DUFRESNES

This is what we do, whether it is right or wrong. We pay 8 hours for a holiday to everybody (6 of them). The flat rate mechanics are based on their previous year average hour. The service writer is based on his average hourly wage (he is on straight commission). The hourly people get their regular hourly pay. If the holiday falls on their day off, they get the day off and get paid. This Thanksgiving we were off Thursday through Sunday. They don't get paid for the extra days just the regular holiday. Salaried employees get full salary. My question to the group is: If a service writer is off for any reason, say 2 days, how do you handle it? He is on commission only. So when he is off, either myself or someone else has to service write.

It seems to me, if you have had a I phone, you probably want to stay with it. If you have had a droid, you will want the new Razr. I can't wait until January to get mine. I love the droid but the new razr has so much more and it built much better. Check it out..

I use list lady for my lists. She will NCOA your list for about $25.00 that will bring it up todate. Here is her e-mail [email protected] . Tell Her Nancy Scheewe referred you. She is really easy to work with and will help you get a good list. The least expensive way for new customers we use 3 zipcodes and then clean out the addresses that are too far away. We then cleanse it against our list and send 3 mailings about 2 weeks apart. We track them so we can see if it is worth the money.

Because we live in the hills, we use only really good pads. We haven't had any problems since switching a few years ago. Not sure I can mention the manufacturer that we use here or not.

Thanks for the info. What do you mean about the Amazon Kindle Fire being a hack job. I think you are right about waiting until Black Friday

Several of us are looking for a tablet. We are totally confused. We are looking for one that doesn't have to have a data plan. I can always hook my smart phone to the tablet with an APP like I do for my laptop. I have tried comparing them on the internet, but now more than ever confused.

That is a great idea. Did Hunter install or did you have someone else. Thanks for the info.

Joe, I agree whole heartedly with you about charging for diagnostics. If you believe in your techs and equipment, you can sell diagnostics. I draw a picture for new customers for check engine lights. Then off each code, I draw four branches, down to 2 to finally get the fix. We do not deduct the diagnostic charges. What do the people do that say they include it in the price of the fix, when the person says Thank you and walks out. How do you pay your technician. Our techs would rebel, if they didn't get paid for diagnostics. Not sure if I can post here what are charges are for 1st step and pinpoint tests

We are looking to purchase a new alignment center. We now have a John Bean Visualiner 3-D. It has served us well and is working fine. I think it is time to get one that does it faster to be more efficent. Thank you for all your suggestions that I know you will tell me. Please also tell me how long it takes to do a standard alignment.

So did I. I hardly ever listen to You Tubes, but this one I played it 3 times and sent it. Thanks

I just copied and sent to my e-mail friends. This is great.

With our management program, it shows all the prices of the different suppliers as long as you have it programmed to show them.

I hope everybody remembers this when it is time to vote. Have you heard that after the election there will be a 1% on all bank transactions, deposits, checks written and or transfers. They don't want to put this in until after the election. Also there is a 3% tax if you sell your house. This is attached to the health bill, so haven't heard if this one is definite. On a $400K sale, it will be $12,000. Make sure your vote counts this time around.

Ok guys. First of all I love this forum. You have to ask yourself why are Saturdays not working. Is it the Service Advisor? The Owner? Attitude is everything. If you believe it will work, it does. If you don't believe it will work, it will fail. 1st of all everything begins with an oil change. We do a 70 point inspection on all cars. Then we prioritize it for the customer with safety always 1st, then maintenance. Our customers like us to be proactive instead of them breaking down somewhere. Yes, there are customers that won't do anything until it is broke, but this is not the normal. We take appointments only, unless we aren't busy and someone walks in. We have an online appointment scheduling, which works great. If we are too busy, we can close it. On the subject of adding other profit ceners to auto repair. I am all for it. We have a drive through Espresso. We have propane for barbecues. These are add ons, don't make a lot of profit but round out the picture. We have a gal that mans the Espresso, but she also is a CSR person and has many hats.

We also had 2005 GMC Yukon. When it came in it was making a horrible noise, scanned computer and retrieved PO300 random multiple misfires. Live data showed intermittent misfires on 4 & 5 &6 pulled plugs, wires corrosion on the wires, rec: plugs and wires, vehicle was very salt corroded. Engine oil full and proper, oil pressure was good. Engine noise was consistant with RPM and gear change. Best guess was flexplate is cracked. We would have to disassemble to be sure. After repairs it was nice and quite with 2 mounting ears on the bell housing cracked and broken due to rust and may have previous work, no codes and none pending. He stopped by about a month later. It was making some noises. We suggested he take it to our Trasmission shop, we use. He did and the owner called us and said the the flex plate was broken again. He did the repair and we paid him. When I went and picked up the flex plate to turn into for a defective part, it was a disaster cracked all over and broken. No one here had ever seen anything like it except for racing or reving up and dropping it into gear. The transmission shop said they could not find anything we had done improperly. He said there had been an updated one from the dealer. I feel it is going to happen again, don't know.

Our European Technician came and said he was taking the summer off to work on his house and go Opal mining. Go figure. I put an ad in Craigs List and in our State Employment office. We pay more than anyone in our area and better benefits. I had 3 people call, the first one sounded great, made an appointment, called and cancelled, made another appointment, cancelled and made another and never called or showed up. The 2nd one called, he lived over 30 miles one way from us and wasn't really qualified. The 3rd one called and said he had been out of the field for 7 years, would I send him to school to catch up. We have had several dealerships close in the area, where are those techs? Unemployment is still way up, one of the highest states. We are having a record month, but losing a tech the 15th and our shop foreman is going on vacation. We have tried some of the automotive agencies in the past, but after paying their fee, haven't had any better luck. Any more suggestions?

When I was studying all the management products. I concluded with the help of others that if you had one shop RO Writer was the best overall for everything, but if you had multiple shops, Vast was the best. Not sure this answers the question. If anybody has questions about RO Writer, they can call me 503-646-2940.

After 42 years, I can tell you stories also not enough time today. We don't have accounts receivable. They have to pay for their car before they can drive it away. It used to be a real problem because we couldn't leave them outside at night. In a 5 bay shop will little parking, we need them picked up as soon as possible. We used to put one in the air and another under, if we had to keep them over night. Finally, somebody said why don't you build a fence? DUH?? Why didn't I thing of that now we can park about 8+ cars in parking spots and then vertically to them. No one could get them out. At least then we can work around it.

Thanks again

Thanks, After reading his email, there is a charge of $7500.00 and 195.00 monthly. I cancelled the upcoming interview. I put it also on another forum and got an answer that your local, state or city would be much better than the federal.