Let's talk automotive repair

[Cordell]

The automotive repair industry sucks, the flat rate pay system is fucking dumb, and I am stuck relying on others to do a good job before I even have a chance to earn my paycheck. So because I still really like what I do just not how it gets done, I want to move towards doing it for myself. I mean if gearhead Rob could have his own shop, so can I.

 

So in the short term I need to find somewhere to store my Camaro and Corvette so I can use my garage at home for side work. A couple thoughts on this topic, I considered selling one or both cars and while there are obvious benefits this is simply not a step I'm willing to take right now.

 

Is there anything I'm not thinking of working out of my house? I don't have an HOA here, and while my neighbors are not great I can't see them starting shit if I can keep my garage door shut.

 

How many of you could see a need for a GM specialized tech? I mean obviously I can do any general repair, but I'm fully trained in GM cars.

 

I have all my own GM scan tools and dealership access as long as I maintain my full time job (which I can't see not having the full time job in the short term), so programming and really anything in depth.

 

I'd love to hear CR's ideas and experiences.

 

I know that I have shy'd away from this approach to things in the past and I have always avoided side work, but I just don't see any other way to progress and do the job in an honest way that earns me a reasonable living.

[2 Sweet]

Yeah definitely, I would take all my cars to you, GM is all I own

 

I can't answer your other questions, but as far as the demand for a skilled and trusted tech, yeah I definitely think that's something that just about everyone is constantly looking for. Personally, if I need work done on my car, Lucore is the only shop that comes to mind that I've used in the past and would be comfortable using again. Other than them, I don't know who I would recommend to a friend or trust for myself. I would rather shoot myself in the dick than take my car to Midas or Tuffy, and I'm too poor to take it to a dealer. I can handle basic maintenance/repairs myself, but these days I don't even have time for that.

[TurboRust]

I do/did tons of side work at 3 different addresses and never had neighbor issues. The only time it raised any eyebrows was all the cash/checks in and out when we were doing refinance/mortgage stuff. I've never thought about doing it completely on my own. So kudos to you if you can make it work.

 

I'll ask this tho. I don't know you well, hell, hardly at all.. but for years and years, post after post on here you seem to get bored/displeased with the job you currently have. Do you think doing your own thing would give any different result? I feel trapped as you do in the auto/tire industry(though we could have worse jobs, right?) and I don't know that I've found the solution either.. Good luck man.

[STEVE-O]

So are you trying to just do side work to make extra income and still have your day job?

 

Or are you going to quit your day job and pursue a shop out of your Home garage?

[Dharris89]

The two biggest concerns I would have would be your privacy and insurance. Doing side work for CR folks would be fine but you are inviting potential strangers to your house. Are you comfortable with the that?

 

From an insurance standpoint I would make sure your tools and other “shop” stuff are fully covered just in case. Also doing side work I would have a limit of liability form every one signs just to protect you.

 

All that said, I’ll definitely bring stuff to you.

[Cordell]

Yeah definitely, I would take all my cars to you, GM is all I own

 

I can't answer your other questions, but as far as the demand for a skilled and trusted tech, yeah I definitely think that's something that just about everyone is constantly looking for. Personally, if I need work done on my car, Lucore is the only shop that comes to mind that I've used in the past and would be comfortable using again. Other than them, I don't know who I would recommend to a friend or trust for myself. I would rather shoot myself in the dick than take my car to Midas or Tuffy, and I'm too poor to take it to a dealer. I can handle basic maintenance/repairs myself, but these days I don't even have time for that.

 

Thanks man.

 

I do/did tons of side work at 3 different addresses and never had neighbor issues. The only time it raised any eyebrows was all the cash/checks in and out when we were doing refinance/mortgage stuff. I've never thought about doing it completely on my own. So kudos to you if you can make it work.

