carbtech72

got a problem child from another shop. 2003 buick park ave 3.8 supercharged. randomly wont start, never stalls, once you shut it off it sometimes wont start. P0300B is the only code. Got it to duplicate the problem and have 55 psi fuel pressure, good spark, good pulse at injectors, crank sensor is registering a signal on datastream. Map sensor reading is 29.83 inHg at sea level. This came from another shop where they gave it new plugs and wires and then ran out of guesses. Im leaning toward a bad crank sensor, ive had one before where it showed up on the scanner datastream but did not fire. Anyone else run across this before

your first two years is going to be getting your name out and weeding out the scumbag, no money customers. It does get better, just stick to it. I wanted to close up during my first year. I think every shop owner has that feeling at first

I was a one man shop for about 2 years. It can be done but it wears you out after a while. Hiring one guy eased a lot of the stress off of me and allowed me to focus more on the business end.

My techs make me money. for them to do it easier they need good tools. if they spend 10-15 minutes on the truck and production slows for that time so be it. My customers are extremely important to me, but having happy, well equipped techs is also important.

I made referral cards and put the customers name on the back of them. New customers get $20 off first visit and customer who referred them gets $20 off their next visit. Its been working pretty good so far.

I have one tech My labor rate is $70/hr and he is paid $25/hr on flat rate. so my gross profit on labor is 64%. My parts mark up is generally 50% over my cost although for small and large items its different. I have pretty low overhead costs so on an average week we do pretty good. haven't got all the whole thing quite working perfect yet but there is always money left over after the end on the month so something is working

when I first opened I had the same problem. Eventually I stopped caring what the mobile guys and backyard scam artists were doing and just focused on my own shop. The screw-ups the cheap guys made I was able to fix and that slowly is building my customer base. And the customers who just want a deal and spend no money, well let the cheap guys have them. Let them be someone elses headache. Just keep your head and spirits up

Well said

I have 2 trucks in my shop. Both owners had big dreams but no money. Both have paid me a few hundred dollars on their bills but now no call backs, wont answer the phone....etc. On the rare chance I do get a hold of either one of them its always the same story, "I don't have any money", "I lost my job", "ill pay you something next week". Its excuses we all have heard before. How long do I have to wait before filing for a lien on their vehicles? Both are approaching 30 days without any payments.

I normally inform the customer that if it doesn't work, I am not one bit responsible. And when their diagnosis turns out to be wrong I offer to diagnose it correctly at a "discounted rate"(its my normal rate, they just think they are getting a deal) It almost always works in my favor. If they complain, I show them where the door is and "have a nice day".

After 2 years of being open and having good growth, I was able to hire my 1st employee. We had worked together before at another shop and he is a fantastic tech, everything you could ask in an employee except for one thing......he complains about everything. From cars, customers, politics, kids, loud cars, Japanese motorcycles... you name it, he gripes about it. He does amazing work, never a comeback, always on time, just a miserable SOB. He has it pretty good here with good pay and flexible hours . I cant afford to lose him but I cant deal with his constant complaining. Any ideas?

no matter who is in the white house, it wont put customers in the doors. Im not worrying about politics and im just going to focus on improving my busniess and how ican serve my customers better. That wont solve the economic crisis but might help soften the blow on this end. Hope everyone is having a busy day

All great replies, thank you. Im assuming that caddy still isn done and im sure ill get call from that customer wanting me to finish it. Thats fine, ill be glad to charge them for fixing the mess and repairing it rigjt. Great site, ive learned alot from it.

I'm sure everyone has had to deal with this so hopefully I can get some advice. How do you compete with these mobile & backyard mechanics. I've been losing so many jobs to them just simply because I can't compete with their prices. Example- a customer called asking for an estimate on replacing his motor on a 1998 cadillac deville. After finding a low mileage used motor with a decent warranty I gave him a price of $2000. He seemed very happy with it and would call me the next day to let me know. He called back a few days later saying he found someone who would do it for $900 and demanded I match his price. After a bit of questioning i found out his other price would be doing it in his backyard, and has never done a northstar motor swap(the subframe,motor,trans has to come out at the same time) I told him I couldn't even get close to it and he went with the cheaper price. So i lost the job. This is almost a daily happening from almost every call I get. How do I get people to see past the ridcliously low price that these backyarders can give and go with a quality repair at a decent price???

saturdays for me always have been hit or miss-mostly miss. Customers mostly come in for oil changes and tire repairs and any real gravy work is always "taken to their mechanic". I dont advertise oil change specials and dont even want to do them but a chance to make money is better than no chance. Lately i've been doing saturdays by appointment only but aways being at the shop on sat to finish up something, paperwork, cleaning up, or repairing broken equipment.I've tried everything from discounts on their estimate if they fix it today, loaner car if they have things to do, staying open late if they want to bring it back. Nothing seems to work.it really just doesnt seem worth it

what is the best way to mark up parts. When i worked for someone else i always went by the list price and cost price. But now that im on my own. I'm not sure what way to do it. So many people call autozone and advanced so i have to hear "they only charge me this price". I want to keep my customers happy but i need to make a living as well

greetings This is Mark of Coastal Carburetor in Summerville South carolina.I just took the plunge and opened my own shop after 20+years of watching me make other people money. My busniess is obviously auto repair and i also rebuild and restore carburetors. i know, carbs went out along time ago and they're a dinosaur but there are still alot out there. I'm just a 1 man operation right now, but hopefully will grow in time. I found this website by accident but i see its a HUGE wealth of knowledge on here and should be a valuable resource.

personally, i would have talked to the customer, informed them that my shop didn't break that windshield but i would replace for her to keep her happy and want to continue doing busniess together. And down the road make sure i got that windshield cost back