John Pearson

It is we just work alot of hours to make it happen, when we have more space hopefully we will be able to stick to "normal" business hours.

because we only have 1 lift and its in our only bay I have a day team and afternoon team.

I know this is old but I have had one in my shop for over a year now, we average 200 cars a month through it and have had everything from a smart car to a crew cab long bed diesel on it. And boy is it fast, when we add more lifts I will buy 4 more at about 5400 each. They do have two 24 group batteries that are hooked in series to produce 24 volts and charge off of 110.

Mac has a lifetime warranty on their drill bits. I agree with you but again it all depends on the level of tech that you have. I think that Ball joint press might be a shop tool I have over 1500 in to mine, but then entry level 2 way scanner should be in most everyones tool box. I buy the expensive ones. But yes people do take better care of tools when they buy them.

I am a lucky one? I have been using carquest for 3 years now and had a couple of problems but none like you all are explaining. The one that I remember was I had a water pump for a 94 F150 5.0 go out 2 days after install and then again 1 year later.

I guess I don't see initial cost of a tool a problem if its going to make life easier and more quiet. Every tool out there if you take care of it well they don't require repair as frequently, just like a car.

What's the downside of a screw compressor because I am in the market for a new compressor and was looking at a screw type.

We were using motologic for awhile and liked it but it was missing some stuff alldata had and AllData was missing some stuff motologic had but motologic was almost always more in the labor times.

thanks, Its a Can-Am XMR-1000.

A lot of power steering lines, we have a place here that cuts them apart and braises in new fittings and arctic grade rubber, but 2 weeks out all the time is normal. right now I have 16 cars on my desk to be worked on and 1 week of a full schedule. being between 2 military bases one 3 miles away and the other 10 miles away but they have to drive past us to get to town and being prior military myself I think helps ALOT.

we aim for a 55% to 60 % profit margin on the RO. if cost is 10 and list is 20 we will sell it for 15. unless we need to make up a little on that job then we will move closer to list price. Parts cost I couldn't tell you. Here is a hub from carquest, they are our main supplier and we are a tech-net shop. 2005 chevy silverado 1500 4wd hub. We pay about a dollar a square foot rent and heating the shop is 600 a month in the winter with a 400 electric bill for 1000 square feet. CARQUEST Premium Bearings 515058 $431.99 $210.82

The ARO is 405 with a 230 car count, lots of that is winterizations, in alaska to prepare for -40 we install a block heater, engine oil pan heater and battery trickle charger and rate the coolant to -60. it averages about 300 per vehicle and take up to 2 hours per car. But some as few as 20min. we will do just about everything including tires and alignments. We are using alldata manage, and a typical month is about 55k

Last month we did 92.5k in sales, I know that we are being held back by only having one.

Only 1 and my self

I have an Modis ultra we bought about a year ago that works for most of what we do, but I just bought the IDS with the GETAC tablet from rotunda and after 20 hours on the phone 3 weeks and 2 tablets later its finally working.

I was excited when I found ratchet and wrench, now that I have found this place I am over joyed. I am always looking for new friends that have been there and done it that can help me along my way. I have been working on cars for 6 years for others, 4 years in the army working on helicopters and cars on the side I accidently got in over my head. So I figured the way to fix being up to my eyeballs in work was to move in to a real shop and out of my garage and hire help. We learned a lot on our own, made a lot of mistakes but owned up to them and now we are working 16 hours a day to get all the cars through the 1 lift that we have. We offer everything from oil changes, Tires, A/C, alignments, to aftermarket lifts, Winterizations (its an alaska thing) and standard Diag and repair. The amount of special tools we have bought has been astronomical and now we even have Ford IDS and plan on adding the a few more dealer level tools by the end of the year. I hope to be an asset and learn from the pros about how to run a business fixing cars is easy. My problem right now is the 1 bay, there is no where to move to, and my money people don't want me to build the building that I want to build that we would grow in to. They recommend half the size and dont want to see us grow to quickly, and I agree. So now I am stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

I know this is kind of old, but I went from being 55 an hour going from my garage to when I moved in to my new 1 bay shop it went up to 92.50 over a 1 year time frame. No one has complained and our quality of customer just keeps getting better. I am still not as expensive as others but, we are a 1 bay shop, and in october we did 92.5k in sales.

As an owner in a new shop I am extremely busy, if you want to sell something come in say hi introduce yourself and ask for an appointment to talk to me about what you have to offer.

I have had this problem also. I have left 3 messages and have not had a call back, I am to busy to chase other people.