 

I'll ask this tho. I don't know you well, hell, hardly at all.. but for years and years, post after post on here you seem to get bored/displeased with the job you currently have. Do you think doing your own thing would give any different result? I feel trapped as you do in the auto/tire industry(though we could have worse jobs, right?) and I don't know that I've found the solution either.. Good luck man.

 

I certainly do get tired of things, but the biggest issue with most of my jobs has been the rollercoaster of work effecting my paycheck. I think this would give me a little more control, it's never been the actual working on cars as much as all the bullshit that goes along with it. Simplifying things by cutting out everything but me and the car owner sounds better and better.

 

So are you trying to just do side work to make extra income and still have your day job?

 

Or are you going to quit your day job and pursue a shop out of your Home garage?

 

I'm not planning on quitting my day job unless this takes off. I want it to take off so hopefully it will come to that, and having my own shop. Working out of my 2 car garage without a lift is not something I want to do, but I have to start somewhere. Hopefully this might catch on for me and go somewhere.

[Lauren]

I do side work out of my garage for people as well as rebuilding my own personal cars and flips. I have an hoa but they have never said anything

[SRTurbo04]

I think people always have a demand for mechanics that are willing to do side work. Me included.

 

Have u thought about just taking a job that pays hourly or salary a guaranteed amount no matter how much work you get? And then do side work on the side to make up the difference? What about switching Industries instead of working on cars working on trucks buses tractor equipment other items that need mechanical know

 

 

 

Hell what about finding a way to work on airplanes? Might have to do a little more schooling but the pay I would imagine is much better and you already have a good foundation to work off of. He'll a lot of planes used LS motor why not LOL

[STEVE-O]

I think people always have a demand for mechanics that are willing to do side work. Me included.

 

Have u thought about just taking a job that pays hourly or salary a guaranteed amount no matter how much work you get? And then do side work on the side to make up the difference? What about switching Industries instead of working on cars working on trucks buses tractor equipment other items that need mechanical know

 

 

 

Hell what about finding a way to work on airplanes? Might have to do a little more schooling but the pay I would imagine is much better and you already have a good foundation to work off of. He'll a lot of planes used LS motor why not LOL

 

I never understand here, I told him about Carmax to become hourly m-f as far as a tech job you can’t touch it , Rocky has offered the airport multiple times as well. Opportunities are there just have to be willing to take them

 

Scott you clearly know what your doing but it’s like once every six months it’s a complaining thread about life work and money and the idiots you have to work with man. It’s a clear example of work smarter not harder.

 

Since me leaving Carmax back in July voluntarily I known 2-3 others are gone as well you could probably walk right in and get a job at the top or one step under and be in a cake technician spot

[Geeto67]

Here are a few of my quick thoughts:

 

1) Accounting: Keep it separate from your personal finances. Separate bank account, separate books, the whole thing completely separate from your life. Pay yourself a wage out of the account, but don't touch the money until the customer has signed off that the work was done and they are happy with it in case you have to give a refund. Most shops operate with insurance for poor work, but you are self insured doing side work, protect yourself by letting the first couple of jobs build up in the bank account in case you have to pay out.

 

2) Paperwork: Since this isn't a "legit" business and you don't want to call attention to working out of your garage in a res neighborhood you aren't going to have a standard repair order like a shop would. However, you do want some kind of person to person agreement between the you and the customer to keep the shitbags, I mean angry customers from beating you out of their bill by calling the cops and saying you stole their car. You also want some paperwork in case the customer abandons a car on you and you have to go after them for the money and to take their bucket. Usually these read like "person to person" service contracts (e.g. "I agree to work for this person doing the following jobs to their car...etc") without a specified location. I'll look to see if there are any forms you can use.

 

The other way to do it is to not put anything in writing at all - and just accept that some customers are going to beat you out of money. But they also can't prove you worked on their car without something either (you can't sue them and it's hard for them to sue you).

 

3) Customers: People fucking suck. I try to see the best in everyone but let's face it there are some people out there that are going to try and fuck you over, and since this is out of your house you don't have the protections of debt collections laws or most courts. Also you don't really want to be working on the brake pads on the local meth head's 1989 Lumina where he tries to pay you in bottlecaps and hep C laden gum heavy blow jobs.

