You don't have to accept every job that comes into your shop, but some shops feel compelled to take on every task that walks in through their doors. Each job should be evaluated based on its risk and reward. With the diminishing profitability of tasks like engine repairs, head gaskets, and timing chains, it's crucial to prioritize jobs that yield better returns. This is where experience comes in, guiding you on which jobs to accept and which ones to avoid. These jobs often exceed the estimated price, necessitating warranties. It's all about balancing risk and reward to ensure profitability in your business.
Exactly. I have a 1987 G-Body Cutlass, and very few shops are willing to work on it. Thankfully my transmission shop didn't turn me away. Most other repairs I end up doing myself.
Man, watching this video made my realize really how blessed I am. At my shop that i work at, if we as the techs look at a car that comes in and tell him "hey we really aren't equipped to work on this" or "this is out of our depth" or if a car seems like it's going to be more headache than it's worth, he will listen and call the customer and send it to the dealer or someone else. We also only put in reman engines and transmissions instead of trying to rebuild a trans or do head repair work. Hell at my shop we don't even use old rotors. If it needs a brake job it gets rotors and pads every time, especially because we live in the rust belt and it gets hot and cold and salt and all the rest it's far easier and safer than shaving rotors down and ensuring nobody misreads a micrometer or the micrometer being off for some reason and honestly in the time it would take to machine them down or worse just put pads on it and call it a day we end up losing any money on it by warranty alone since we have a very very good warranty. While it ain't a perfect place I'll admit I am very happy compared to all the other place i hear about and some of the horror stories
My old boss was the type that would take in anything, I mean anything. I eneded up working on mowers, jet ski, busses ect, and all makes of cars. When I bought him out, day one I went American and Asian vehicles only. We have a added problem here with euro dealers never being able to supply the correct parts even after supplying the VIN.
I don't work in a shop, just myself in my own garage and mobile, but I have an actual business, with garage keepers insurance, etc. I do make money, but I mostly just do it for fun. I just do it on evenings and weekends, and work days as a network engineer. I run into a lot of these issues. I am very selective about my customers though. But yeah a lot of simple jobs can get more expensive with on turn of a bolt that goes wrong. I always have people with eurotrash and I tell them I don't work on that. I am mainly GM with occasional Ford, Chrylser, and Honda/Hyundai. They just don't understand why I won't do something simple on there BMW. I tell them its because I want to make money not spend it.
I ran into this problem years ago when I had a Jaguar. Only two shops in town were willing to work on it, but they each wanted over $700 to replace a coolant hose. This was in 1999, so take inflation into account. Granted, I know the repair was expensive because the intake had to be removed to get the hose out. I had a friend of a friend do it for $350.
We work on everything at out shop, this week for example I'm working on a 16 Ram, 65 C10, 2000 Grand Am, 2004 Land Rover and many others that some shops might undersell or turn away. We make each job worth doing, or the customer takes it, but we don't just decline to work on it because it isn't our preferred repair. I agree with what you're saying though, just lucky we haven't had trouble making jobs profitable in most cases. It's the only way we can stand behind our work and keep the shop open :). I haven't done a head gasket repair in 4 or 5 years. A Transit Connect I diagnosed with one recently declined repair and went to "trade it in." Maybe just getting lucky.
This is why shops should adapt to hybrid policies as far as charging the customers and paying the techs. Every job is a risk for the shop and the tech, because of the unknown. Being a one man show I turn down a lot of jobs due to this reason. I’ve considered adding an hourly charge for however long a vehicle ties up my lift/shop. I know the customers are going to cry poverty, but they do that anyway until they leave the shop and suddenly have proballer money again. So what do I have to lose? It’s time this industry loses the “well I guess I’ll just eat it on this one attitude”.
I understand this logic on certain things and my boss usually listens when I tell them a used engine or transmission isn’t the right idea. But selling remanufactured for every bad head gasket doesn’t make sense.
It can also mean 80% of your of your ticket total at the end of the week came from only 20% of your customers & vice versa.. the other 20% of your weekly total comes from the other 80% of your customer that came thru the shop
Had a "cylinder head " job on a kia last week. Diagnosed by another tech. When i was told head gasket i replied thats a funny way to say engine. It was a hyundia. I pushed it in and 10 minutes later i agreed the timing chsin haf broke and bent up the valves.... but i also noticed when rotating the crankshaft the #1 piston didnt move. Lol i went ahead and changed that diag time from him to me. I dont even trust hyundia engines to be good when they are new from the dealer.
Great analysis. Thinking things through. Imagine what it takes to do something from A-Z and all the problems in between. No assumptions or magical thinking.
