Hey Veeky Forums! I'm in the process of starting a new repair shop in my home town. Talked to the bank Friday...

Hey Veeky Forums! I'm in the process of starting a new repair shop in my home town. Talked to the bank Friday, hoping to hear something this week.

What suggestions could you offer for a successful shop?

honesty to customers
treat employees with respect
dont be a asshole or full of pride just because you own the place
dont be cheap when it comes to buying shop equipment
make the place presentable, not some raggy ass shop(like most small private shops)
hire people you know and trust.
always try to know whats going on in your business


dealerships run really organized compared to small shops. i worked in both. dealerships had service advisors, a dispatcher(the guy who gives out the jobs), a parking lot for customer cars. unlike a small shop i worked for. we had to park cars in the street with heavy traffic. no service advisor or dispatcher. the boss was also the owner so he told everybody what to do and he was a asshole. i only lasted 2 weeks before he fired me. he ran the place like shit compared to a dealership which i did 4 yrs in.

>What suggestions could you offer for a successful shop?

Why don't you tell us?

You're the one starting the shop, so you already have ideas on what the shop will do.

>What suggestions could you offer for a successful shop?

Be aware of all jobs and charged tasks being worked upon in the shop. At the dealerships, the mechanics don't get to talk to the customers ever. They are always isolated thru a service writer. I know the name is service advisor, but I have yet to see one give real advice.

If you don't isolate your mechanics from the customers, you may find your customers negotiate with the mechanics directly or even call them up on the phone outside the business. Then the mechanic does work for the customer for payments that you never see, but the work is done in your shop with your lift and insurance costs.

One of my college buddies started with a franchise and then went on to have his own independent shop and used car lot. His kids now run the franchise and both businesses send business to each other.

One of his biggest gripes to me is that his mexican mechanics (he is in arizona now) often do make private deals and do extra work for people using his shop equipment. Of course, he never sees any of the money.

He's not always able to randomly assign jobs to different mechanics, thus avoiding giving the task to the mechanic making private deals. Having a separate person assign jobs randomly would increase the chance of breaking a private deal. Dealerships do that.

So, if you are not careful, you may find your workers are using your shop to make their own private parts and service deals with customers.

I've even seen this at an eyewear shop where the shop girl was making her own customer deals on the side. So basically, she was the actual seller from the frame sources in either china/california and lens maker in california.

Sort of like how cashiers at supermarkets might "forget" to charge some items for their friends. I can see your shop letting some customers out without getting charged. Or some parts from the junkyard get installed into customers' cars without you noticing, thus you don't see any parts transactions from a pick and pull or from your NAPA/autozone/aap distributor.

Thanks fellas, I appreciate the replies. We're starting out small, just myself and one lube tech in a small 2-bay shop. Basic repairs, oil changes, and probably used tires.

Honest breakdown of pricing, explain things to customers (those willing to listen and learn) build freindships with customers, loyalty will keep your doors open. Give people a no bullshit approach, don't just slap down a bill and say they should replace their tie rods and tires and get an alignment, when all they wanted was an oil change, explain to them cause and effect of the problem, what can happen if left alone, etc;.
>don't hire shitbags who hate their jobs either
>you and your staff should believe in a clean organized workplace
>seriously, keep the fucking place and your employees clean and organized

>We're starting out small, just myself and one lube tech in a small 2-bay shop.

Drum barrels of full synthetic oil from those big brand names is amazingly cheap compared to even the 5 quart jugs of the same oil at walmart. I assume that is your primary source of oil for lube jobs. I know some small shops buy bulk oil in those tall thin cardboard boxes containing a bag with a nozzle. Sort of like wine in a box, but these boxes are more like 10qt and 20qt in size.

If you google for "55 gallon synthetic oil" you find out that not only does o'reilly distribute 55 gallon drums of many brands of oil, but so does walmart.com and amazon. But the best prices still come from those specialty distributors that are little known to consumers. I wonder how long those dealers can last with behemoths like amazon and walmart taking over distributorship zones one after the other.

Dealerships don't allow customers to pick the mechanic. This reduces the chance that mechanics solicit or advertise car services and make private deals with customers outside the shop.

>What suggestions could you offer for a successful shop?

Find out what the terms are to be listed on an insurance company's preferred services list. I have a feeling the companies all collude together to create a low ball monopoly, but it will drive some business to you. Otherwise, insurance business will go to the other shops.