 

To that end my suggestion is to stick to enthusiast groups. I'm sure you know corvette and F body people, and there are like 6 million forums for those cars alone. Let them know you do local side work on the forum including perf work. Once you get a few customers, your rep will grow and more will come. Also work the CCC group, and your close friends and family. It takes time to build a customer base, so don't worry if it seems slow at first. You may not have the protection of the courts, but communities can offer some protection.

 

Also working inside communities keeps the risk exposure lower. you are interviewing the people, not just taking all comers, to figure out if they are going to give you a hard time.

[99StockGT]

 

To that end my suggestion is to stick to enthusiast groups. I'm sure you know corvette and F body people, and there are like 6 million forums for those cars alone. Let them know you do local side work on the forum including perf work.

 

IF you are going down the sidework path, go this route. People who are spending discretionary money on toy projects. You aren't typically going to be under the time crunch of fixing moms minivan transmission so she can get to work, and those people are typically not just going to bring you boredom. Enjoying what you are doing is extremely important.

 

Do you have any sort of clause in your employment that says you can't do something like this or work elsewhere? Possibly do some mercenary work for a local shop on the side/weekends?

[Rocky31186]

In theory it's good to have constant side work. But making side work pay all of the bills is scary man. If you don't have a shop big enough to crank work out and possibly have a rack it won't work.

 

I'm telling you man, find a mechanic job that pays hourly. Get away from the shit dealers.

[Cordell]

You guys talking up hourly paid techs disagree with me on a few things, the type of technician job I like having is not available hourly. I hated aftermarket shops, and I hate the monotonous task of prepping used cars. You find me a diagnosis job that pays hourly and I'm all for it, but that is the whole reason I stay at the dealerships, I do troubleshooting. This is the only part of the job I really enjoy, it's the part of the job that puts the "technical" in technician. I think most of you just like being mechanics, ie hanging parts and doing maintenance.

 

The unfortunate reality to me being this way is I usually get warranty work, and a lot of these jobs don't turn into a ton of hours like the "gravy" work. So when I say I've gotten really good at my job to get paid less I mean it. That's also why going to the airport or carmax doesn't interest me.

[Cordell]

In theory it's good to have constant side work. But making side work pay all of the bills is scary man. If you don't have a shop big enough to crank work out and possibly have a rack it won't work.

 

I'm telling you man, find a mechanic job that pays hourly. Get away from the shit dealers.

 

I'm a long way from leaving full time employment, and I wouldn't try to earn my living out of my little 2 car garage. I think you may have misunderstood my plan, it was to do sidework as a way to build towards a shop and eventually transition to that, not to do anything major quickly.

[STEVE-O]

Wait wait so you are trying to do side work to make more money ? You understand that flat rate you just turn hours to make money which doing what you enjoy “diag” doesn’t turn.

 

So what exactly is your end goal here because running a shop that does diag work out of your garage will not keep the lights on. Your going to make your money turning the hours like every other shop out there or separating yourself from the herd like performance based shops do there is just no other way around it.

 

And at one point you talked about ( not in this thread) not turning wrenches at all anymore and beating up your body, where doing extra side work is adding to that.

 

Side note also you mentioned of X can do it so can I, you should dig into a lot of these other shops that stay up and running for years on end. There is a reason Firestone, tuffy, Monroe stay in business year after year after year and “BILLS auto repair” is a vacant lot

[Cordell]

Wait wait so you are trying to do side work to make more money ? You understand that flat rate you just turn hours to make money which doing what you enjoy “diag” doesn’t turn.

 

So what exactly is your end goal here because running a shop that does diag work out of your garage will not keep the lights on. Your going to make your money turning the hours like every other shop out there or separating yourself from the herd like performance based shops do there is just no other way around it.