Im happy to work at a shop where i have full authority to refuse certain repairs, i have no problem referring them to another shop who can handle it or explaining why any shop would refuse to repair their vehicle. Im not here to jackpot myself or the shop by taking on something we are unequipped to deal with!
Not being familiar with European vehicles is a big problem, these vehicles are easy to work on and extremely profitable. If you work in an area where they are so uncommon that it's not worth becoming familiar with them, I can understand that, but in general I wouldn't recommend avoiding them. Learning how to work on them is a better long term plan. Selling a reman engine sounds great in theory, but when a reman costs 20K-30K and a low mileage used engine costs 4K, a reman just isn't a reasonable option for a 7 year old car that's worth 20K. We always price used engines as long blocks and I've had great success with them, but I'm also very picky and I'll refuse an engine if I don't like what gets delivered. Older cars often aren't worth fixing and the people driving older cars often can't afford major repairs. If someone wants us to fix their daily driver 1970 Jaguar, the answer is no. If an existing customer with multiple high end vehicles wants us to fix their 1970 Jaguar that they just bought as a weekend toy and they've budgeted 30K to fix up, the answer is yes.
Sorry, here's part two of my comment. I recently watched a video featuring Keith from L1 Automotive Training titled 'Porsche PDK Transmission Faults and Unethical Shops.' I highly recommend watching it. In the video, he deals with a large national chain specializing in transmissions. This isn't the first time I've seen such incidents occur, where the service writer neglects to thoroughly review the service information (SI) before undertaking a job. As soon as the profits run out and the shop owner needs to pay someone to fix it, they will opt for the cheapest and quickest way to get that POS out of their shop. They'll cross their fingers and hope it never comes back again. This is what happens when you become a litigant in a lawsuit. If you plan on sending a vehicle for diagnosis, you must ensure that the battery is fully charged, it has enough gas, and all rubbish is removed from the vehicle so they may have access to certain panels throughout the vehicle. Just remember, when it comes to European cars, in the first 4 to 6 years, a lot of these vehicles lose 50 to 70% of their value, but the parts still go up in price. This is how a nice vehicle can turn into a POS or a beach whale in someone’s parking lot. Remember, the last person who touches this vehicle will own this customer for life, and I don’t mean in a good way.
Back in the day we got 40% of the billed labor these days labor 200 and tech pay on avg 28 and of course we don’t get the hours we should but in the end it avg’s to 12/15% of shop labor
The shop I worked at way back when I first started out. He never wanted to turn a job down. A lot of those jobs he made very little money on. Since I started working for myself I turn down jobs all the time. The European cars I hardly work on anymore, And the old cars. Just not worth it.
The headgasket example, All that is explained up front, extra charges and labor will likely be needed. However, if you charge only book time on these repairs, thats insane. This is where a labor rate and labor time matrix come into play. Doesn't matter if its a used or reman engine, my parts matrix would actually make me more money on new one.
I watched a Chrysler tech do a head gasket change on a Dodge Neon by only lifting the head up about 1 inch ( with a transmission stand pushing up on the exhaust manifold and head bolts removed)and pull the factory gasket out ,then slip the new gasket in . Yes, that job was profitable for a Chrysler Dealership....lol.
I disagree with you on this one. Its not all about making money whatever happen to feeling good about helping others. Thats why our shop is top of the line. We work on everything. Also it is mandatory we do all our training and keep up with certification. Also we have had more comebacks on jasper engines then anything else. I can't remember ever having a comeback on a used engine.
Yup. Take care of the customer and they take care of you. My shop has one lead tech/foreman(me) one gs, one parts changer and a decent b tech and we do over a million a year outside city limits where everyone has “a cousin that’s a mechanic”. If you’re honest, your customers will trust you. We make the best choice for the customer and the vehicle.
@keithkapusinsky5476 that's where you are 100% wrong. If your all about the money please get out of the business right now. YOU are giving us a bad name. People like you cut corners and try to rip people off
I was a police and town tech for 20 years and never ripped anyone off. If you're to blind to see how corporations and governments work in the U.S, than you should leave the country!
Its all money! I worked for a place that worked on every piece of junk known to man or you got fired! Try telling your landlord that money isnt important And the owner retired early as a millionaire and im still struggling! you can do a honest days work but if your ignorant, go take some economy classes and pull you head out of the clouds! @@jasonsanchez3441
I disagree, it’s possible I’m not understanding your point correctly but as a dealer tech I look forward to the bigger jobs even if the threads pull out of the block or some other unplanned catastrophe occurs I still make way more money on that job versus the smaller ones. It’s easy to lose hours when a diag pays .3 regardless of how long it takes and most of the time the diag charge is waived if the customer approves the job.
