xrac

I have done a lot if business with O'Reilly. The two things I dislike is first they are usually higher than anyone else unless I get them to price match. They wil always price match but who wants to do this every time. Second they are as cheap to the man on the street who buys $100 from than as to me if I buy $5k a month.

Welcome to the forum. There are a couple of regular posters from Indiana. This is a great site with really valuable information. We have some very sharp operators here. I am down south in Evansville.

That one book seems to be only available at an extremely high price.

The area sales manager told me today the the local Advance stores have quit pulling codes on customers cars. He also hinted at the fact that the merger has not produced more business and that most of the Carquest business is falling away. At least this is a step in the right direction in my opinion.

We can buy brake parts direct but the inventory management and order size required has made it nit worth while. You can get a lot if money tied up in inventory and obsolete inventory.

Exactly my feelings.

I will pass it along to them.

My brother-in-law did that with his wife's Corolla with the same results.

To my way of thinking there would actually be less risk in financing higher margin business (i.e. repairs) than tires. On a $500 set of tires you will probably make less than $150 and the out of pocket costs may be $350. It will be an easy way to get a lot of money at risk.

All your points are well taken. However, as long as we have the moonlighters and start up shops who charge $40-$50 per hour and do not markup parts. How will it ever occur. Here is a example of the kind of things that eat into our business and margins. This is an Evansville Craigslist ad cosen from among many: IM A ASE MASTER CERTIFIED AUTOMOTIVE MECHANIC CERTIFICATES TO SHOW I AM ASE CERT IN SMALL :MEDIUM AND LARGE SEMIS AND TRAILERS AS WELL AS SMALL PASSENGER CAR TRUCK AND SUV REPAIR AS WELL AS BIO-FUELED POWERED ENGINES INCLUDING BRAKES ENGINE REBUILDS TRANSMISSION REBUILD FRONT END REBUILDS AND REAR END REBUILDS AND 2 TO 4 WHEEL ALIGNMENTS ON PASSENGER {REGULAR PEOPLES EVERYDAY VEHICLES} CARS FARM EQUIPMENT AND DIESEL TRUCKS {SEMIS} AND EXPERIENCED ALSO IN MAJOR MOTOR MODIFICATION AND HIGH PERFORMANCE MOTOR AND TRANSMISSION BUILD FROM SCRATCH NO JOB TO LARGE OR SMALL IF YOU NEED IT FIXED OR DIAGNOSED AND REPAIRED CALL show contact info MONDAY THRU SUNDAY THANK WE GIVE PARTS AT OUR COST WHICH IS WHOLESALE NOT AT LIST PRICE WHICH IS DOUBLE WHOLESALE AND UNLIKE ALL OTHER SHOPS WE DONT SELL PARTS AT LIST PLUS 3-7 PERCENT MARK UP ALSO SO WE SAVE YOU ALOT ON PARTS ALONE I ALSO GIVE GREAT DEALS IF U HAVE MORE THAN ONE VEHICLE THAT NEEDS REPAIRS.. AND WE ALSO DO 24/7 ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE THANK YOU AND HAVE A GOD BLESSED DAY

All indications to me is that Advanced has basically dismantled Carquest.

Good point. Otherwise you will probably lose the chargeback with Amex. They usually go with the consumer. Then you have to take it to small claims. This happened to me and I won in court. But it was a long process and cost me about half of what I collected.

America kids have been taught that college is the cure all and no one should have to work hard especially with their hands. They all want white collar jobs that start out paying $50k per year. There is a dearth of candidates for all types of blue collar jibs.

Sounds like us installing interlock devices. We took the contract on thinking it would generate some dollars and maybe some new customers. Turned out to be too big a headache with too few dollars for the amount of time required to install and service. Wasn't a bad source of customers. We picked up 3-4 good ones but there were a lot of lost causes too.

Find adequate help is problem number one and growing worse.

I close out most tickets by the end of the week whether picked up or not so my techs can get paid on their production.

Got a 1 star review on Goggle posted at 2:00 am today. Pretty horrible service. They will rip you off in a heartbeat & laugh about it. Never trust these people with your car, and if you do expect to pay way more for parts & labor. And if your lucky enough that might even fix your car. That's if your lucky. Funny thing is I have no record of anyone by the name or even the last name in the last year. No knowledge of anything and the review is just general with no specifics. Don't know what it is or why????????

Our top three suppliers are as follows: 1)NAPA 2)OReilly 3)Local Bumper to Bumper Warehouse also the ACDelco distributor.

Is this you?

I have a good long term customer relocating to Casselberry, Florida who will be looking for a shop in the area that they can trust. Anyone located near there?

Our Oreillys has a dedicated commercial person.

As far as I am concerrned Advance is not a serious player in our town for the DIFM market.

Elite is correct on this. While a lot of businesses do it it is a violation of the agreement and subject to action by the card company. Read the fine print. However, it is permissible to offer a discount for cash.

Why replace a perfectly good tire?

The words of this old song from Hee Haw sum up my experience in trying to hire help this year. Since the first of the year we have been looking and I have never experienced the difficulty that I have had. Here is what has happened: Found two likely candidates with one a stronger prospect than the other. Thought we had hired the more experience technician and agreed to a start date. The guy never showed up and never called back. Then tried to hire the second guy and he had already taken another job. Hired a young guy for our apprentice program. He had a technical school degree and experience in the military. He started out like a rocket but about a month in started to get lippy. Had to let him go for being mouthy and for not controlling his temper. Two weeks ago found another experienced guy. Was checking references and called an old employer for a reference. Instead of calling me back when they found the guy was available they called him and hired him out from under me. Found another young guy with good references, schooling, and some experience. He agreed to start last Monday. He called us Friday before last and told us that he had found his dad dead. We told him to take the week off and plan on starting tomorrow instead. He called me Friday to tell me that his mother was taking the lose of his father very hard and that he and his wife had decided that they had better move back to his home town (200 miles away) to be near her. The worst thing is I need at least one technician really bad and would hire two if I found them.