Independent shop

[Geoffrey Floyd]

If Eric or any other independent shop owner could weigh in on some of the challenges they faced while opening up their own shop, as well as how they overcame those challenges to where they could get the doors open that would be fantastic. Also, equally as important, once you got the doors open, what kind of labor rates and parts markups as well as markets and any other number of economic variables came into play with keeping the doors open? I love working on cars but I feel like the only way that I can truly enjoy working on cars for a living is either to work for myself or find a job so lucrative that it justifies my misery. Any and all constructive input is extremely appreciated. Thanks.

Topic

[Adam]

I really can’t answer this question but I can throw some input.

One main issue of course is going to be insurance to cover the shop. When I ask mechanics if they would open their own shop the answer is usually ‘no’.

Besides insurance, there’s scanners and not the cheap $15 but the diag ones which will run about $3K but also there’s different ones for makes, hence Chrysler and VW usually have their own type. Tools as well as start up will make things expensive.

Don’t forget on parts, you would need to get with OEM dealers as well as places like Advance (owns Carquest – sorry don’t like some cheap parts which usually end up needing to get replaced in a year). Places like CarQuest are good when you need someone to deliver oil filters or something quick but people will still probably prefer things like GM oil filters.

Then the cost of labor, some shops use sites like Alldata which would supply book times for repairs and also bulletin logs from other mechanics that had issues with certain repairs.

While I do encourage people to follow their dreams, it seems most mechanics just take odd jobs and do it at their home garages rather than opening a shop. You would have to deal with billing, upset customers and having to staff a shop, you can’t really get by relying on just your experience to cover all jobs.

Hope this helped.

[Author]

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