First line of defense is having the proper front end personnel. And communication with the techs and whoever is involved with the customer. It’s our job to educate and advise the customers. As far as issues with having people work on stuff they don’t know or want to that just seems like a shortcut to saying I don’t want to try or learn . There are times to turn jobs away but if you don’t try to do new jobs then you are painting yourself into a corner over time. Also you may not make money on that first job but what about the word of mouth when you do! And the continued exposure that brings. The real problem is no one believes in nuance, that each person and repair has to be evaluated by a case by case basis, there is no cookie cutter answer we are mass producing a specific product.
Every shop owmer/boss is like scared to tell a customer they need an engine because they overheated the crap out of it and they like to give customers the option like we can do the heads but it might not last. I own a shop for the past 4 years if an engine has sludge it needs an engine, if it over heated really bad it needs an engine, if the car has 200k miles I’m not doing timing chains so when it blows up in 6 months I have someone blaming me. Worked at so many shops that tried to be the hero and they always had some customer pissed off because of it. When I quote an engine I quote it high just incase anything breaks, if it’s a used engine I quote timing belt, plugs, front & rear main seals and other gaskets and what not because I don’t want a customer coming back for something when it should have been done. If the customer doesn’t like the price that’s fine don’t do it but when I explain everything they don’t have a problem.
You probably won't be in business for long, car review channels, and Toyota loyalists claim they never break 😊 (Hope you know I'm being sarcastic 😅) wish you luck in your endeavors
Ya...... All the speak of lost profit on head jobs, Etc... Yes !, But what are even the chances of having a long lasting happy relationship with "that" client after those jobs ? 80% of the time they are pissed off for "something" !!
You don't have to accept every job that comes into your shop, but some shops feel compelled to take on every task that walks in through their doors. Each job should be evaluated based on its risk and reward. With the diminishing profitability of tasks like engine repairs, head gaskets, and timing chains, it's crucial to prioritize jobs that yield better returns. This is where experience comes in, guiding you on which jobs to accept and which ones to avoid. These jobs often exceed the estimated price, necessitating warranties. It's all about balancing risk and reward to ensure profitability in your business.
Exactly. I have a 1987 G-Body Cutlass, and very few shops are willing to work on it. Thankfully my transmission shop didn't turn me away. Most other repairs I end up doing myself.
Used to work at a shop where we worked on every POS on the planet! What a nightmare!
Man, watching this video made my realize really how blessed I am. At my shop that i work at, if we as the techs look at a car that comes in and tell him "hey we really aren't equipped to work on this" or "this is out of our depth" or if a car seems like it's going to be more headache than it's worth, he will listen and call the customer and send it to the dealer or someone else.
We also only put in reman engines and transmissions instead of trying to rebuild a trans or do head repair work.
Hell at my shop we don't even use old rotors. If it needs a brake job it gets rotors and pads every time, especially because we live in the rust belt and it gets hot and cold and salt and all the rest it's far easier and safer than shaving rotors down and ensuring nobody misreads a micrometer or the micrometer being off for some reason and honestly in the time it would take to machine them down or worse just put pads on it and call it a day we end up losing any money on it by warranty alone since we have a very very good warranty.
While it ain't a perfect place I'll admit I am very happy compared to all the other place i hear about and some of the horror stories
My old boss was the type that would take in anything, I mean anything. I eneded up working on mowers, jet ski, busses ect, and all makes of cars. When I bought him out, day one I went American and Asian vehicles only. We have a added problem here with euro dealers never being able to supply the correct parts even after supplying the VIN.
I don't work in a shop, just myself in my own garage and mobile, but I have an actual business, with garage keepers insurance, etc. I do make money, but I mostly just do it for fun. I just do it on evenings and weekends, and work days as a network engineer. I run into a lot of these issues. I am very selective about my customers though. But yeah a lot of simple jobs can get more expensive with on turn of a bolt that goes wrong. I always have people with eurotrash and I tell them I don't work on that. I am mainly GM with occasional Ford, Chrylser, and Honda/Hyundai. They just don't understand why I won't do something simple on there BMW. I tell them its because I want to make money not spend it.
I ran into this problem years ago when I had a Jaguar. Only two shops in town were willing to work on it, but they each wanted over $700 to replace a coolant hose. This was in 1999, so take inflation into account. Granted, I know the repair was expensive because the intake had to be removed to get the hose out. I had a friend of a friend do it for $350.
thanks god someone finally did a video on this I can't tell you how many times I've dealt with this at shops
We work on everything at out shop, this week for example I'm working on a 16 Ram, 65 C10, 2000 Grand Am, 2004 Land Rover and many others that some shops might undersell or turn away. We make each job worth doing, or the customer takes it, but we don't just decline to work on it because it isn't our preferred repair.
