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A woman died and arrived at the Gates of Heaven. While she was waiting for Saint Peter to greet her, she peeked through the gates. She saw a beautiful banquet table. Sitting all around were her parents and all the other people she had loved and who had died before her. They saw her and began calling greetings to her. "Hello - How are you! We've been waiting for you! Good to see you." When Saint Peter came by, the woman said to him, "This is such a wonderful place! How do I get in?" "You have to spell a word," Saint Peter told her. "Which word?" the woman asked. "Love." The woman correctly spelled 'Love', and Saint Peter welcomed her into Heaven. About a year later, Saint Peter came to the woman and asked her to watch the Gates of Heaven for him that day. While the woman was guarding the Gates of Heaven, her husband arrived. I'm surprised to see you," the woman said. "How have you been?" "Oh, I've been doing pretty well since you died," her husband told her. " I married the beautiful young nurse who took care of you while you were ill. And then I won the multi-state lottery. I sold the little house you and I lived in and bought a huge mansion. And my wife and I traveled all around the world. We were on vacation in Cancun and I went water skiing today. I fell and hit my head, and here I am. What a bummer! How do I get in?" "You have to spell a word," the woman told him. "Which word?" her husband asked. " Czechoslovakia ." Moral of the story: Never make a woman angry...There will be Hell to pay later

We have done financing in the past through American General but stop using them after we got GE. The American General process was less convenient but it was at no cost. It was done on a case by case basis through a local office. However, they have changed it up since them. You can check with theim or others such as Height Finance.

Indian Wanting Coffee: An Indian walks into a cafe with a shotgun in one hand pulling a male buffalo with the other. He says to the waiter: "Want coffee." The waiter says, "Sure, Chief. Coming right up." He gets the Indian a tall mug of coffee..... The Indian drinks the coffee down in one gulp, turns and blasts the buffalo with the shotgun, causing parts of the animal to splatter everywhere and then just walks out. The next morning the Indian returns. He has his shotgun in one hand, pulling another male buffalo with the other. He walks up to the counter and says to the waiter: "Want coffee." The waiter says, "Whoa, Tonto! We're still cleaning up your mess from yesterday. What was all that about, anyway?" The Indian smiles and proudly says, "Training for position in United States Congress: Come in, drink coffee, shoot the bull, Leave mess for others to clean up, Disappear for rest of day." VOTE 'EM ALL ALL ALL ALL ALL OUT

Gonzo, how was it in the old days when you were working on those?

Three of the best business people I know have experienced bankruptcy. They have all rose up to fight again. One owned a coal mine and was worth several million dollars ($20-$40,000,000 is my guess). He lost it all due to the local power plant pulling the contract and a strike at the mine due to the union trying to organize. It was brutal and embarrassing. He now has a successful leather goods import business but it has taken him a good 10 years to recover. My Army Ranger service manager was an entrepenuer and experienced a bankruptcy. He was in the mining drilling supply business when the Clean Air Act about shut down high sulfur coal mining here in the Midwest. He closed that business and with a partner went into a Marine business (boats and motors, sales and service). That went well until the partner abscounded with $500,000 (The FBI is still looking for him and he is believed to be in either South or Central America). My service manager was left holding the bag for unpaid bills and UNPAID TAXES. He went bankrupt and then spent 5 years paying off the IRS. Shortly after the bankruptcy when he was trying to decide what to do the manager at the tire shop where his brother worked ask him to change oil for him until he found a job. Greg agreed and started working at $9.00 per hour. The next day the manager came to Greg and asked him if he could put a timing belt in a Toyota Celica. Greg said if he had a book he could do it and he did. After two days he was promoted to a tech with the understanding that his pay would be reviewed after one year if he produced. He produced but the manager reneged and he went to a different shop. Within three years he was a service manager. He had never worked in an auto repair shop before but in a period of 3 1/2 years he rose from oil change boy to service manager and acquired his ASE Master Tech designation. Now I will be more than happy to have him as my partner if we can buy out my inactive partner. Hopeful in a few years I can then sell him the whole business. I will not bore you with my other friend's story but I will say that in 1990 I had no job, only $10,000 in savings, three teenage children, and was a career changer. My wife was earning minimum wage. Five years later I owned a business with seven employees grossing $1,000,000 and I netted $125,000. My point is you can't keep a good man down. Failure is only temporary as long as a man has his brains and health. Nothing can stop a man from eventually succeeding if he has the goods to make it happen in the first place. I am convinced that I could start all over again with nothing and succeed as long as I have my health and God's blessing. I wouldn't want to do it but I believe I could do it. I would not do it in the auto repair business but I think I could do it.

I see! I think the issue is that there are no AutoMD Verfied Shops in your area. In our area we have about 10 Verfied shops and they all show labor rates. http://www.automd.com/shops/search?q=&gsearch=shops&location=47715&make=&sort_by=&page=2

I don't know either but when I went on there yesterday our shop was not listed as Car-x Auto Service but as B&S Auto which is our legal name. Nobody in our town would know who B&S Auto is. Did AutoMD help any with competitors labor rates?

My first thoughts on this is congratulations. This is evidence that you are headed in the right direction. My second thought is have you now lost your air conditioned work place that I was envying when when had a 118 heat index? As far as shop rates are concerned I would look at what I am charging compared to the competition. You can determine this with a few phone calls although AutoMD does show some shop labor rates. The most important thing is to set down and figure what your costs are and how much you will have to have to break even. Figure out how much of your gross sales are parts and how much is labor and from there you should be able to estimate pretty closely how many gross labor dollars you need to turn.

Yes, I have been in that situation before and I will be there again but it is always frustrating when you know you did nothing wrong and the customer is absolutely convinced that you are guilty as sin.

