Andre R

We used to feel the same way ,that we had to accept what the insurance was paying. Now we take all the aftermarket warranties. We inform our customers that the warranty will not pay for everything and that we will deal with them and then let the customer know what the difference is. The customer is responsible for that difference and if they want the repair then we move forward, otherwise they are charged a testing/inspection fee that they agreed to at drop off and they pick up their vehicle. Everything is explained up front and we don't have any problems. Some companies insist on sending the parts and we refuse but usually there aren't any issues.

We use Pig mats. Part# BKMAT1520UM 15x20 med weight 100 per box. I play Napa against Autozone. We're a Napa care care so my rep helps me out. The boxes are normally around $145 per but I can get them for around $80 per box. Autozone sometimes does a buy one get one but you have to watch their weekly deals. We also have mop buckets that we use to pick up antifreeze spills or clean up after we've picked up the spilled oil.

I would pull the core out and send it to a radiator shop. They should be able to repair it.

We use Paychecks for our payroll service. Anytime we have any questions about what the state laws are for payroll we call them and they will tell us what the law is.

Our techs are paid hourly with overtime. They also make a graduated per hour bonus per flag hour after they flag a set number of hours.

When I hire a tech I let him/her know that I expect them to take 40 hours of training per year. I also ask them to get their ASE certs. They are informed that there is a bump in pay for each cert. I pay for the classes and I pay for the ASE certs. They are told that they will be offered overtime during the year but it is not mandatory. After all that is explained to them I then tell them that if they come to me for a yearly raise and they have not taken advantage of any of these perks that are paid for then my answer will be no raise. I usually don't have any issues with training. My expectations are explained up front so there isn't any confusion.

If I could get you to pay them for me Joe , that would be my preferred method !!!

The GM is a cost, you have to buy each vin per vehicle the subscription is an expense. The Ford is an expense as your only paying for the software yearly subscription

We've been starting to use a matrix on our labor times and it seems to be working although it's still a work in progress.

Yes. One writer works Monday through Friday, 42.5 hrs and the other writer works Tuesday through Saturday 42 hrs. We pay our people weekly and all incentives are payed weekly.

What I like about the way we do it is we can give raises on either side .

We approached this problem a little differently. Our shop sits within 1.5 miles of 12 different new car dealerships. They all pay between 8 and 10 percent of sales. They also have some customer satisfaction goals that they need to meet. We pay hourly with overtime and then a percent of sales. Right now both of our service writers are paid $20 per hour. They need to hit $15000 in sales per week to start the incentive. They get 1.25% at $15000 and it increases .25% at every increase of $2500 in sales and tops out at 2.5%. For holiday pay or vacation pay they just get their hourly pay. With this system the writers help each other out through the whole process .

We pay our techs hourly with overtime and a performance bonus on their flagged time when they hit a set time . We pay %70 of health insurance, payed dental insurance payed life insurance, payed uniforms, gloves 6 holidays 1 week of vacation after the first year and 2 weeks after 3 years parts are at cost. Performance bonus is $2 per flagged hour at 35 hours,$4 at 40 hours, $6 at 45 hours and $8 at 50 hours and above. The SW is $15 per hour with overtime and a percentage of sales that starts at %1.25 when we reach $15000 in sales for the week and escalates by %.25 at every increase of $2500. The % tops out at %2.50 and $30,000 of sales and above. All our equipment is 5 years old or newer with factory scanners and software.

Bantar, Autoserve1 is the system that you are looking for. It integrates seamlessly with Protractor and and is actually owned by protractor. Our cost is $88.00 a month. It works great and you can customize as many inspections as you want. The important thing for me was the inspections stay with the repair order in the history and can be accessed as needed after the fact.

We just changed over from RO Writer and their dvi system to Protractor and Auto Serve 1. I've been using RO Writer since 1998 and I like Protractor better. A couple of suggestions; All the pos system sales people know where their limitations are and wont mention them. They will highlight all the good things and after you sign with them you will hit the limitations or functions that they don't do.Make a list of everything that is a must have and really question them on these items. As far as a DVI system review the ones that you like and make a list, then include your staff and use them to make the choice of which one to go with .They will all let you use/test them. If your staff doesn't like the you choose you will face a much harder time of implementing the new system and getting them to use it.

We have 3 techs all on hourly. One at $22.00 one at $28.00 and one at $35.00. The performance bonus starts at 35 flagged hours $2.00 at 35 thru 39 hours bumps to $4.00 at 40 hours $6.00 at 45 hours and $8 at 50 hours.

We have been using Heartland for about 8 years now, our charge has been a steady 2%.

For a service writer the question I always ask is" If I was writing a check to you for an amount that had to last you the rest of your life, how much would it be for." What you are looking for is a realistic number for their age. I base it on 60k a year and a life span of 80 years old. Too high of a number usually means they're not really thinking of the question or too low a number usually means they don't have a good idea of what things cost so will have a hard time trying to sell that large or high dollar ticket. For a tech my favorite question is "why do you do what you do." An answer of its what he/she knows and he needs to earn a living or anything along those lines usually means he/she won't be invested in your company and will only look for whats in it for him/her. An answer of getting self satisfaction at getting a vehicle running correctly or finding that noise etc..., that person is invested in his/her craft and is usually willing to go the extra mile for the customer, attend training,get certified.

A lot of good questions here but if it were me i'd tow the car in and replace the engine with a used one with about 200k miles or less.

I was having the same problem as the rest of you. My coach told me about a company called Hire the winners .com. They are pricey but they found an A tech and and service writer for me in about a month and a half. I will be looking for another tech in about a month and will definitely use them. They sent me about 15 resumes for techs in the first 2 weeks.

It absolutely does not! We signed up with them and it never worked.They did refund my money but wasted 2 months of my time .

I've been trying to break into the fleet maintenance/repair business that is close by to my shop but haven't had any luck. My pricing is what seems to be the problem. Any help would be appreciated.

So true!!