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Do you mean something like this happened? This lift was only 5-6 years old.

Welcome!

The people with old car restoration and old hot rods are the worse customers of all.

I have never had one apply that I thought was worth hiring.

Gonzo if you had your head far enough under the dash and the backside high enough up in the air anal might have been a good description. What this guy was looking for was a McDonalds drive through auto electric shop.

Two places that I do business with that have warehouses in Nashville are ATD and TCI. ATD is the largest independent tire wholesaler in the nation. http://atd-us.com/ TCI is owned by Michelin. http://www.tirecenters.com/ Both of these warehouse run trucks to our town everyday. They are both good sources of a lot of brands. There are probably others in Nashville. There is also Ben Tire a wholesaler with a warehouse in Hopkinsville, KY who delivers to Nashville. http://www.bentire.com/. I will put you in touch with them.

Joe, have you ever had a woman tech?

Be sure to install an exhaust system to allow you to be able to run vehicles indoors during cold months. Tow trunks can pull right into our shop and off load a vehicles and we push them in the bay. Our bays are set at and angle.

The second floor loft is also a great space for storage and inventory. We warehouse our tires on a second floor loft over the office, restrooms, and brake area. If I ever build another shop I will have a lift capable of handling slightly larger vehicles. Currently a 3500 dually is our limit.

My overall feeling is not good.

Our shop has one entrance and exit. We were forced to build in that fashion due to our commercial subdivsion rules. I didn't like it because I thought it was more expensive just like you do. However, there are some advantages. 1. First there is much less heat loss than with doors on every bay. Our utility bill is about the same year round. It doesn't costs me much more to heat our shop in the winter (gas) than it does to cool the office area in the summer. 2. The other thing is that overhead doors can be expensive to install and maintain. In the twelve years we have been open we have spent quite a bit on door maintenace and have even had to replace one door. I would hate to see the cost if I had six or eight doors. 3. We have a lot of room to bring cars in at the end of the day. We park almost every thing inside. 4. Our shop has seven bays but there times that we are working on another 2-3 other cars in our drive through area. It is wide enough to do that. I have even toyed with buying a roll around sissor lift to use in this area. If I ever build another building I will have one way in and one way but it will be ten feet wider than I am now.

How many bays do you intend to have? Will you have overhead doors for indiividual bays or one main entrace and exit? My advice would be to go and visit as many shops as possible and pick up as many ideas as possible.

What you would do is offer some service at 50% off. Say a oil change and tire rotation a possible $50 value for $25. Groupon gets $12.50 and you get $12.50. You basically lose money on your offering to get customers in the door. It is a way to drive business fast but not something that I think I want to do.

Gonzo, I love this story! This is a homerun in my book.

This point has helped me. I have been writing down exactly what the customer says and I have stopped putting down what I think.

Mine is from the overall profit.

Some people are nuts.

Do you think I should buy a legal copy? :blink: JUST KIDDING!

Ain't that the truth. I am sorry Mrs. Busey!

I have never used it. We have a new Coats 1000D.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Joe, this is a very good point. I have missed some stuff by not writing down exactly what thje customer said but by doing what you stated. We should state the facts and the concerns and let the technician decide.

I wrote an entire post that ain't there?????????????????? What happened?????????????? Here is what I tried to say: We have one of those vehicles at our shop right now. He owner had a friend parts changer throw parts at it to fix a running problem. What we did was replace a cheap Autozone distributor cap with an AC Delco cap. It seems to have fixed the problem but we are going to hang on to the vehicle until it rains to be certain because that is the only time that it acts up. That is another weakness of parts changers. If they get a bad new part they do not have the expertise to diagnose the vehicle and they will keep throwing parts at them. They have a high potential for bad electrical parts if they are buying the cheaper lines at Auto Zone or Advance. Sometime back we had a guy with a Ford truck who had finally given up. When he tolded us everything he had changed I totalled up about $450 worth of parts, not counting all of the gas he burned running to the parts store, and that is putting no value on his time. He was running to Auto Zone and they were scanning codes and selling him parts. He finally gave up and came to us. Within 5 minutes we knew what was wrong and fixed his truckl for $50.00. I never saw a man more stunned in my life. If these parts changers would figure the cost of parts installed that they didn't need, the gasoline they burn, and the hours spent they would find out that they don't save a thing over professional repairs.

Good for you! You are absolutely on track!