Have you ever had an experience like this one. On Thursday I had a customer come in for a set of tires. It was a 2007 with 245/60/R18's. It came in with a donut spare on one wheel and three slick tires on the others. It also obviously needed an alignment which we sold the customer. He needed to leave our shop by 3:45. The total ticket was about $900 which included a real good price on the Continental tires we installed. However, would you believe that when we finished and tried to start the car to back it off the alignment rack it wouldn't start but just clicked. When we raised the hood we saw the battery was leaking acid. The customer had had no previous problems and didn't want to buy a battery. He probably was looking at what he had already spent and because of that I didn't want to sell him a battery either (even though I know he needed one). Would you believe that nothing we did would get that car to crank. We tried jumping it, charging it then jumping, etc. Finally with the owners permission we installed a new battery but he wasn't happy about it. He didn't say it but I think he believes we did something to cause this. We didn't gouge on the battery we sold him but unfortunately it was a Group 36 reverse post which are expensive. The Interstate MTP-36R which cost us $79.95 was installed for $99.95. This is about $20 less than we normally would charge. However, I would say there was a 50/50 chance at that point in time that we had lost this customer. If that wasn't enough the guy's wife brought the car back in the next day with a dying at stoplight issue which it didn't have before. Now remember I am not a tech but my understanding is that when the battery went dead and the new battery was installed we wiped out the previous information stored in the vehicle's computer. This vehicle had over 100,000 miles and had a dirty throttle body. Before the new battery the computer was compensating for this but now it was set back to normal parameters hence the dying. We cleaned the throttle body and cured the problem. I know this and you know this but the customer doesn't know this. To them we look like the guys who screwed up their battery, sold them a battery they didn't want to buy and caused a running issue they didn't use to have. Why would they want to do business with us again? However, what I understand is in our shop we found a battery that was about to go kaput on them and changed it out before they got stranded somewhere and had to deal with it in a less than favorable circumstance or before it leaked enough acid to require additional repairs. We also cleaned their throttle body at no charge and actually improved the performance of their vehicle. To me I am a good guy because I sold them good tires at a good price, sold them an alignment they badly needed, sold them a battery they needed probably preventing a lot of aggravation or worse, and cleaned their throttle body at no cost. We did all of that for just a few dollars over $1000. We did the very best we could, explained everything, and now think there is probably a 95% possibility that we lost a good customer all because the battery chose that moment in time to die on them. If it had happened anywhere else and at any other time we would still be the good guys. In closing there are two things that I am going to do. First, we will start telling customers that when we do an alignment there is a possibility it may indicate a problem with their battery if it is weak. This is because we have to use a pedal depresser while on the alignment rack which causes the brake lights to burn the whole hour or so they car is being aligned. The other thing I am going to do on Tuesday is to call the cuistomer and see how his car is doing. At that time I am going to tell him that I forgot that there is a free GPS rebate on those Continental tires and that I will send in the paperwork for him and he should have it in 6-8 weeks. Maybe that will help soothe things over.

I think AutoMD is not very friendly to the shops because of some of the things they advocate. They encourage consumers to bring their own parts and they want to sell the consumer parts and have them shipped in. Some of their supposed estimates are extremely low. However, thanks for reminding me because I will register there.

The description here is very similar to the call I received today. It was on a Cadillac Escalade. http://www.bodyshopbusiness.com/Article/69605/ip_relay_scam_calls_still_circulating_throughout_industry.aspx

Gonzo, those type of cars are problems that we will usual not work on unless we are awful slow or have a momentary lapse into insanity. This week we had an old Mercedes come in that that none of the lights worked on since a friend installed a CD player. Although, I have a good automotive electric tech we did the best thing possible. WE SENT HIM TO THE AUTO ELECTRIC SHOP!

Firing someone is never fun. My service manager fired one of our techs yesterday. This was a case of prolonged bad attitude, lack of productivity, and the final straw was insubordination. I didn't enjoy it and now I have to find a replacement.

Have any of you received Relay Operator calls that were scam calls? I have received two of these including one today. Please click these links and read and be warned. Through the years I have fielded some legit relay operator calls but these are a Nigerian type scam. Today's call started about the work we do and what we charge. Before it could get too detail I asked where the car was. I knew that if it wasn't already local than it was a scam call which it turned out to be.

Vaseline A man doing market research knocked on a door and was greeted by a young Woman with three small children running around at her feet. He says, "I'm doing some research for Vaseline. Have you ever used the Product?" She says, "Yes. My husband and I use it all the time." And if you don't mind me asking, what do you use it for?" "We use it for sex." The researcher was a little taken back. "Usually people lie to me and say That they use it on a child's bicycle chain or to help with a gate hinge. But, in fact, I know that most people do use it for sex. I admire you for Your honesty. Since you've been frank so far, can you tell me exactly how You use it for sex?" The woman says, "I don't mind telling you at all. My husband and I put it On the door knob to keep the kids out."

I tell people we may not always be the cheapest but we most likely will never be the highest and most of the time we will be cheaper than the dealer. However, I promise that we will be honest with them and will not sell them something they do not need.

When I read this I couldn't help but think of Gonzo: http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/blog/devil_ball_golf/post/Golfer-s-swing-sparks-25-acre-California-blaze?urn=golf-266447

Have our liberal politicans lost all of their marbles.

If you are married or into horse racing take a look at this:

Now when there is an accident the customer can sue the shop for not checking the tires. Isn't that wonderful. Everyone is on the hook: tire manufacturer, vehicle manufacturer, tire/quick lube/repair shop except the customer. He can drink and drive as was recently the case in Texas and still win a lawsuit.