xrac

Just wanted to mention that you can advertise a job on this website for free until December 31, 2015. After that it costs $25 for two months for an ad. http://autoservicejobs.com/

I suspect this will give me even more reason to dislike AutoZone.

Any of you guys participate in this or have to deal with it in your area? https://www.openbay.com/

I am not suggesting that the PCM be replaced but it should be tested.

We recently saw a 2002 Ford Windstar with a misfire where an injector was losing pulse due to the PCM. I am not a technican just an owner but I would suspect the PCM. I suspect your specialist may not be as special as you think. Did he tell you why it needed a new engine?

Our local Carquest has professional counter people. They are very good. The Advance store us staffed by amateurs in comparison. We do not do much business with dither store.

Man you are on a roll. You have 20 posts and 24 likes. That has to be some kind of record.

There is no doubt that this is the site for shop owners. From the content of your post I think you are someone many of us can learn from and a great addition.

I love that story. Glad you joined the forum.

Great idea!

Amen! Happy Holiday to all! We are having a family gathering tomorrow.

. I am very lucky because she is still one good looking lady.

The missus and I will celebrate 42 years of matrimony on Tuesday.

I have three different business valuation forumlas in excel file format. I do not seem to be able to post that type of file as an attachment but I can email them should anyone be interested.

You are approaching a midlife crisis type place and despite what some people say I think these experiences are real. It is the age that people quit jobs, go back to college, start businesses, dump wives, buy Harleys and ride off into the sun set. At the age of 38 I went through some experiences which saw me move from being a full type church pastor which I had done for 15 years into the business world. I was 38 with a wife and three kids all near teenage years and the only thing I had was a little savings ($15K) but fortunately no debt. I had a friend who offered me two weeks worth of work at $6 an hour in a fledgling environmental business. Within three years I had started my own environmental engineering/consulting business and my second full year in business I grossed over $1,000,000 and had seven employees. That business produced enough income to buy a Car-x franchise as an investment and 16 years later I still operate it although the environmental business is defunct. Personally I have had about three major and two minor careers. How about this for a PEDIGREE: USDA civil servant, ordained church pastor, environmental engineer/consultat, financial planner/insurance salesman, and auto repair business owner/manager and I have been moderately successful at all of them. If I had stayed with USDA I would be retired with a fat pension and nice benefits but one thing I can say about my life is it has not been boring. I think we all get a little tired when we do the same job for long periods of time. If you listen to Gonzo I think you can tell he has ran a shop long enough that he would like to hang that up and do nothing but write, speak, and train. Have you noticed that Joe gets away from the business on a fairly regular basis and also is away leading training. If what you are doing now is not your passion you may want to honestly and carefully evaluate yourself and your interests and explore other possibilities. I would have heart to heart talks with a few people whose judgement I trust. All you may need to do is figure out how to rekindle yourself within your present business. I highly advise reading the E-Myth if you haven't already.

How about the Hemis with 16 resistor plugs to change ever 30k.

All good points! Thanks. The best thing that ever happened to our shop was when I got rid of cheap oil changes and lost my bottom feeders.

No recommendations but we have some we just purchased. We shall see how they work out. I bought these at some recommendation of a techie.

If a woodchuck is the same thing as a groundhog around here we call them varmits. Groundhogs/woodchucks can be captured or killed year-round without a permit or hunting or trapping license from the DNR, and there are no limits to the number that can be taken.

Any opinions on what is the best used oil heater? If you use used oil how much do you burn in a winter? How much oil did you burn last year in Atlanta?

We try to avoid really old stuff. Say early 90's Euro and mid 80's domestic. I passed on a 1980 Vanawagon this week.

Same here but it will change at some point.

I personally think it is a good decision.