rjbradlow

Ditto!! I've been looking for well over a year now. The last jerk I hired was fresh out of prison and stole a bunch of tools... So much for second chances. I've had plenty of wannabes with little to no experience come knocking, but as alfredauto said: and being a one man shop I have absolutely No time to babysit nor can I afford any mistakes or comebacks... I have a reputation that I've worked hard to build.

Uh -- em -- ncautoshop... FYI: Ford has a new line of Turbocharged Direct Injection GAS engines called Ecoboost. They are GDI (Non-Turbo) and GTDI (Turbo) engines. 1.0, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, & 3.5L -- Only the 2.0 comes GDI & GDTI, the rest are GTDI. Furthermore they are late to the scene as other manufacturers have been direct injecting gas for a long time now. Direct Gas Injection was invented in 1902 for Aircraft engines and later by Bosch for Automotive in 1952... The 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL is the first production sports car to use direct gas injection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_direct_injection http://www.bosch-automotivetechnology.com/en/de/powertrain/powertrain_systems_for_passenger_cars_1/direct_gasoline_injection/direct_gasoline_injection_23.html http://delphi.com/manufacturers/auto/powertrain/gas/ems/gdi/

I can honestly say that I am thoroughly disappointed / disgusted with Strap-On and other brands as they all have Huge holes / gaps in them. The Verus DSO/DVM is a real bad joke. Utterly useless for measuring Mv and negative voltages. (reverse polarity) Has anyone tried to measure a distributor with 3 hall effect sensors in it with this pos? I have a '88 Toyota Soarer with a 1G-GTEU 2.0 Twin Turbo (Yamaha engine) in my shop now that I am tracking down no injector pulse... It was made for the Jap market; It is Not a North American vehicle by any stretch of the imagination and information for this beast is virtually non-existent. Nothing in this car ever came over here. Even the Dealer said "Good Luck!" when I asked about parts availability. I have learned that if you want true diagnostic capabilities you need to piece together OE tools with high quality dedicated specialty tools. All-In-One tools leave much to be desired and often are a huge waste of money. Despite the mandates for OEM's to 'standardize' and make certain data available, they still hold the keys to the kingdom and are playing a money game that penalizes independents for competing. The OEM's are regenerating the revenue lost to independents by hammering us with proprietary fees. i.e.; We are forced to buy special tools to work with their proprietary websites and vehicles in addition to subscription access fees and software & firmware updates. Sure there are standards and mandate compliance, but anything above generic data access with bidirectional support costs us big time. Technicians cannot afford to invest in everything that is required and that leaves us footing the bill and wincing every time an over priced piece of equipment heads out of the office to the service bay. In my area, even the 'Specialty Shops' are still working on everything because families and their friends that are referred have multiple makes and models. The public still expects their trusty mechanic to fix everything and anything. Case in point: The Toyota Soarer I have to manually trace old school style. Mind you that I am the poor guy who gets these rejects directly from other shops who throw their hands up.

With me, again; Customer supplied parts are few and far between and I only make exceptions for customers I know under special circumstances. (Nothing critical like in the fear mongering article above.) -- Again common sense dictates here. If we must have a No BYOP policy, make it a No critical parts policy. Brakes, steering, suspension, SRS, etc. Typically with the ones who are looking for a good deal; I buy parts for less than they can and sell them right at or just below our favorite consumer store's prices and still turn a profit. Joe blow off the street whom I've never met is another story. (Some training required) Most end up returning their parts after a brief conversation where I sell the repair with my parts, others require wallet training. The ones who refuse common sense logic are those special kind of stupid people I don't want as customers anyhow and these are the ones who may never learn anything. And then there are those super 'Special' circumstances... I have one customer I know very well from church and that his family is really struggling. Health / medical bills, etc... When I first met him he was all about buying his own parts and I weened him off of the notion fairly quickly about 2 years ago. Until recently; I know he's been out of work for a spell. He is starting a new job and we all know that when a family or person is living paycheck to paycheck things can get real ugly in a hurry. So in this instance his AC has not worked for quite some time and his window switch just failed. -- rut row raggy I searched for the lowest price which ended up being Rock Auto (No surprise) and had him order the switch directly then I installed it for free. It's the little things that go a long way. "A loyal customer for life." - I hear this a lot. I agree that many people who bring their own can be problematic. This is why I counsel them up front and sell them on the back side. If we look at the numbers; How many BYOP customers do we see in a month or year? For me... Not many. But when I do, I win them over provided they are not bad apples. Sometimes we have to compete with the consumer parts stores and it's really not that hard or bad for us to do. After all, Labor is 100%. Even if it means only making a dollar on a part - So be it if we win a good customer in the process. The numbers don't lie and I didn't build a customer base full of cheapskates... so I'm not 'helping myself out of business'. As we all know; there are plenty of regular customers where a healthy markup is just fine and dandy and they are the majority. And when one of our loyal customers falls on bad times... Hey ... Fair is fair and it all washes out in the end. You make a huge difference in their lives by being honest, flexible & fair. They make a difference in yours when they rave about you to others. ... Final thought: As far as Phone Estimates go; ATS Automotive is spot on...