But for a shop starting out, the demands of the insurance company for a proper inspection can be tough. If you miss something, I don't know if the insurance company makes you eat the cost of what you missed in order to make the car whole again.

As an example, I got a list of body shop providers. I shopped each of them looking for what I thought was the best one. Thankfully, I had the "free" (yeah, right, I paid for it out all the past insurance payments) rental car, so I drove around to inspect all of them to get an idea of how much infrastructure they had and if they were dust free or only had a chinese-type claim of being dust free. I ended up picking the shop that was furthest away since it had the best low dust environment even before it got to the dust-free paint and dust-free curing rooms. Those rooms were adjacent to each other and doors opened to allow cars to be moved to each as needed without ever leaving the dust free environment.

They also had the highest cost which normally is not a problem if the other guy is at fault and paying the insurance. BUT they were UNDERinsured, so my insurance had to eat some of the cost of their lack of coverage. So I was close to the edge on cost.

The body shop missed that the driver seat angle was bent. The lashing back and forth of my body in the car caused the seat to bend. Now, you move the handle and that allows the seatback to tilt forward or back. So no wonder the exam missed it. They simply thought the seat setting was tilted back. It was not. The metal was bent. Oh my, my weak thin body bent that metal frame? Kind of scary in retrospect.

yes they do. customers can always request a certain mechanic to work in their car. they just tell the service advisor to have X person work on it. even service advisors do private deals sometimes. they tell the mechanic to do X job off the books. lets say it came in for brakes but the SA would tell the mecahnic do the oil change and here are 20 bucks

Unless Black Lives Matter intervened, I am fairly certain my dealer would fire any mech making private deals on the side using shop facilities. That's because my dealer is a Stealership. It has very little kindness and is all about quid pro quo with service writers who have service sales goals to meet.

my old place didnt really care about mechanics doing side jobs using shop facilities. all i had to do was tell a service advisor to write up the car i'm working on for insurance purposes. as long as it has a R.O they dont care.

>What suggestions could you offer for a successful shop?

You already remember all the things that got you to choose a shop. But you still need to step into the customers' shoes in order to evaluate what they look for.

You've seen those coupons in the coupon envelopes that get distributed. I don't know how well those work for cars, but some companies do benefit, and some don't. Hit or miss. In my area, I talked to the local pizza shop and he said those give him good exposure and new customers so he does that twice per year to get his name out there.

As the argument for synthetic and conventional oil goes, the 540RAT blog seems pretty informative along with BITOG forums on oil questions that customers might ask.

https 540ratblog {D0T} wordpress {D0T} com

When it comes to small shops, both neatness and organized look counts a lot. The first impression of a nice orderly shop that has enough gear in it gives a good impression. I cannot say it will sell the shop, but I do know a dirty cluttered shop makes me want to not bring my new car there.

It's good to have nice cars as clientele instead of beaten up junkers coming in hoping for a miracle that costs only $99. If the shop looks tidy and that it can handle real jobs, then people like me would take a chance with a new shop with something small at first. Oil change --> brakes/rotors --> A/C check/servicing --> iridium spark plugs

Don't get me wrong, spark plugs I rank tougher on that list because if you saw my car, you'd say Shiiiit, I have to take apart all that to get to the plugs? I cannot do my plugs as it is too scary to remove pipes. The last plug can be done I guess if you have a "snake-like" cable between the ratchet handle and the socket. Is there such a thing with enough torque in it? If you use a straight ratchet, there is no room to turn or move unless you remove a lot of hardware.

>What suggestions could you offer for a successful shop?

Website that can be read on smartphone.

Have enough signage that your shop name is easily visible to passersby. What sucks are those tiny plaza-mall signs that make me squint. They try to list all the store names on those signs. It takes too much attention to look at tiny names when I'm driving by trying to avoid hitting people making sudden stops to turn into a store driveway.

>Website that can be read on smartphone.

A lot of your business will probably come through your internet site. At the very least, most people will check on the internet for your shop name.

Remember, if they use windows10 then it will be the Edge browser and the search engine will be BING.

>Talked to the bank Friday, hoping to hear something this week.

Preparing designs for your website yet?

Have a water cooler in the lobby with cucumbers floating in it. Have your shop near a SportsClips or other men's barber. Have new and relevant magazines in the lobby. Have a HD television tuned to ESPN. None of this old tube television shit like youre a fucking Pep Boys.

>I'm in the process of starting a new repair shop in my home town

Don't forget to visit all the insurance company websites and get their listings of approved service shops in your area. I just visited my insurance company's website and saw their list of approved service shops closest to my address.