 

And at one point you talked about ( not in this thread) not turning wrenches at all anymore and beating up your body, where doing extra side work is adding to that.

 

Side note also you mentioned of X can do it so can I, you should dig into a lot of these other shops that stay up and running for years on end. There is a reason Firestone, tuffy, Monroe stay in business year after year after year and “BILLS auto repair” is a vacant lot

 

 

Is it your intent to sound like a know it all? Do you run a shop and I missed something? I appreciate that you have worked in the industry, but you don't seem to appreciate where I'm coming from. I haven't come up with a business plan, this is an idea thread. I would love to find a way to market not only my skills but the aspects of the trade I actually enjoy, or else it isn't worth doing. Maybe it isn't, but we're just talking here.

 

If you don't like me personally you do know that you don't need to participate in this thread?

[STEVE-O]

No one came at your personally , I strictly pointed out business to you based off of your idea and what you said you enjoy.

 

You asked a question and I simply was sharing results of a calculated model to show how your idea of running a side job and turning it into a full shop st some point will simply fail based off your aspect of only enjoying the diag portion of the field that you enjoy.

 

Unless I missed what your goal was here in these posts

 

Many people try to run a shop and it might seem successful but in a few years it’s gone to dust. Now if you want to do side work out of your Home garage where you can pick and choose what you want to do based off of what you enjoy then absolutely do that as long as it doesn’t conflict with whatever terms your day job has in place with your employer

 

It might not be the dream job or the dream portion of your field you want to do working at say Carmax or airport or whatever but the opportunity With these jobs far outway what a normal dealership can offer as far as a technician position goes.

 

Also as stated working out of your garage will assume a lot of risk and liability given the size that you ware wanting to grow into becomes the issue. The last thing you want is to get big enough to be Turing work left and right so your taking on a lot of “retail jobs” not friends family etc and something happens where now your in a civil suit vs a company. That can go south for you very quickly and not saying it’s going to happen but as a business you want to be prepared for the worst.

 

How many times even st a dealership does someone complain “Hey my car was not overheating until you changed the oil on it ... “ someone can easily take you to court over something stupid like that and send all your efforts down the drain.

 

 

Sorry for the long rant but if your going to do it it’s a huge risk but I would say sell or do whatever you need to get the capital together and get your LLC and open a small shop right off the bat and then expand from there as your business needs grow

[Cordell]

No one came at your personally , I strictly pointed out business to you based off of your idea and what you said you enjoy.

 

You asked a question and I simply was sharing results of a calculated model to show how your idea of running a side job and turning it into a full shop st some point will simply fail based off your aspect of only enjoying the diag portion of the field that you enjoy.

 

Unless I missed what your goal was here in these posts

 

Many people try to run a shop and it might seem successful but in a few years it’s gone to dust. Now if you want to do side work out of your Home garage where you can pick and choose what you want to do based off of what you enjoy then absolutely do that as long as it doesn’t conflict with whatever terms your day job has in place with your employer

 

It might not be the dream job or the dream portion of your field you want to do working at say Carmax or airport or whatever but the opportunity With these jobs far outway what a normal dealership can offer as far as a technician position goes.

 

Is this solely from a monetary point of view? If all I wanted was a paycheck sure I get it, but if that was the case there are many other ways to make money. If I was solely money driven I wouldn't be working on cars anyway.

 

As far as opening a shop goes, a lot of things need to come together for that to happen, it may or may not happen. I'm not so dense that I don't realize that I still have to do most aspects of auto repair to be profitable. I was making the point as to why I wouldn't consider most of these hourly mechanic jobs.

[STEVE-O]

Is this solely from a monetary point of view? If all I wanted was a paycheck sure I get it, but if that was the case there are many other ways to make money. If I was solely money driven I wouldn't be working on cars anyway.

 

As far as opening a shop goes, a lot of things need to come together for that to happen, it may or may not happen. I'm not so dense that I don't realize that I still have to do most aspects of auto repair to be profitable. I was making the point as to why I wouldn't consider most of these hourly mechanic jobs.

