Gary Childs

We deal with them. Shop rate is $20.00 per hour more and we add the time we have to hassle with them to the bill. Also inform them and the customer that the customer has to pay us what they will not pay. I do not take any crap from them at all.

Never been busier!! Best month ever in July and booked out over 2 weeks. Upstate NY here. And yes just raised or labor rate to $150.00 per hour this week.

No problem hiring experienced dealer techs as I was one too for 25 plus years, some times they do get a little slow not being on flat rate anymore but with my motivation and guidance they figure it out that what I ask for is to get all work done for the day and done right we can all have a good time at work and get paid well. I have 6 techs and 2 writers plus me and the wife. We do 2.5 mil a year and my guys love me. Life works out good treating customers and employees good.

All 3 of my service writers and myself are also techs so when a tech goes on vacation one of us fills in. The pain in when one of my writers go on vacation I have to fill in. Now that sucks.

Great points for sure. I take pride in being quality shop for both my customers and my people working for me. No flat rate here at all, very good hourly pay and bonus's payed monthly as a team. I take pride in not selling things not needed right away like brakes at 20% life and just let the customer know they will be needing brakes in the next 6-12 months or so and we will keep and eye on them at oil changes etc. One of the things I learned long ago was how you treat a comeback or warranty problem, that gets top priority over anything right away! Get it back in the shop right away over any other work etc that is here or waiting to be worked on. Fixing a comeback or warranty instantly as we can gives more good word of mouth then anything else it seems. My guys know how I work and they all look out for customers for us too, pay them very good and they know it. Heck if we even get all the work done for the day I let them go home and pay them for the whole day.

Yes we use a strong labor matrix manly being in a salt belt state the labor guides do not compensate for the rust problems around here. Times should not be the same in per say Arizona versa upstate NY. Many techs I know when I lived in Arizona would quite on the spot then work on a upstate NY car or truck. They would run away screaming.

Very good read. Always stand by your employee's, we all have ups and downs and will always be there for them 110%.

Total waste of your time. They only pay 150 bucks here and some take a long time to install. I did them for about 3 years then got out of it. Plus most people that have them only come for that stuff and nothing else. DONT DO IT!!!!

I been using QB's only for all my business and they are great. Watch out for the scammers that E-mail with QB's e-mails trying to get money out of you. They E-mails look like they are right from QB's but they are not. Try calling the phone number listed with a cell phone with the caller ID blocked, if they do not pick up the call they are the scammers.

We are very friendly with many shops around us, there is enough cars for everyone in this area and I always say if you get stuck on a brand we specialize in give me a call and i'll try to help. Most of us all also go on vacations together and even play poker and have bowling teams so always trading idea's on how to better all our shops. This I think really works out good for all of us.

We went to 124.00 per hour last Monday and I also talked 3 other shop owners I know and respect to do the same thing and they did.

We went from $90.00 per hour to $110.00 6 months ago and not one customer said a thing. I'm thinking of going to $125.00 soon, the dealers around here are $135.00 and up, chain stores I'm told are around $125.00 already too.

We see the opposite. We were up only 5% over 2019 but 2019 was a rocking year and 2020 was even better. We did 1.7 mil with only 5 techs. Car count around 400 per month. This year we are 15% bottom line to date over last year. I see a bright future this year too as long as our government does not screw us all.