Knowing who your competitors are affiliated with may help you in trying to figure out which insurance companies you want to please in order to get their service referrals.

holy shit, I've never seen a quad turbo engine before. Is that a custom job?

Don't hire fucktards

Be honest and fair.

An honest shop will get positive word of mouth.

Also, be clean.

>I've never seen a quad turbo engine before. Is that a custom job?

OP might contact car audio shops in town and offer his services if users need automotive modifications that the audio shop doesn't do.

Some people with a lot of audio gear need a bigger heavy duty alternator. Or they might need two alternators. Some audio systems use so much power the vehicle needs three alternators.

...

Sick Tripple turbo

>3 alts
Cute.

Try 4x 350A+ these days

Put your mechanics on a salary. That reduces the likelyhood of them writing up an outrageous work bill just for the commission bonus.

wow 3 turbos...

...

What's the thing on the bottom right on the bed?

I don't know where you are but if I could find an auto shop that does quality welding and actually tried to fix somthing before replacing it, I won't be able to shovel money fast enough

>Hey Veeky Forums! I'm in the process of starting a new repair shop in my home town.

OP, how big is your new shop in square feet?

Will it have at least four bays so that you don't have to shuffle cars around to stage the working process while waiting for parts on some cars?

Having more bays means you can work on something else while waiting for parts for the other cars. I've seen one small local shop with 2 bays. They are always working on other cars outside the bays. They have no lifts but they are always full of business. I wonder if it is a mexican "chop shop"

I dont have much advice other than what other anons have already said, but it can't be emphasized enough, presentation and first impressions are everything. so make sure the exterior of the place looks clean too. no overgrown weeds and dirty storefront. splurge a bit on your signage so it stands out. get something nicely done up, and cut. so no giant square sign with a bunch of empty space and then your logo/name in the middle. if it's an oval with the name in it, get it cut as an oval, etc.

dont be afraid to be really picky with who you hire, although this sounds like it should be common sense, It can happen that if you start to feel overwhelmed you may feel pressured to hire. be picky with your hires to make sure you get someone good. feel free to stalk them on social media if you can, to get a read on them.

Good luck, user!

OP here, thanks for all of the suggestions fellas!

I mentioned a few posts back, it's just going to be myself and friend of mine working as techs, and my wife running the office.

We're focusing on general repairs, and may expand to tires in the near future.

Here's a pic of the building. 2 bays, one has an old 1-post lift. Full office with bathroom, and tons of storage above it. Also has a full basement with a 100gal compressor. Buyer's asking $85k

We're in a town of only 3500 people, so everyone knows everyone and word of mouth is king.

Forgot the pic.

>I've never seen a quad turbo engine before. Is that a custom job?

Some vehicles need a lot of power. They have banks of batteries and large capacitors, but those still have to be fed by a lot of alternators.

Rather than simply have subwoofers radiate air vibrations in all directions, you can have a chamber to try focusing the air pressure waves in a certain direction. Drive up, open the hatch, and tune the oscillator to find the resonant frequency of a structure. With aimed sonic pulses being reinforced at the resonant frequency, a house could have a wall shake loose.

Houses have various parts with different resonant frequences. A wall will be different from the roof and skylights. Other walls can have a different resonant frequency or none at all. However, the air cavity inside the house has its own resonance. If you can focus air pulses towards the house, at first nothing seems to happen but the resonances builds up.

What caused failure of the original shop? Not enough business in the town?

Your shop will have to fight whatever stigma remains of the original business.

Some business fight that by changing the look of the storefront such as changing the paint color, applying logos to the doors, or having window displays.

Your proposed shop has few windows and the garage is not drive through. I guess I am used to the Les Schwab model over here. They are always full of cars in for service or tires, so they may have 3 cars per bay. Each bay is long enough to accommodate 2 cars, but they may jack up and change/rotate tires for cars on the exit or entrance side outside the bay. Having a drive-through gives them versatility to move cars in and out without disturbing a car that is already in the bay on the lift being worked on or awaiting parts courier.

Why does that place have such a huge paved lot? Was it originally a used car dealer?

Well this place was built in 1945, so it's changed hands several times and has been multiple businesses. The current owner just used it as a part time used car lot and motorcycle repair shop. Didn't really fail, owner's just retiring from everything.

It was indeed a used car lot. Also has a ton of storage parking in the rear.

>Also has a ton of storage parking in the rear.

