Mario

How big is the sign for that price? I had a door to door sales guy show me a few last year but I didn't opt to purchase one. They were in the 3-10k range installed depending on size and how many lines of info was displayed at once.

Are there any proven gas treatments to help prevent this issue? Are catch cans helping?

I rotate engine to make sure valves are closed, and soak in carb cleaner, seafoam etc.. then vacuum it out, scrape any big chunks off valves, repeat, vacuum, and blow out port with an air hose then on to the next valve. Involved process. A blasting media would spead it up a lot but how would you control the mess? I'd also be feaful that a tech may get media in an open valve (just thinking worst case scenario).

Be careful for doing goodwill repairs on vehicles after you sell them if they are as-is. I know in ohio the courts have looked at it as an "implied warranty". Example you sell a 4x4 jeep to a customer and he has loud brakes. You clean up drums and noise goes away. No charge as he just bought it as-is two days ago, but you want a happy customer. Jim Bob takes his jeep wheeling a week later and tears the transmission up in a mud whole. He now expects you to replace the trans in his week old, as-is jeep and tries to use the implied warranty clause against you! You would be surprised by the characters you meet when you start selling cars.

What kind of equipment? My tire supplier often has used machines and balancers and sells their demo equipment as well

4 tires in 20 minutes? I am assuming that is a wheel with no corrosion that doesn't need wire wheeled down? I have an older machine, still takes me about 50-60 minutes to do 4 tires. If I get some bad corroded ones it can take up to 90 minutes.

Is that mount, balance and markup for 100-150?

Erie insurance is very friendly to automotive shops. I have an agent that specializes in auto shop policies. So far I am happy with them (but also have never had to make a claim yet).

What have you done so far?

CARS is a pain in the neck. $60/cap on labor and they price their parts online. If you tell them local is higher they offer to send you the vehicle. They also don't pay diag on most plans.

You don't have issues with the techs stepping into the dug out area where the lift lays in the down position? I could imagine a lot of twisted ankles

Before I opened up, I always worked jobs with my brother and sister. We all 3 worked at the same gas station for over 7 years

Ouch I hope you did not pay cash for them.

Yes lkq is a good company, we buy from them and always purchase the labor warranty. Usually 100-150 extra but great peace of mind for us and customer. Most big yards post their inventory at car-part.com. I check there for most used parts.

Wow. I have never had to warranty a used engine (I know that sounds strange, keeping my fingers crossed still) but I would hope they would stand behind an engine with less then 5k on it. Have you found out why the belt jumped? Once you find out then you can go to either the salvage yard or timing belt manufacture for help. I know my friends shop once had to deal with Gates over a defective waterpump that fried a timing belt. I am not sure how your salvage yards are in your location, but here we always buy the "extended warranty" with used engines. They normally are 1 year warranties that supply you with a new engine and up to so many hours of labor covered up to the cost of the engine. They replace the engines/transmission for any reason, cause is not a concern. You won't make money on a reinstall, but hopefully you can atleast break even and keep a happy customer. I am going to run this by my insurance agent soon to see if we would be covered under this. Like yourself, I have never had an insurance claim and it would irritate me if we had little to no coverage on something like this.

What skill set Flacvabeach? Human interaction is a basic function. If properly managed, your techs should be bringing business INTO your shop. When you hire a tech, you are not only recruiting him/her to join your company, you are bringing along 8-10 FAMILIES of people they know who are going to have their vehicles serviced at your shop. No you don't ask who built your new Ford Pickup, but people do often request a particular barber/cosmetologist, dentist, doctor, waitress/waiter, employee at a landscaping business, etc... Your tech with a business card doesn't have to give a quote. If they are somewhere and somebody mentions they need a vehicle serviced or repaired, it doesn't hurt to say "Hello, I am a technician at (insert business name). Why don't you stop by or give us a call, we can help you with that".

