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Six Tires No Plan is a great read. The Emyth books are all about the same. Just read either The E-Myth : Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It Paperback 1990 by Michael E. Gerber (Author) or the E-myth Revisited. A great book on sales in my opinion is You Can't Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar : The Sandler Sales Institute's 7-Step System for Successful Selling.

Everyone should especially read the Emyth.

I would say it is the perks of living in Alaska!

Faithful older long time customer comes in who always fixes everything we find. Besides the one ball joint we know we are going to fix we also find a locked up from front brake caliper. Brakes, ball joint, and sway bar links pushed total to over $800. He decides he don't want to put that money into the old car. He sold the car the next day to one of my techs for $800. If it had been just the balljoint we would have been o.k. We did such a good job inspecting that we condemned the car for him.

The problem above was due to the rotors on the truck being incorrect and being smaller than the the oem rotors. Evidently the parts store gave them rotors for a lighter duty truck when this was heavier duty. The pads were correct but they over hung the rotor and so the edge of the pad never made contact with the rotor. It must have made a lot of noise.

Good article! Thanks for sharing!

Has anyone ever seen something like this? It was a new one for me. We took these pads off a Chevy truck last week. Can you figure out from the wear what was wrong?

We had one of those got it done cheaper jobs towed in today. It was a 2002 Expedition 5.4 running on 6 cylinders. Two spark plugs were blown out and on a different cylinder a coil was melted. When we got to talking to the guy this was the story that we got. The vehicle quit on him about a week ago and he had it towed to a "mechanic" (I use that term loosely). The guy told him that it had a hole in a piston and needed an engine. He quoted him $1200 parts and labor (the cheapest engine on Ebay is $725) to install a used engine. It just happened that his buddy had a truck with an engine in it. The customer was there the next day in evening at about 7:00 p.m. There was no engine there and nothing had been done to his Expedition. The customer came back the next morning at 8:00 and the guy was claiming that he was just finishing up after working all night. The book time to do this job is 15 hours which doesn't include pulling the engine from another vehicle which this guy was suppose to have done. By himself in his driveway with no lift and no power tools this backyard magician had knocked out a job that in our shop would probably take at least three days with a lift and power tools not inlcuding the time to pull the engine from the other vehicle. Now it was in our shop with issues. We found that two cylinders had blown out spark plugs and had to be heilicoiled and two coils had to be replaced. The spark plugs that were blown out had both been held in with JB Weld. The only two spark plugs that I saw were not the same either. One was a regular resistor plug and the other was a double platinum. There was no way this engine was ever removed from the car. My guess is when the guy thought he had engine failure that the spark plugs may have actually blown out of the cylinder head then. This clown mechanic was also suppose to have tuned it up a few weeks back so he may have contributed to the more recent problems. This "mechanic guy" JB Welded them back in and collected $1200. Not only is he not a very good "mechanic" but he is also not a very good liar.

Just found the right provider. They also supply my equipment. Just got my new chipped card machine but have to get it hooked up. We are going from phone line to ethernet cable internet hookup. If interested PM me and I will send contact info.

I don't.

$58,404 charged in March cost me $908.45. That is about 1.56% total cost and no contract.

Thank you Joe and happy Thanksgiving.

Harry, we are feeling and seeing some of the same things. Sales have been down this year and we have had some really slow days this fall. I am seeing more people who canot afford to fix their cars then I have in a long time. I am expecting bad econmic news.

Have you had to replace the battery?

Being that close to headquarters would certainly be attractive.

Maybe it does but December is usually one of our slower months so the pace is often less rushed. Our slowest months are usually November, December, January.

Tonight I am taking all of our crew to the Log Inn for a delicious family style set down meal. This is my crews all time favorite when it comes to food. Afterwards we pass out Christmas bonuses early so they can take advantage of black Friday sales. One of the oldest original inn and stage coach stops in the United States, the Log Inn was built in 1825. Log Inn 1869 – Courtesy Rick Brown Stagecoach Line In the 1840’s the Log Inn was one of the main stage coach stops between Evansville and Vincennes. The first established road north of Evansville was built to the John Withrow farm near Warrenton, in 1811. In 1822 a state road was commissioned to be built between Evansville and Terre Haute. The first stage coach started running between Evansville and Vincennes in 1824. Southbound Schedule Northbound Schedule Vincennes Out 8:00 AM Wed. Evansville Out 8:00 AM Sat. Princeton In 5:00 PM Wed. Princeton In 5:00 PM Sat. Princeton Out 5:00 AM Thurs. Princeton Out 8:00 AM Sun. Evansville In 5:00 PM Thurs. Vincennes In 5:00 PM Sun. *Schedule based on good weather. Abraham Lincoln Stopped Here Abraham Lincoln stopped here in November 1844 en route back home from Evansville. He was on a campaign tour speaking for “Clay for President” on the Clay Whig party ticket. Lincoln’s trip included stops in Vincennes, Washington, Gentryville, and visited his mother’s grave which is now a national shrine. This was the only time he ever visited his mother’s grave after moving to Illinois. After visiting his mother’s grave, Lincoln went on to Rockport, and Evansville, where on October 31st, he attended a meeting in the courthouse before taking the stagecoach back home.

I gave up on jump boxes. Mine all died way too soon. I built my own with a little dolly fitted it with jumper cables and a battery connection on the floor end. I put a stock battery on it and swap it out every few weeks.

Or the ones you find are 7 or 8 years old and dry rotted.

Most of the used tire guys here sell stuff that I wouldn't sell. The problem with selling used tires is finding enough serviceable used tires especially in 15".

Have you ever had to have it repaired and if so how readily available is it?

We also use both Alldata and Identifix. owever, I am beginning to question the cost of Identifix.

I don't see why you couldn't although I find Identifix to be slower for me to navigate as far as labor. However, Identifix has really nice wiring diagrams.