Joseph Van syoc
Forum Replies Created
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I always had to pay for my tests, even as an employee. I will tell you I have heard every excuse in the book why techs wont take the exams, and always from guys I know damned well would fail. Certification ought to be a job REQUIREMENT. (not merely a preference) If you as as employer are paying for the exams and providing training, what is the excuse? You can now take ASE exams year round at your convenience. You take them or you work elsewhere
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Well I pushed it up to $18.75 which puts me about $5 over my average competitor (arghh) but I do post my business cards on local boards with a coupon for a free repair. Do a few freebies here and there, not many though, but people tell me they do hang on to my cards! Got a new lowballer in town, $45 hr door rate! Arghh! wonder how long he will last and how much damage he will do before he either folds or wakes up?
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We usually get about 20% off list which is simply not enough, so we mark them up the same as after market. It sucks competing against OE list. which is why most OE’s are my LAST call. Maybe someday they will figure that out
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ranges. from 20% for high dollar major assemblies like engines, to 25% on tires and batteries up to 60% for small dollar items. Trying to maintain an average of 50% but it just depends on the mix
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Why would anyone these days go into auto repair when they can make considerably better wages as a plumber, electrician, sheet metal worker, HVAC installer? All with considerably less to learn and tools to invest in? It is not just “college” we are competing with, it is other skilled trades who figured out the have to pay what you are worth if they are going to get decent help. IMO the automotive industry has NEVER figured that out, despite the lip service they pay to the issue
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Just remember Tom those labels and policies exist because some one, some where (mostly likely a starving lawyer) actually sued some one for that. Now hopefully those suits were dismissed, but you never know. It is not enough that some people ought to get Darwin Awards, no, those same people have lawyers.
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Well there are both good and bad warranty companies. I have literally had a company call me up to provide an estimate for a repair, then want to haggle and nitpick every dime, BEFORE I even got the vehicle to the shop for an inspection. They even wanted to provide the part themselves. No thanks. Some will want you to use the cheapest parts, others will insist on OE I am 20 miles or more from the closest OEM dealer, gee thanks. You want me to use their part at their list price when I get squat for discount? and spend half my day fetching parts? NO THANKS. I am fully capable of selecting parts I trust. Others go quite smoothly, my only real gripe is the pittance they will reimburse for diagnosis. Still I welcome most extended warranty repairs, although my labor rate for them reflects what I think of their BS
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The trick is to offer them something the other shops won’t. In my case I have an account where the company is 60 miles away, but they have several employees living in my small town. I just made it easy for them to drop the vehicles off after work, complete the service after their normal business hours, and pick up the vehicles as they head out to work the next morning. Price is rarely an issue, keeping their employees and vehicles on the job is. Works for me.
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I have been on both sides of this question for better than 35 years, for nearly a quarter century I worked for employers who insisted that I work 6 day work weeks. That of course destroys any kind of work life balance, and in retrospect, I really resent that I missed my kids growing up. It is hard to run this kind of schedule in a small shop, because you either need to split up the work shifts, do a shift rotation or look for part time help. Today techs have more choices, and 6 day weeks are not going to cut it.
On the other hand, I really do understand the temptation. When business got slow here ( I am in rural Iowa in the midst of a lagging farm economy) I decided one of my only options was to open up on Saturdays, which I do on an appointment basis. I do not hang around hoping for walk in traffic. Wasting a Saturday hanging around in hopes of doing one LOF or fixing one flat tire makes no sense to me. Honestly, I cannot say it has done anything for me. MY competitors customers are not flocking to me because I open on Saturdays while he does not. In fact I am one of only two shops in the county (the other one does tire service, lof and exhaust only) that is even open extended hours, and there is NOT a line of people waiting to come in. Oh sure I do some work on Saturdays, but it is mostly work I didn’t want to put off until Monday, hoping of course that Monday might get busy. Mondays can be pretty slow too. Very few customers take advantage of my Saturday hours, with the exception of one small commercial account. Your results may vary. Other folks in larger markets will tell you that Saturdays are their best days, because that is when their customers have the day off. So when do your employees get time off? Does a weekday work for them? Do they have kids in school so that weekday off means nothing? Does it make sense to offer a 4 day week with longer hours? You might be the type driven to work long hours and six days a week. Is that fair to your staff to ask them to do the same? And whatever you decide, do NOT ask them to put in Saturdays while you take them off to go fishing……
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You need to be aware that much of the tools, equipment, and inventory may how shall I say this? Be dated. Might look and sound great, but could easily be obsolete as most folks fixing to retire are not investing to update, and current inventory can be returned for credit, thus “cashed out” . You don’t want to go into hock buying gear that you may have to turn right around and replace
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Moot point for me, because Iowa law requires an itemized invoice, to include parts, parts cost, and labor. I do not see this changing any time soon, and trying to do so may cause more problems than it is worth, such as cries of what are you trying to hide?
