wait before giving up? He does the job right but minimum wage is too much at his speed. I set reasonable goals he can't meet them. Frustrating.

I'm running 3 rotary 9k lb lifts but I'm in a pickle, the sliders are worn out on all of them and the pulleys are pretty well rusted. To repair them means unbolting and disassembling the lifts and at that expense it seems like a no brainer to replace them. I'm worried that my 20 year old lifts might be built better than the new ones that will replace them. How do the new rotaries compare to the older ones? It seems every new piece of equipment I buy contains half as much steel as the old stuff.

I would try Mitchell manager or something similar, your life will be much easier. I'm cheap and I can say Mitchell is the best $$$$ spent.

Wood stove in the shop. Sad story but how many garages burned in the same way? I thought they were outlawed in garages in the 70's.

When a customer comes in and the first thing they say is "I've been to 3 shops and I'll never go back, they charged me just to look at it?!?" I know that I'm going to be the next guy added to their list. In these cases I print out an estimate for diagnostic time and have them sign so there are no surprises. They usually decline. Had a good one this week, kid installed his own tie rod and came in for an alignment. Just an alignment, hes the expert. Tech noticed the car was squealing like crazy. I called him and asked for authorization to fix his belt. NO was his response he has a new belt and is going to do it himself. OK no problem, your alignment is almost done see you in a bit. End of story. His mom calls yesterday screaming that we sabotaged his car because his belt broke, its all my fault. Her baby is stranded because of us. The alignment ruined her motor. "Ma'am we didn't even open the hood" mind boggling.

The most important thing is to take the customers side when a comeback happens. If they say its broke again I believe them and get the car on the lift asap. 9 times out of 10 something else is broke and its a good opportunity to show n tell at least they aren't mad anymore. No matter what they accuse you of smile and get the car in and look, don't even suggest or speculate anything until its on the lift. The techs ego will chase customers away so be careful. I hate comebacks.

My advice is stop working on 1996 and newer Volvo's lol I hate those cars with a passion. Defective immobilizer garbage machines.

Well I went and did it, I snapped off a e320 wheel bolt. This is the extended type lug bolt. The last guy must have cross threaded it. Problem is how do I get the wheel off, the end snapped off the bolt but the taper is still holding the wheel on. I'm going to try and drill it, but if you guys have any tips it'll be appreciated. I do have extra wheels if it comes down to the smoke wrench.

I worked at a dealer for 2 weeks. Buddy system pay meant my buddy got paid for my extra work and I lost because my buddy was slow. That was enough for me, most stressful 2 weeks of my life. Plus the dealer work was bs for the new guy, warranty crank shaft jobs for like 6.2 on an Acura Integra yea right good luck beating the warranty time...at least the senior guys didn't have to do that nonsense. The only good thing was a guy cleaned the floor every night.

I type the plate # into Mitchell when they pull into the driveway, the customers name pops on the screen if the car has been in before. Hi Mrs Wilson... They can't believe my memory is so good. Hehe I cheat

I use Google AdWords express. Costs me $130 a month or so. It seems to be working, when I pause my ads the phone stops ringing so much.