I agree with what you're saying though, just lucky we haven't had trouble making jobs profitable in most cases. It's the only way we can stand behind our work and keep the shop open :).
I haven't done a head gasket repair in 4 or 5 years. A Transit Connect I diagnosed with one recently declined repair and went to "trade it in." Maybe just getting lucky.
This is why shops should adapt to hybrid policies as far as charging the customers and paying the techs. Every job is a risk for the shop and the tech, because of the unknown. Being a one man show I turn down a lot of jobs due to this reason. I’ve considered adding an hourly charge for however long a vehicle ties up my lift/shop. I know the customers are going to cry poverty, but they do that anyway until they leave the shop and suddenly have proballer money again. So what do I have to lose? It’s time this industry loses the “well I guess I’ll just eat it on this one attitude”.
I understand this logic on certain things and my boss usually listens when I tell them a used engine or transmission isn’t the right idea. But selling remanufactured for every bad head gasket doesn’t make sense.
It can also mean 80% of your of your ticket total at the end of the week came from only 20% of your customers & vice versa.. the other 20% of your weekly total comes from the other 80% of your customer that came thru the shop
Had a "cylinder head " job on a kia last week. Diagnosed by another tech. When i was told head gasket i replied thats a funny way to say engine. It was a hyundia. I pushed it in and 10 minutes later i agreed the timing chsin haf broke and bent up the valves.... but i also noticed when rotating the crankshaft the #1 piston didnt move. Lol i went ahead and changed that diag time from him to me. I dont even trust hyundia engines to be good when they are new from the dealer.
Great analysis. Thinking things through. Imagine what it takes to do something from A-Z and all the problems in between. No assumptions or magical thinking.
I say it all the time, how much profit are you going to make when you gotta do it twice?
Im happy to work at a shop where i have full authority to refuse certain repairs, i have no problem referring them to another shop who can handle it or explaining why any shop would refuse to repair their vehicle. Im not here to jackpot myself or the shop by taking on something we are unequipped to deal with!
Not being familiar with European vehicles is a big problem, these vehicles are easy to work on and extremely profitable. If you work in an area where they are so uncommon that it's not worth becoming familiar with them, I can understand that, but in general I wouldn't recommend avoiding them. Learning how to work on them is a better long term plan.
Selling a reman engine sounds great in theory, but when a reman costs 20K-30K and a low mileage used engine costs 4K, a reman just isn't a reasonable option for a 7 year old car that's worth 20K. We always price used engines as long blocks and I've had great success with them, but I'm also very picky and I'll refuse an engine if I don't like what gets delivered.
Older cars often aren't worth fixing and the people driving older cars often can't afford major repairs. If someone wants us to fix their daily driver 1970 Jaguar, the answer is no. If an existing customer with multiple high end vehicles wants us to fix their 1970 Jaguar that they just bought as a weekend toy and they've budgeted 30K to fix up, the answer is yes.
Sorry, here's part two of my comment. I recently watched a video featuring Keith from L1 Automotive Training titled 'Porsche PDK Transmission Faults and Unethical Shops.' I highly recommend watching it. In the video, he deals with a large national chain specializing in transmissions. This isn't the first time I've seen such incidents occur, where the service writer neglects to thoroughly review the service information (SI) before undertaking a job. As soon as the profits run out and the shop owner needs to pay someone to fix it, they will opt for the cheapest and quickest way to get that POS out of their shop. They'll cross their fingers and hope it never comes back again. This is what happens when you become a litigant in a lawsuit. If you plan on sending a vehicle for diagnosis, you must ensure that the battery is fully charged, it has enough gas, and all rubbish is removed from the vehicle so they may have access to certain panels throughout the vehicle. Just remember, when it comes to European cars, in the first 4 to 6 years, a lot of these vehicles lose 50 to 70% of their value, but the parts still go up in price. This is how a nice vehicle can turn into a POS or a beach whale in someone’s parking lot. Remember, the last person who touches this vehicle will own this customer for life, and I don’t mean in a good way.
Back in the day we got 40% of the billed labor these days labor 200 and tech pay on avg 28 and of course we don’t get the hours we should but in the end it avg’s to 12/15% of shop labor
The shop I worked at way back when I first started out. He never wanted to turn a job down. A lot of those jobs he made very little money on. Since I started working for myself I turn down jobs all the time. The European cars I hardly work on anymore, And the old cars. Just not worth it.
