ajnealey

I get my 55 gallon drums from Petroleum Services Company. Coastal Syn. Blend comes to about $1.90 a quart. Sunoco 0W-20 Full Syn. comes to about $3.43 a quart. Looks like I could be saving some more. Those prices include shipping by the way. Are you guys purchasing in bulk larger than 55 gallons? AJ

Hey folks, One of our best customers will be moving to the Phoenix, AZ area. When she was putting together a Pros and Cons list about moving, our shop and relationship actually made the Con list (meaning that losing a trusted technician was a big factor into NOT moving away). I feel it's my due diligence to try and connect her with another trusted shop in the Phoenix area and thought about coming on here to look for one. We're all on this forum for a reason, to improve ourselves, discover best practices and make our businesses better. I feel this forum would be a great place to find a shop similar to ours...extremely trustworthy and transparent. Let me know if you might be a good candidate. I have all service records for her '04 Jeep Grand Cherokee and '08 BMW Z4. Thanks for your time!

Everything stow integrity mentioned is spot on. I will also mention that they do post weekly blog posts from other automotive news sites on your Facebook page as well at least once a week. Very interesting articles that help drive people to your site. The "Dashboard" that they give you is very cool and allows you to perform a deep dive on all data to really see how your customers are responding to the e-mails/texts. I'm a big fan. I was using Demandforce before and I thought they were bombarding the customers with texts/e-mails and robo calls for appointments and reminders. Mitchell's way of reminding customers isn't overwhelming. The only thing that I wished was available is being able to have full control of the e-mail templates to design them to match our overall design of our website/logo. Maybe that functionality will come in the future. Having an agent to just "handle" all seasonal/promotional blasts with specials to customers is easy and painless. We can usually get a response and an e-mail drafted within one business day. Costs are cheaper than what Demandforce was per month as well. AJ

Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Training? Bringing this topic back up. Anybody have any feedback on hybrid/electric vehicle training? I'm seeing more and more fully electric vehicles coming out at the auto shows this winter. They are not going away. I want to start making moves now so I'm ready. Thoughts? AJ

From reading the symptoms, I'm thinking this could be caused by a wheel bearing "knock back" issue. Shake down the front end for any excessive play. Also, Toyota had a TSB for certain model year Tundra's where the brake pedal would intermittently sink to the floor. The remedy was making sure the proper shims were installed on the brake pads. AJ

I just purchased a Dymo printer to also start printing key tags with Bolt On. During training, a suggestion was made to also use the key tag printer to label parts as they come in for RO's. Really good idea. Get ours key tag printer this week. We use the Zebra printer for OC stickers. AJ

One man band here as well! Took the Guerrilla Shop Management course from RLO a year ago and that was the best first step I've made yet! Started charging a fair amount on labor and parts. Starting running it more like a business. I pay myself 30% of labor sales per month. Implemented a bunch of new strategies and processes to increase productivity and efficiency. Hired my first employee (my wife) as a service advisory in July. Put her through a SA course to get caught up. She has been awesome at the front counter. I have now bumped up my productivity numbers and can raise car count. Bottom line, we are on pace to DOUBLE our gross revenue from last year. Very exciting times. We have been looking further ahead and are actually in the process of purchasing a piece of commercial property here in Edgewater to expand into a 4 bay operation. Hoping to close first quarter of next year if all goes well with the environmental inspection. We've brought on private investors who believe in us and our vision and are eager to hop on board as we take our business to the next level. We went to AAPEX earlier this year, took every shop management course we could take to fill our noggins with knowledge. Implementing even more tools and strategies to grow even more. We now have a business coach with RLO. This is so worth it as it will minimize our mistakes as we make this next big step. Bottom line, if you have the drive/vision/determination...you can do this. I may work on cars 10 hours a day, but an additional 6 hours is generally spent before and after the days work to work ON the business. That's how you grow! Read books! I've been reading Dale Carnegie, Michael Gerber, Tom Peters...all great authors on leadership and small business. Stay in the industry! Go to trade shows, read all the industry trade magazines like R+W, Motor, etc. Keep tabs on this forum! We've built a business plan and put together 2 year projections. The numbers look very exciting. During this whole roller coaster I have never really felt overwhelmed or stressed. This is what I want! We have a purpose, and that purpose drives us to succeed. Don't even think about taking that next step unless YOU have that purpose or mission. I'm tired of owning a job. The time and money spent now will pay dividends as we will be able to enjoy life later down the road. All the best, AJ

Yea, freezing temps might be tough. John Pearson, I haven't tested it for that long to know how long it can crank an engine over. So for a no start vehicle that needs repeated turning over, it's hard to say. AJ

I have a JNC blue unit as well. But I also have two of the super small lithium ion battery jump packs. They seriously work and fit in your back pocket! They have been able to jump start a V8 gasser with no issues. Seriously cool. Something like this:

Huh, just tried it on mine and came up. I'd like to see if others are having trouble viewing it? We use the service due to the fact that they are mobile optimized. Let me know if you have troubles viewing it - http://www.nealeyauto.com Thanks! AJ

We use Motologic, Identifix and just signed up for ProDemand. The Motologic is really nice. Genuine OE service data. It isn't reformatted at all. Their wiring diagrams are also really slick. And it's affordable. But I might drop it. Just signed up for Mitchell1 Team Works with Manager SE and ProDemand due to the fact that they are all integrated. I'll work with ProDemand for a bit to get used to it and may drop Motologic in the future. Identifix is a no brainer, couldn't live without it. Also really like iATN. AJ

I use sitebuilder.com, $77 prepaid for one full year. The templates you can use to choose from are sweet and really easy to use. I buy all my domain names from go-daddy. I own almost 40 names that are all forwarded to our site. It's still under development here: http://www.nealeyauto.com AJ

Great thread!!!