xrac

Only Gonzo gets customers like that although I got a woman once who thought I replaced one of her tires with a different tire. I had to call the police on that one.

As a general rule we do not do it. However, recently I felt sorry for a guy. He had got the old fuel pump out but couldn't get the new one in. I padded labor and shot a price and forgot it. Three weeks later the car showed up what a junker and to top it off he had a used fuel pump. We put it in only to find out the problem wasn't the fuel pump but a locked up engine. This is the mind of stuff you get into with customer supplied parts. They paid the bill and towed it back home but this çould have been a big headache.

How about a 200k club.

I have a young guy who could probably be a pretty good tech except for one thing. He moves like dead lice are falling off him. He does good work but he is slow as mollasses and stands around every chance he gets. I am now looking for a replacement.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9FCxuVSkT7k

I did a demo but it did not seem to be the best choice for our shop. I believe there are better programs out there.

WElcome! I am down south in Indiana also.

You would starve to death here where I am at. We have a low population of hybrids.

I know a guy who has done exactly what you are talking about for over 30 years. He has made a great living and has an excellent reputation. I talked to him about hiring him 16 years ago and at that time is was clearing over $50K.

We have successful used the rebuilders for a couple of vehicles.

Parts mark up is one issue but this woman didn't want anyone who looked up labor in a book. She wanted someone who knew how much time any repair would take, Maybe I should have told her we don't use a book (we're on line).

Branick here. No experience with OTC.

Around our place new comers get hung with some type of nickname.

No matter his long you gave been in business your business is always susceptible to unexpected swings both up and down.

I have used Aaramark, Cintas, and Unifirst at different times. Here is a word of advice. Beware of uniform company contracts and discontinuance provisions. They can be onerous.

W2

What you have addressed is a big problem. I had almost rather pass those headaches on to someone else rather than to spend hours and wind up with a pissed off customer. I may get paid for my diagnostic time but I lose a customer. We had an Infiniti QX56 last week with problems that we probably could have diagnosed but we have been down the road with a couple of these recently for the used car dealer up the street so we recommended it go to the dealer. My Service Manager and I judged the risk/reward ratio to be out of balance on this one. This is having just completed a diagnosis on one of these that we believed is correct but the part were over $1500 and the system then had to be reprogramed by Infiniti. It caused us to recommend that the car dealer go to the dealer. Some repairs are so complicated and expensive that I would rather pass than stick my neck out. Especially since the closest Infiniti dealer is 130 miles away. I could see us sinking a lot of unpaid time into this. We had another QX56 that was almost haunted with multiple problems that was constantly developing new problems. The car lot decided to run this car back through the auction. Some older cars we will not work on, not because we are not capable but you will fix one problem to discover 3 more. These people usually don't have money, the car has been all shade tree mechaniced up, and you cannot find parts because it is so old. These I refer to other shops.

Ours is a traditional round tank that I got for free. However I like the square tanks much better. You can actually stack bottle oil, filter wrenches, funnels, drain pans, etc. on top of them so it saves space.

Today what sounded like an older woman called. She was nice enough and said not to get mad at what she was going to ask so she had evidently called other shops and had gotten some less than nice answers. First she told me she was looking to find a shop that wouldn't use book labor but would just look at her car and tell her a flat labor cost to do a job. Second she wanted a shop that would not put any markup on parts. My gut said this was a customer I didn't want so here is what I told her, "Not Our Shop". What this poor lady doesn't understand is that someone who will work like this probably works under the shade tree, has few tools and no serious diagnostic tools. Won't stand behind their work and has no access to tools like Identifix or Mitchell than can sometimes be priceless. If she finds otherwise she will be very fortunate.

We have a 300 gallon tank and sell our used oil. I think it is bringing $1.20 per gallon.

100k cars per day is no good if they are only traveling through at 45mph or faster. If you are not at a destination like a shopping center or some place they want to stop they will buzz on by and never pay any attention to you.

Jeff, I totally agree. We should never, never run down another shop. It is amazing to me the shops that bad mouth other shops. In the long run it hurts the whole industry.

Service and parts availability are why I use Rotary. WE have been open 15 years and have 7 lifts and have had almost no problems except for hydraulics on the 4 posts and rolling jacks and a freak failure on a two post.

Gonzo, they have a chip on their shoulder because they watched about it on the internet and they have to be right.

Recently, I received a call from one of our members interested in finding out more about my problem with this lift. I was suppose to call back but lost the info. Can you please contact me again. Sorry!