The headgasket example, All that is explained up front, extra charges and labor will likely be needed. However, if you charge only book time on these repairs, thats insane. This is where a labor rate and labor time matrix come into play. Doesn't matter if its a used or reman engine, my parts matrix would actually make me more money on new one.
I watched a Chrysler tech do a head gasket change on a Dodge Neon by only lifting the head up about 1 inch ( with a transmission stand pushing up on the exhaust manifold and head bolts removed)and pull the factory gasket out ,then slip the new gasket in . Yes, that job was profitable for a Chrysler Dealership....lol.
That’s the kinda shop I wanna work at
Dodge Neons were garbage cars , the 4 cylinder was known to blow head gaskets. This was warranty work in the late 90s. Cheers!
Actually once the head gasket was changed out from the poorly designed original one they were trouble free@@jonyoung6405
I disagree with you on this one. Its not all about making money whatever happen to feeling good about helping others. Thats why our shop is top of the line. We work on everything. Also it is mandatory we do all our training and keep up with certification. Also we have had more comebacks on jasper engines then anything else. I can't remember ever having a comeback on a used engine.
You have been very lucky! And in The United States it's all about the money! If it wasn't we wouldn't pay Taxes!
Yup. Take care of the customer and they take care of you. My shop has one lead tech/foreman(me) one gs, one parts changer and a decent b tech and we do over a million a year outside city limits where everyone has “a cousin that’s a mechanic”. If you’re honest, your customers will trust you. We make the best choice for the customer and the vehicle.
@keithkapusinsky5476 that's where you are 100% wrong. If your all about the money please get out of the business right now. YOU are giving us a bad name. People like you cut corners and try to rip people off
I was a police and town tech for 20 years and never ripped anyone off. If you're to blind to see how corporations and governments work in the U.S, than you should leave the country!
Its all money! I worked for a place that worked on every piece of junk known to man or you got fired! Try telling your landlord that money isnt important And the owner retired early as a millionaire and im still struggling! you can do a honest days work but if your ignorant, go take some economy classes and pull you head out of the clouds! @@jasonsanchez3441
I disagree, it’s possible I’m not understanding your point correctly but as a dealer tech I look forward to the bigger jobs even if the threads pull out of the block or some other unplanned catastrophe occurs I still make way more money on that job versus the smaller ones. It’s easy to lose hours when a diag pays .3 regardless of how long it takes and most of the time the diag charge is waived if the customer approves the job.
First line of defense is having the proper front end personnel. And communication with the techs and whoever is involved with the customer. It’s our job to educate and advise the customers. As far as issues with having people work on stuff they don’t know or want to that just seems like a shortcut to saying I don’t want to try or learn . There are times to turn jobs away but if you don’t try to do new jobs then you are painting yourself into a corner over time. Also you may not make money on that first job but what about the word of mouth when you do! And the continued exposure that brings. The real problem is no one believes in nuance, that each person and repair has to be evaluated by a case by case basis, there is no cookie cutter answer we are mass producing a specific product.
Stepping over quarters to pick up nickels
Every shop owmer/boss is like scared to tell a customer they need an engine because they overheated the crap out of it and they like to give customers the option like we can do the heads but it might not last. I own a shop for the past 4 years if an engine has sludge it needs an engine, if it over heated really bad it needs an engine, if the car has 200k miles I’m not doing timing chains so when it blows up in 6 months I have someone blaming me. Worked at so many shops that tried to be the hero and they always had some customer pissed off because of it. When I quote an engine I quote it high just incase anything breaks, if it’s a used engine I quote timing belt, plugs, front & rear main seals and other gaskets and what not because I don’t want a customer coming back for something when it should have been done. If the customer doesn’t like the price that’s fine don’t do it but when I explain everything they don’t have a problem.
Next thing you know, you're working on taxicabs and old tractors 😂
I plan on having my own shop servicing strictly Toyota. It’s what I know and I don’t have to look tons of crap up on other vehicles
You probably won't be in business for long, car review channels, and Toyota loyalists claim they never break 😊 (Hope you know I'm being sarcastic 😅) wish you luck in your endeavors
@@NovemberMan69 Thanks man and I know it drives me nuts when ppl say Toyota never breaks lol
I'm sure General motors is gonna be hiring a lot of warranty technicians 😂😂
Everything is 0.2!
I'm certain Ford is... half the brand new Fords in the fleet I maintain are on safety holds for recalls 🤦♂️
Agree 100 percent with you
Ya...... All the speak of lost profit on head jobs, Etc... Yes !, But what are even the chances of having a long lasting happy relationship with "that" client after those jobs ? 80% of the time they are pissed off for "something" !!
This guy is a proffesional bullshitter.
This doesn’t exist in this business lol