So if things work out, it could eventually expand to become the body shop for your town? Or is there a bunch of other body shops out there already?

How many other general service shops are there locally in your town of 3500 people? Two shops? Do you anticipate the other shops taking aggressive steps to discourage your shop's survival in the first year? Hide how much money or financing you have because if the other shops know how deep or not deep your pockets are, they can try to undercut your prices and even lose money for awhile in order to "starve you out" so that you close your shop. That's if the know how close you are to the edge.

Paying your employees per car seems to do the trick. Oil change $75. Engine overhaul $75. Gets the job done this is a commission setup. So $11/hr + $60 a car you know?

How much does it cost you to lease it?

>How much does it cost you to lease it?

That is pretty risky if the business is a success. If the business succeeds, the price will not be 85K. It will be 800,000.

And the lease rate will go up to be rated against what the business is worth after the initial lease expires. They know he cannot easily move the business and build another location.

Leasing also means he cannot make improvements to the property without losing them. For example, he could make an all new building to do just the oil changes and tire services. He would probably need to once his business is a success because he would need another lift that also had an overhead crane for lifting the engine as well as a mount table for lowering the engine.

By studying his competitors, he would also know what things they cannot do.

>Paying your employees per car seems to do the trick. Oil change $75

Paying employees $75 per car is too high for oil changes. Even $75 for an oil/filter change would be too high and everyone would gossip that this shop is nothing but 300% overpriced. This is not a liberal dream where money appears to make sure everyone is richly rewarded. All the money comes from customers.

How much bay time does OP use?

Oil changes should all be done in under 30 minutes even by amateurs. For my dealer, the oil change bay time (not the total time the car is at the dealership) is 3 minutes drive out of previous customer to having their car in the bay. About 1 minute to raise up the 4 point lift. 2 to raise hood, check dipstick, enter the data into computer that service started, a paper is printed, he marks it. Oil level checked BEFORE the change starts to note if it is low or no oil (owner did not maintain oil, warranty for power train cancelled?). Oil has to be checked prior anyways because customers may try to scam dealer saying the engine now runs bad. 1 minute to move drain drum under car and grab hose thing. 2 minute to remove drain plug and oil filter and attach hose. Approx 3 minutes wait to drain out because they attached some sort of suction machine to the plug hole to suck oil out. No more observation data after this point because I went to the cashier because my car was done.

>Well this place was built in 1945

Maybe you can eventually build another garage building (large one for body shop repair) and then put your home and two floors of storage and apartments above it. I've seen that done elsewhere.

Bumping this thread. Good advice in here.

Does anyone have experience flipping cars from Craigslist? Any money in that or is it strictly tweaker shit?

We're actually buying, $85k, plus $15k for startup.

Theres an additional 2 bay shop behind ours that the owner of which just uses for fun storage, so in the near future I'm going to see about making him an offer and turning it into a body shop. There's only 1 other in town.

>Theres an additional 2 bay shop behind ours

Don't forget the classic mistake both small and big companies make - over expansion too soon.

i just recently was starting up a mobile mechanic business. It really depends on your area and customers. If you have a bunch of dickless broke asses that want everything fixed and put on an ebt card your not going to get very far. Thats not to say you need to be working on lambos and Ferraris to make a decent income.

You need others business's to use you, accounts are what really make your shop take off. If you have a steady flow of one or two trucks a day from a rental fleet, tire maintenance shop, construction companys you will get your bills paid and then some.

Plus big companys are so much easier to bill after you finish a job, i absolutely hate having to pry money out of a customer or hold there vehicles as collateral that arent worth shit.

I would suggest you drive around and walk in to any company that has a large fleet of vehicles and see who is doing there services or suggest yours and see what they think before you bite the bullet.

Start up a DIY shop where you rent out bays with lifts and tools on an hourly basis, with increased rates to have you/your employee help out. If you live in a semi large city these things are hot shit these days, especially if you have a military base near you.

Just read the thread, probably won't work too well in a small town.

>If you live in a semi large city these things are hot shit
If they are so hot at making money, then there would be more of them. But there aren't. It's more profitable to leverage the owner's mechanical skills and charge for them. Otherwise, those skills are not used and don't generate revenue.

In my giant metro area (100 miles long by 15 miles wide), there are only three such garages that I can find in google. Compare that to the number of body shops, indpendent service shops, oil change facilities, window places, tint places, transmission shops, muffler repair shops, and dealers. Obviously, the DIY shops don't compete on a revenue basis or there would be a lot more of them.