Thank you Jeff and I agree with you ncautoshop... I too have family I like to spend time with and those late night jobs are few and far between. I cannot be all things to all people but I do weed out the bad / abusive customers. A little common sense goes a long way. The moral of my story is that many shops are throwing away business and are contributing to the DIY / BYOP problem. These customers eventually learn after having to pay me to perform the same job several times and then give up on buying their own parts. Meanwhile I've made a profit each time while training them instead of arguing the difference in parts (when there is a difference), let them experience it first hand. Their wallet is often the best teacher... Especially when they are buying the absolute cheapest electrical parts. --------------------------------- However .... Some DIY / Bring your own parts customers are pretty resourceful; I had a 2008 Dodge R2500HD Turbo Cummins come in with AC failure and a bunch of codes (some customer generated)... The clutch coil failed and upon calling around to the dealer, Cold Air Distributors, Bennett, NAPA, CarQuest, et al. I was told each and every time that the clutch/coil assembly was Not available separately and only came with the compressor. So I gave him an estimate for the whole shebang explaining that it was not available w/o the compressor. He did not accept this answer and said he would get back to me... Sure enough he found a supplier (Air Parts, Inc. in Ocala, FL) that does in fact sell the clutch assembly by itself. He ordered the part and then dropped everything off including the receipt. This is a 'wealthy cheap guy' that had I refused as a customer I would not have learned of a new AC parts supplier. Sure I'm not making money on this part, but I am on others and labor and I've added to my vendor list in the process.

And where are these parts coming from? Whether your customer brings you somthing from discount auto or you buy it from 'pro vendor' ... they both are carrying cheap crap made in China. And who are the top suppliers to all of these chains? You see boys, all of these parts are coming from the same people and are being rebranded. i.e. Re-Boxed If you want to make sure you are not going to be sued then buy the same chinese part in a different box and hang your hat on it. Make your customers bring you receipts for the parts they bought and copy them showing part name, line code, vendor etc. Make customer sign the copy with a staement that they brought the part in from a reputable auto parts store... You know... The same freaking stores You are buying the Same parts from. You the professional shoud be able to recognise the brand name and if Monkey Joe's Auto Parts will sell you both the same part at the same price... They are liable not you. Show me the parts that are still Made here in the USA.... Not Assembled in the USA! Show me something that I can buy cheaper than my customer can -- AND -- is made better. WTF

Markets vary and what works great for some may not be so hot for others. I've met some shop owners in highly populated areas where they believe there is no such thing as customer loyalty and they hammer everyone. The demographics of your surrounding area may be low / fixed income and they need their vehicles for shopping, doctor & pharmacy visits, etc... Is it fair to hammer or ostracize them? Yes it's nice to work with first class customers and wouldn't the world be a perfect place if that is all that walked through our doors. However; I have a diverse mixture from the poverty-stricken to the wealthiest in my area. Times are changing indeed. They are getting tougher for us because they are getting tougher for our customers and a good deal of these customers are hurting financially. So who is going to take care of them if we've all focused on only attracting the 10%? I accept and work with anyone because I know that a great number of people need reliable transportation to survive and many of my customers can barely make ends meet if at all because a spouse became ill or whatever the reason. I know my customers personally and I care about all of them. This is the business I have built and word of mouth from every station travels the ranks good or bad. I have and will continue to work well past closing if a customer really needs their car for work and the job ran into overtime. My customers always come first no matter how much money they may or may not have. Remember my demographics... I have them all as 'loyal' customers because I am loyal to them and treat them all as people, not numbers. When we start looking to shove our less fortunate customers out the door with ridiculous policies we are contributing to the problem and ultimately shooting ourselves in the foot. Why did DIY parts stores become so popular? Why are our 'Vendors' following suit? A: Because there are too many shops screwing -or- ostracizing people with ridiculous policies and these people Need their cars repaired so someone is either going to do it themselves or call Bubba Stump. Why is there only One parts jobber in my state that has the gumption to only sell wholesale to the trade? Naturally this is my primary vendor of choice, but when they do not have something... It sure annoys the hell out of me to have to wait on hold while the counter jockeys at any given 'pro' parts store finish with all of those 'price shopping' customers and their shade tree mechanics before I can find out if they have something that is not in their integrated parts catalog that only works by vehicle application in stock. Do You see where I'm going with this? Love them all, great and small... Let them bring their own parts and charge one price, but if it fails charge them twice. Sure they will call shopping around, but only fools will turn them down. For every part that walks in the door, dollars will follow as labor abounds. It's when their cheap crap fails that lessons prevail and you'll be happier for not losing the sale. By word of mouth you will soon be swimming in a business that has no limits, not even for the poor. May God bless you all.