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Sorry, your car is too old.
More than one Euro car dealer in our area refuses to service cars (yes, their make!) over ten years old. At least one of these makes (fairly common car) is something many indies won’t touch regardless of age. As a customer, if you own one of these cars (ten-plus-year-old Euro cars aren’t exactly as dependable as a Camry), this part of your life is becoming a challenge. As a shop owner, would you tend to leave well enough alone and avoid them also? Or, are you more likely to take on the challenge and do what’s needed to get them into your shop?
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7 Replies
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I would say every shop owner should make that decision based on how busy they are. If you are not busy that may be something you should consider. -
We discourage older vehicles. But we decide everything case by case.
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We are a specialty shop working on 5 brands (Japanese). I look at working on older vehicles as a type of marketing. Most customers with older vehicles are more than willing to pay what we ask, give us plenty of time and appreciate our willingness to work on their vehicles. Parts can be a problem and the techs are not always excited but remember this: This customer and/or family and friends may have an entire fleet of newer vehicles to service. Take care of the older baby and the referrals come streaming in.
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We had a simple policy for our transmission shop. We would offer to take in anything; for a price. The more we didn’t want to work on something, the higher the price. I wouldn’t say an emphatic “No” on anything.
We once had a highly modified Dodge Ram 3500 diesel come into our shop. The guy was on his 4th transmission and we would be #5. He had a chip that could be modified from the driver’s seat on the fly. It’s was lifted with big tires and an exhaust system bigger than the sewer pipe to my house. Injectors, manifold, etc. and it was a “rolling coal” example.
High liability, so I told him I would have to Remove, Disassemble, and Inspect the damage to give an accurate price. He kept pressing me for a “guesstimate”. I finally said, no less than $9K, depending on what we found.
He said, “OK, go for it.” After the job, we never saw the truck again. Lucky us, huh? Later I discovered I should have charged him for installation:…
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For me it is all about efficiency, and my techs want to be efficient too; if it is out of the efficiency zone, we say no thank you.
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We are in the business of automotive repair and maintenance. What cars need the most repair and maintenance? – the older ones! If you are able to keep enough business in the shop while limiting the entry of older cars, then that is fine, and easier for techs. But the majority of our cars are 6 to 20 years old. We are in California, so we have no rust to deal with (we can unscrew the exhaust brackets on virtually every car that we service), and that may be a factor in the formula.
Also, you can solve the efficiency issues through proper pricing.
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We work on most makes and models. We do turn down older cars but we certainly don’t draw the line at 10 years. With most models having at least a three year warranty wouldn’t that limit you to the years 2011-2018? A seven year run. I can’t imagine limiting myself to just those years. We would be out of business fairly quickly. Our line in the sand is about 20 years give or take based on many factors.
I too feel that we need to be efficient and as productive as possible but at the same time I know I got into this business to not only make money but help people and sometimes that means getting out of your comfort zone. It’s hard to tell people no, but I do it a lot more often than I have when times were not so busy. I also have to keep in mind that my techs may look elsewhere if I bring in work that they don’t like to do.
All these car shows on TV make fixing up old cars look like a lot of fun. People are believing that shops desire and enjoy working on classics. I don’t. I always seem to spend two to three times the amount of time doing even the most basic things on these cars than I would on a modern car. We only work on them if the customer brings all his other work here. I usually do the work and I’m getting older and busier in the office so we have been saying no more often.
I am actually working on a 1014 model T speedster at a friend’s house. It’s been very interesting but definitely not profitable.
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