 

Sorry I misunderstood where in your first post you stated how the pay structure was so dumb and you have to wait on others before you can make your paycheck. To me your concern was a money issue

[Rocky31186]

Highly disagree with this statement. How do you figure a technician job like yours is not available hourly?? Do you think only flat rate paid techs actually diag?

 

You must be blind as to what other shops do. Get out of the damn flat rate world, and stop complaining about it.

 

 

You guys talking up hourly paid techs disagree with me on a few things, the type of technician job I like having is not available hourly. I hated aftermarket shops, and I hate the monotonous task of prepping used cars. You find me a diagnosis job that pays hourly and I'm all for it, but that is the whole reason I stay at the dealerships, I do troubleshooting. This is the only part of the job I really enjoy, it's the part of the job that puts the "technical" in technician. I think most of you just like being mechanics, ie hanging parts and doing maintenance.

 

The unfortunate reality to me being this way is I usually get warranty work, and a lot of these jobs don't turn into a ton of hours like the "gravy" work. So when I say I've gotten really good at my job to get paid less I mean it. That's also why going to the airport or carmax doesn't interest me.

[Cordell]

Highly disagree with this statement. How do you figure a technician job like yours is not available hourly?? Do you think only flat rate paid techs actually diag?

 

You must be blind as to what other shops do. Get out of the damn flat rate world, and stop complaining about it.

 

Where are all these hourly jobs at? I don't see any that are going to involve what I get at the dealership. I like the support of the manufacturer, I like having all the tools to diag. Do you honestly think you can do dealership level diag in an aftermarket shop with Alldata and some random aftermarket scan tool? Do you think it's feasable for one person to be capable of a high level of diag on every car that could come through the door?

 

If I've gotten anything out of this thread it's reinforcing that I really like my job, I just hate one major aspect of it. Not making much money sucks, but if I'm working on cars I prefer the dealership environment. So when some GM dealer decides to pay hourly I'll be one of the first in line, but that isn't happening.

 

Rocky, I don't know what happened when you worked at a dealership or how far you got in your training, but you've made it quite clear that it isn't for you. I don't understand how you can't see my view on it. Just because the pay sucks doesn't mean the whole job sucks.

[Robochan]

Come make 6 figures diagnosing industrial equipment.

[Tractor]

Come make 6 figures diagnosing industrial equipment.

 

This, I know guys making a ton working on caterpillars, etc out in the field.

 

But if your still thinking of going out on your own it would be cool to be able to market yourself to the little shops and somehow work for them as a consultant or second level support for tough issues. If your serious I'd definitely set up a business and at least get errors and omissions insurance, its not expensive.

[Geeesammy]

Steve you aren't getting this and it is a super simple concept

 

He wants to work out of his garage until it takes off, then slowly transition into a full time operation and quit his day job. It isn't about the money (even though everything is) as much as it is about doing something that makes him happy and running his own shit and making what he is worth.

[Not Brian]

Things people are hesitant about before taking their pride and joy to some dude's garage for specialized work:

 

1.) How safe is his neighborhood? I don't want my car sitting on some hood-ass street corner overnight.

 

2.) Is it worth getting a better deal(?) for non-warrantied work?

 

3.) You probably don't take credit card. You're seeking general GM customers afterall, who likely don't have the amount of cash on-hand for super GM-certified stuff past oil changes and brakes. Just an assumption/stereotype, but I'm guessing it's valid one.

 

None of these are against you personally; they're just some hurdles I can think of why you wouldn't get much business from the average Joe. You'd probably get like 5-6 CR peeps over an entire Summer looking to get their new headers installed or whatever. Not saying it's a bad idea, but I imagine it would be rough to get a solid side gig like this going with customers outside your group of friends.. unless you pull people aside at your job telling them "hey I can do this at house cheaper if you want". If your bosses found out, I don't see a good outcome there.