Yes, very professional for a tech or any employee to have their own

People are hesitant because they don't want to feel as if they obligated themselves into a verbal contract with you for service. They are probably gathering information on pricing, warranty, procedure etc... to make an informed decision as a consumer. I do the same thing when I am shopping services. When I had my parking lot installed I would have made a major financial mistake just calling the first few companies I found in the phone book.

Is there a way to save the oil? We do a lot of transmissions. Every once in a while we need to redo a pan gasket, or make an internal adjustment etc... It would be nice to save $80-$100 worth of fluid. We have in the past let a corner loose and filled into a 5 gallon bucket, but debris on the outside of the trans (no matter how much you clean) always finds it's way in there and I pitch the fluid for fresh.

Rent one of those storage cubes. Tell them to go wait in there.

Hire. Partners rarely work out from what I have seen with other shops. If you have the start up money there is little benefit to a partnership.

Some are listed in alldata under the labor guide. Others I have found with a quick google search. Many times a parts diagram with numbers is a top hit on Google. Great for cross referencing those hard to find parts that our suppliers say are "not available" because they don't want to dig a little.

The other shop owner is more then likely mistaken. However, I have seen odd things pushed on auto repair shops/dealers. In my state the used car dealers have to clearly mark a car As-Is or with a full or limited warranty on the window. I had a dealer (one of our frequent customers) sell a used Ford Escape (2003ish) to a customer As-Is. The customer who bought the car compalned months later that the rear shock towers were rusted. These shock towers are covered up by plastic and carpet on the inside. They are not visible from inside or outside the vehicle without disassembly and removal of the plastic componets. The State Att. Gen. Office sent him a threatening letter that if he didn't refund the money for the vehicle they would take legal action against him! After I was told this I jumped on the State AG website and they have a lot of harsh media programs going towards used car dealers. I don't believe the used car dealer did anything legal, and he honestly didn't know about the towers. The vehicle was not inspected by the buyer at a shop before the purchase, and honestly which shop removes plastic panels on an inspection, especially on the rear of the vehicle? I wouldn't throw it past our state AG to threaten a shop owner if they charged "excessively" for auto parts.

If they are OEM parts then I guess it is no different then just buying an OEM part off of Ebay. I just bought a 2008 Kia Rio to sell. Great car but intermittent miss on cylinder 2. Pin pointed it down to the wiring harness on the ignition coils. Local kia dealer want $78 and was a 2 day order. I took the part number online (it was on a tag on the harness) and ebay had one for $26 (brand new, actually several sellers had this wiring harness for sale). I usually don't play around with internet parts (time to deliver, difficulty to return, plus $ to return), but it is a car I am selling, I am not in a hurry for the part, and my margin is already tight on it.

The city of Akron Ohio is proposing zoning changes that will force new tire businesses to have 18,000 square feet of property and to be 100 feet off the road if they want to sell, mount, and balance tires. Akron is not NYC, but still a decent sized city (around 200,000) with a lot of suburbs and close proximity to other cities (Cleveland, Youngstown, Pittsburgh, Canton). It is hard to find a lot available in city limits that is 18k square feet. My business is 30 minutes southwest of Akron and I have a 60x105ft parking lot, a 2400 square foot shop and a separate 550 square foot office/waiting room in front. Still less than 10,000 square feet and my property is considered a good size for the area. Most chain tire shops don't have 18,000 square feet of property. The only ones with property that big are the dealerships. I usually don't put my tin foil hat on, but I told my dad today that I believe somebody with a new car dealership may be asking for favors from city officials to help increase their tire sales by limiting their competition. Northeast Ohio has a lot of small tire shops and they all seem to stick around for years and stay relatively busy. The city my business is in has a lot of on the book rules that make it hard to operate a new auto repair facility. You have to be in an industrial area which limits you to almost no drive by traffic. I am grandfathered into my current location. I wonder if cities and townships in the area will mimic these proposed zoning changes. If something like this passes there are still a lot of questions. What defines a tire shop? Is a repair facility that sells and services tires considered a tire shop? http://www.ohio.com/news/local/akron-may-change-zoning-for-tire-sales-businesses-aiming-to-curb-complaints-council-honors-naacp-president-1.557851