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after decades of turning away work I could have really used at times, I have finally given in and posted a door rate for customer supplied parts. It is considerably higher than my door rate. and there are two stipulations. ONE is NO WARRANTY. I don’t care if you buy they exact part I would have, if I didn’t supply it, any warranty is between you and whoever you bought it from TWO- since I am a one man shop, I am not going to reassemble your vehicle, drag it out while you run around getting the CORRECT parts this time. only to push it back in and start over. Bay rental is $XX hr. Funny, after all that explaining why I don’t install customer parts, no one has asked since.
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Labor only pricing sounds great, but I feel it is unworkable for several reasons. To start, most of us have to do business in a competitive market place. It is bad enough having to compete with shops that undercut you both on labor rate and margins, but at least you, and the customer can make an apples to apples comparison. If you think its hard to explain your margins now, try explaining why the guy 3 blocks from you is $58 hr while you are $175. Of course he is marking up the parts, but do you know his margins? The other issue, is there is in theory anyway an upper limit to the number of labor hours you can produce in a day. Not so with parts. If you are looking for profits, those extra parts that make for a better quality repair without adding much to labor charges are the way to do it. Replacing a water pump? How does the belt look? Brakes? Are you including a hardware kit? These things add up. In a town as small as the one I do business in, labor hours are pretty limited, I have to make a good parts margin to stay above water. I also install such things as wiper blades , many air filters, and most batteries at no labor charge. How do you do that at “0” margin?
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I looked into marketing my services via Amazon some time ago, and immediately dropped the idea when I learned they wanted 20% of each sale! I have bought an occasional part from them, but if they are doing like the online tire retailers and dropshipping their parts direct to you, there is no margin. So will they now also want 20%? Sounds like we need a special Amazon door rate of around 400 hr if this becomes the norm. I already use a higher door rate for extended warranty contracts, so one just for Amazon doesnt seem too far fetched!
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Ok I will confess, I have done this from time to time. If I know I have a few days to complete the work and see the IDENTICAL part on Amazon for much less it is sure tempting to order it there and make a little extra margin. Ditto if I can save a job I might otherwise lose by buying a cheaper part (headlights tailights) on Ebay. But like they say, there is no free lunch, there is a trade off. Time for one, and the hassle of returning the item should it prove to be wrong or defective, or the customer cancels the job (none of which ever happens right?) is much more involved than just returning it to your local jobber. My parts store isn’t likely to hit my up for return shipping or a restocking fee, or worse tell me I bought it I own it. What happens if you need to warranty the part? THAT can be a real hassle. SO I found myself doing this less and less, but man I sure understand the temptation……..
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I generally set this price at 1/4 my door rate, and of course do a competitive survey in my area just to see where I am at. So to day I surveyed not only my immediate area, but the surrounding 40 miles as well, and pricing seems to be around $28 in the Des Moines metro, and close to my price near me. (with most shops asking what the diameter of the rim is). I did go ahead and make an adjustment in my pricing as my door rate increased about a month back and I hadn’t yet raised tire service prices to reflect that. I for one have always felt that basic bread and butter services, such as oil & lube, and most tire services were priced too low, often being used as a loss leader. One shop I surveyed, a discount tire dealer, actually offers tire repairs for free. I have to wonder what percentage of the tires he sees get deemed “unrepairable”? As usual, this is a balancing act between what I need to charge, and how much will end up pricing me out of my market
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You will note the shops who say they pay well and have techs who love flat rate also have a common denominator, they specialize in one or two systems or vehicle lines. I maintain my position, the reason you cannot find good all around general techs who can/will work on just about any vehicle is that such people are not valued for this broad range of skills, and are penalized for a “lack of effeciency” in a system that rewards speed. So when you can’t find a tech who can diagnose fuel injection on a vw, perform a wheel alignment on a Lesabre, and replace a timing belt in a Mitsubishi etc, it is because the guy who starved to death being able to do so wised up and is now driving a truck. For much better money.
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At the risk of beating a dead horse, I believe that this issue, like many, has its roots in historically low technician compensation. I spent most of my career as a general tech working in independent shops, service stations and tire dealers. I prided myself on being able to handle just about anything that came in. However, there is little doubt that my reward for having those kinds of skills was to earn significantly lower wages than the guy who spends his day in a dealership pulling the same part off the same car day in and day out. The industry is glued to a system that rewards techs based on hours turned. Having the kind of skills you seek takes time to learn, and means less hours turned. Looking back, why would anyone want to do that? I will say, that from the few dealers I have worked for, I am not all that impressed with ‘factory’ training, which seems to be almost non existent, except perhaps for one of two techs. They learn by doing, and repetition builds speed, which is how they make their money. You want someone who can do almost anything? Then perhaps it is time to change compensation methods so that people with those skills are valued at a premium, rather than a serious discount. JMHO
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I generally just say “sorry, I don’t do that”. Most times, that’s all it takes. If they want an explanation, I explain it. I once worked at a shop that agreed to install a customers thermostat. It proved defective, overheating and damaging the engine. That shop ended up in a three way fight with both the customer and the parts supplier insisting the part was incorrectly installed. Thanks, but no thanks!
