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God rest ye merry GENTLEMEN (and gentle ladies if we have any on this board) from the bottom of my heart. I received an early Christmas present yesterday. My newest grandson, Grayson Matthew Jones, was born at 10:50 a.m. EST in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He weight 7 lbs. 12 ozs. He is my ninth (9th) grandchild. Talking about starting to feel old! I have had two grandsons born in less than six weeks. Alex, I know that you will think often of your father during the holiday. My prayer for you is that you will be filled with wonderful uplifting memories of him.

We reuse the exisiting valve stems unless one is frozen. Then we sell replacements. Joe, your way is probably a better approach but so many tires are now so expensive it makes a tire sale really expensive. Joe, how much tire business do you do?

Some men are true male chauvainist pigs who think all women are stupid about anything mechanical or technical.

Castrol makes a multi-vehcile import transmission fluid that says it is suitable for Honda's on the can. What about that fluid?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz0BbIGbCCM

http://homosrus.com/drawpig.html

I think it is your company. Office personal are office personal unless they work on cars. Talk to your agent or underwriting with the company. Maybe change companies.

Welcome Danny! I have been reading some of your stuff. How did you find us?

Gravysuckinpig is correct in that the first thing anyone should do that is bootstrapping their way up is to conserve cash. Weigh every expenditure and make certain that it is needed. However, do not shortchange yourself on purchases that are essential, that will quickly pay for themselves, or that will make you more effecient. I bootstrapped my first business (consulting/contracting) up out of the bedroom of my house but I wasn't working on cars. When I got into the autorepair business it was different: new building, new equipment, inventory, new employees. We were $700,000 in debt and I new nothing about auto repair. How is that for scary or maybe stupid? It was a long hard road but we succeeded.

Doesn't work but here it is: http://autorepairmoney.com/

We use to have a gentlemen who came into our shop who was present and station at Pearl Harbor when the attack occured. The last time I saw this gentleman he was in his early 90's. I don't know if he is still living our not but he was fun to talk to. He was on a submarine duing the war and lived to come home. God bless him and all of the men who served and/or died.

I had a guy who came in yesterday with a Chevy truck with high idle. He told me he had paid some guy $200 to fix it but it was still idling the same and he had been told we could tell him what was wrong with it. He was probably sent to us by the Zone. We get quite a few of them from there but I think he though we did "free diagnosis". Evidentlly he wanted us to tell him what was wrong with it so he could go back to the guy who hadn't fixed it. Evidently he though we would do that for nothing. He was all gung hoe on us looking at it until I told him that our base diagnosis was $46.80. He than began to talk about when he would have time for us to look at it and he would get back to us. My thoughts are he has already spent $200, he may damage additional parts driving it with the running problem he has, he is burning a lot of gas that ain't cheap, and he is probably carboning a lot of stuff up but he doesn't see the value of paying someone who knows what they are doing to tell him what is really wrong. To my way of thinking thsat is DUMB. I just laughed to myself when he left and thought that my car will run great on the way home tonight.

Celibacy can be a choice in life or a condition imposed by circumstances. While attending a Marriage Weekend, my wife and I listened to the instructor declare, "It is essential that husbands and wives know the things that are important to each other." He then addressed the men, "Can you name and describe your wife's favorite flower?" I leaned over, touched my wife's hand gently, and whispered, "Gold Medal All-Purpose, isn't it?" And, thus began my introduction to celibacy....

Too funny. There are some customers you would like to tell this to.

Joe, we have a many shops that are not that are of fairly recent origin that are invariably started and operated up by a technician who does not know or understand the true cost of doing business but they are great at fixing cars. Recently a guy here locally was boasting in the paper of having a shop labor rate of $45.00 per hours. This guy does not understand the business yet and may never. These shops invariably are hurting for cash and they keep cutting their own throat by low balling work because they are afraid they will lose the business and they desperately need cash flow. The other problem is service managers who do not understand how much time, expertise, and tools it takes to diagnose some of these vehciles. Often in these situations the tech is being paid by some type of commission or flat rate structure that causes the technican to be short changed. The bottom line is everyone loses when we give away our time. What the DIY has to learn is that those free scans are causing them to buy a lot of parts and spending a lot of time changing out things that are not the problem. Saturday we had one of those guys. He had changed a MAF because of a scan but his car ran the same. After talking to this guy we figrure the guy has either trouble from the BOSCH sparkplugs that Zone sold him or a vacuum leak or a combination of both. This guy is reluctant to spend the $46 we would have charged to diagnose it but he doesn't get the fact that he is putting stuff on his car he doesn't need or that is unsuitable for his vehicle. There are thousands of people out there driving vehicles that will never run properly that have actually spent more money on those cars trying to fix the problem than if they would have taken it to a professional and had a properly repair done the first time but they still don't get it.

At the start of the year we established an account which was funded by selling scrap metals we accumulated and money from a coke machine we bought that we now own. We accumulated money throughout the year and than divided it among the guys based upon how many months they were with us during the year. It worked out well. They were all happy and it was no out of pocket for the shop. Before this year I had always gave gift cards (Walmart, Gander Mountian, Snapon, etc.).

Alex, I am so sorry to hear of your lose. Your father was too young but I also lost my mother when she was 64. Alex take comfort that your father was a good man who also served his country. Be thankful for the years you had and the good memories. I loved my father but he was a very troubled soul who inflicted a lot of hurt on myself and my three siblings for no reason.

All I can say Gonzo is that your dash lights work when you drive home. Was this guy an Indian and Pakistanis doctor? Not to sound prejudiced but they are real bad about not wanting to pay for stuff. It must be a cultural thing.

In this business you have to be good or have the ability to hire good people. People like yourself or the former and I am the later. You get me much beyond changing oil and I am done but I have got guys working for me who can fix about anything.

Good story Gonzo! *****