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The basic problem here is that even when you win, you still lose. Customers (or rather folks with broken cars) have a bad habit of trashing your reputation when they aren’t happy. Starting a relationship from a position of mistrust certainly can’t help matters. Starting out by handing them a contract to sign before you will even look at the car can present the attitude you don’t trust them. Kinda like the guy who wants a written estimate before you even know what kind of car he drives. You might produce a brochure explaining your shops policies, and make sure each new customer gets one. There is a company that provides a blacklist for bad customers, and that might be a useful tool if it ever catches on, but so far it hasn’t. Not many shops using it, I suspect out of fear of legal issues, liability for slander or what not. IMO, it would be nice to be able to turn the tables on those folks who bad mouth your shop. Consumers clearly have the upper hand here. Best advice is if they seem flaky, avoid them like the plague, but in reality the flake signals often don’t show up until its too late
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Always hated low ball oil changes, mostly because I used to work for a shop that expected me to do the work for free, hoping to make an up sell before I made nickel one in commissions. That being said, Id like to see a breakdown on these costs, and know what is included, overhead, tech wages, a portion of door rate or what? Because my direct material cost on a 5qt, 5w20 syn blend oil change is $10, and while I still think the prevailing price in my area is still too low, I’d like to know what costs are being factored in? What is the average price in your area for this service?
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Same, with the exception of trailer tires, (in which case I figure the installation in the tire price) tires are billed seperately from installation and accounted for seperately
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I own mine, but to be honest they never get as clean as what the rental ones do………..something to keep in mind
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The only thing about buying uniforms (I buy my own work shirts and wear them with jeans) is that they never get as clean when laundered at home as they do at the commercial laundry. Of course I shudder to think what kind of chemicals they are using…………..but whatever it is, it gets the grease and stains out. So if you are concerned with appearance, either bite the bullet and rent the uniforms, or replace them more frequently
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One argument I make is that ” You do want me to stand behind my work don’t you?” Um well sure. Well how do you expect me to do that if you are going to supply me parts of dubious quality from unknown suppliers? Parts that I didn’t sell you or make nickle one on? If a part I sell you fails, I am going to replace it, even if my supplier refuses to warranty it to me. How do you suppose I can afford to do that? Its because I select quality parts, and I make a profit on them so that I can afford to replace it if need be, Say you leave here and have a problem, are you going to call that internet guy or me? I will bet you the price of the part that you are going to call me. (my cell# is on my card) Then I am going to have to charge you to remove that part, ship it back to where ever you got it, hope they replace it, wait for it, push your car out then back in, then reinstall it. Hopefully the replacement will last longer than that first one.
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Went through this again yesterday for about the millionth time in my career. No good answer other than do NOT install customer supplied parts. Got called everything but a white man for having the audacity to charge a customer list price for a top quality belt. Funny thing is, the parts houses they called actually quoted them list price too, but for the competitive line part………….I suppose that is progress, because most stores usually quoted at my cost or slightly above with no regards to margins. As far as internet parts, all you can hope for is that these people have to experience the hassle and expense of trying to get a part warrantied. Remember, that supplier will not install the part, or pay the labor. Nor will they pay for the shipping. Most will require the customer to return the part for inspection before they even agree to replace it. So the question you need to ask your customer is: would you rather drive your car or stare at it sitting in the driveway? Thankfully this is only an issue a handful of times per year, and most customers just approve the estimate. Life is just too short to get worked up over the few who think they are smarter than you, move on to the next customer
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Im using Automotive Expert from real time labor guides. Does most anything a small shop could want, the only real down side is you cannot order parts directly from the software (so what?) and for accounting you need to have a regular book keeping software ( I use quickbooks) so there is some double entry. But for less than $200 per year, I can live with that HTH
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Mostly just the one rate for most work here, however do have a lower rate for strictly maintenance services, a higher rate for Diagnostic only, and I apply a highter rate to extended warranty contract work to cover the extra paper work and haggling.
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No idea, because they discriminate against smaller shops like mine. Won’t list me, not big enough for them
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I still recall the slow day when a previous employer agreed to install a customer supplied thermostat, and the ensuing battle with both that customer and the parts house where he bought it when it failed, the engine overheated and required some extensive repairs. The parts house insisted it was installed incorrectly (without ever seeing the vehicle of course!) NO THANK YOU. Nice to know that customer saved all of three bucks on the part though……………..
