Ideal car shop
 

Just thought I'd give this a try. What's everybodys ideal car shop? Like if a new shop opened accross the street from you, what kinda stuff would you want them to supply? Race gas? Nitrus? dyno? etc.



***Edited thread title - ABV***

Re: Idea car shop
 

My ideal car should be have everything... spray booth, every tool I could ever need, a lift or two, a AWD dyno, and it would be in my garage.

Re: Idea car shop
 

Good service. There's a place 4-5 blocks from my house that has awesome turnaround and is owned by this awesome guy named Nghia. Every time I go there he fits me in right away, always has my car done in a few hours. They're open late, so if I need something done I don't need to bend over backwards.

Perfect example: Ordered new tires from tirerack.com, had them delivered to said shop. Dropped Anna's lancer off last night at 6pm. 7:45 Nghia calls, tires are done, and btw, you should do the front brakes sometime soon...you want me to do them right now?

Re: Idea car shop
 

Do you mean ideal car shop?

Re: Idea car shop
 

Sorry type-o

Re: Idea car shop
 

What is nitrus?

Re: Idea car shop
 

If a shop opened across the street from me I would want it to have a lot of sound-deadening material. Sandwhiches in the waiting room would be nice too.

Re: Idea car shop
 

Aw come on, this was a somewhat serious question.

Re: Idea car shop
 

I assume your asking cause of the possibility of opening one. You'd just have to go with what the market needs for the area you are getting into. And with an ever changing market, I hope you have a good foundation and bankroll. :D

Re: Idea car shop
 

If you are looking into opening a shop, you should probably choose somewhere in the east-metro for the location since the west is pretty well covered already. You also need to ask yourself what you can bring to the table that the other shops can't. How will you market? What will be your niche?

Re: Idea car shop
 

i am gonna 2nd the sandwhiches comment.

Re: Idea car shop
 

There is a ton of stuff that an ideal shop would have. My list would have new shit added to it every time I came accross a problem and didnt have the right tool.

Welders/cutting-TIG, MIG, Oxy/Acetalyne(sp?), plasma cutter
Machining- Mill, lathe, surface grinder, etc
Hoists- drive on for alignments, post style for most other stuff
Tire equipment- mounter, balancer(load balancer would be nice)
Specialty tools- anything needed for engine building, engine diagnostics, ABS diagnostics, hot tank, etc.....this could go forever

Employees- friendly, knowledgable, honest, efficient, etc.....
Prices- fair pricing with a warranty on their work, to a point anyways.

Re: Idea car shop
 

"nitrous" excuse me.

You are correct. I'm still in college, but I'm trying to do some future planning. Never hurt nobody.

Re: Idea car shop
 

Nope, planning never hurt anyone.

But there you will get 1% of your needed info here, and 99% from Finacial Advisors, Underwriters, Corporate and Small Business Lawyers, and others in the industry. It's a easy one to get into, it's a hard one to stay in.

Re: Idea car shop
 

I totally agree with that. But I would really respect a shop that listened to all input. Like I'd do my best to listen to what everyday customers had to say. Sounds corny but o well haha.

Re: Idea car shop
 

Trouble is that you'd get a hundred different answers and all of them would conflict.

Re: Idea car shop
 

Good point. But I really feel, and I think most people would agree, that customer service and consideration plays a huge part in a successful business.

Re: Idea car shop
 

My big thing is Knowledge. I have found it very hard to find a shop that i actually trust taking my car to here in california. If i were in MN i would have no problem taking my car to shops around there like LSE and DB and MAP because i know the members and know what they are capible of doing. Down here not so much. If i ever end up taking my car to a shop, I feel really bad for him, because hes gonna have to go through an interview process before hand. Ill ask questions like "Which is better for my car, 6 bolt block or 7 bolt?" "What is crankwalk?" "if you were to change something about my current setup, what would you change?" and things like that.
Customer service can only get you so far. you can be the nicest guy in the world but when it comes down to it, if you dont know shit about dsms, you arent coming near my car. I have found many times where i would talk to a mechanic at a shop and they take one look at my setup (which isnt bad, but there are a lot higher hp cars in MN) and get a confused look on their face. After that im done with them.
I actually talked to a guy and almost punched him. He was saying how a 16g was the biggest turbo you should go with on a daily driven dsm while a bunch of guys were around this stock gsx. Anything bigger is way too big for street. I made him look like a fool in front of his friends when i showed him the 50 trim.

Re: Idea car shop
 

AWD dyno.

Can't find one within 8 hrs of me.

Re: Idea car shop
 

Yea an awd dyno would probably be the initial basis of my shop (if or when I open one). And I do agree, that knowledge is a huge thing. I've gotten shafted by some "nice" guys before and it sucks. I like knowing the person that touches my car. Otherwise I like to see some license n stuff, but a personal interview isnt a bad idea haha.

Re: Ideal car shop
 

If I was going to open a shop, it'd be something that was not already in the area (thinking of Minneapolis/metro here) such as a retail outlet with nice wheels, suspension, carbon fiber parts that weren't stick-on. I'd have a laser alignment rack with a tech who gradumated from suspension school.

I would carry Zero/zilch/nada wheels with black painted spokes and silver lips. talk about gay.

Re: Ideal car shop
 

I´ve always thought it´d be interesting if there was an ¨Auto Hobby Shop¨ similar to what they had on all the military bases I lived on. Basically a big garage, with lifts, tools, parts washers, machines for turning brake rotors, etc. But you bring your car there, and do the work yourself. You just pay for stall time, and to use anything that wears (ie using the rotor turning machien). They also have most fluids in stock, lots of misc parts you´d need, and had a pretty close relationship with Napa so if they didn´t have what you needed, they could get it in within a few minutes from Napa. They didn´t have dyno´s or anything cool like that. Just a place for people who want to do things them selves rather then pay a shop to do it to save money, yet don´t have the tools and gadgets needed to do it at home. I just don´t see it being very profitable. I don´t think the ones on base were too profitable, but they weren´t there to make money, they were there just to break even and give the troops a place to work on their cars on base.

Re: Ideal car shop
 

Yea that would be pretty sweet. But your right about the lack of profitability though. Was there a time limit? Or could people have their cars there for weeks? haha

Re: Ideal car shop
 

I had the same idea as Ju-On, however liability would be a huge issue, and insurance costs would go throu the roof. We had something like that in Bosnia, where insurance was a 7foot 290LBS guy called Ahbab with an AK47.

Payment was done per job with hour limitations, aka rotor turning job should take 3 hours, if you go over its $x/hr.
Also not all tools were same costs, specialty tools were +$x/hr as well unless it was part of the $job cost which lets say you come in for diagnostics which would actualy be $99for 3hrs but would include 3 hr usage of the code reader. If you went in for rotor job and decided to get the code reader as well it would be $55 for 2 hours + $33/hr for the code reader depending how long you have it.

And ofcourse, you break the tool you pay for it unless you pay for the extra insurance. and on top of that you have a second floor with 3 or 4 vendors of other stuff which cut you a check every month for being there % of their profits + rent.

I have tought of this a few years back, but after i checked at the insurance costs and found out that i would be paying for the insurance almost as much as the building loan + the tools it would not have ben worth it.

Damn the liability insurance, but without it, one person fucks up, and drops the car on his foot, sues you for renting him "faulty" equipment, even tho it was his fault fault for not using jack stands, and or proper equipment for the job he was using, you will be closing down really quick.

-E

Re: Ideal car shop
 

Well said salesmen!

Re: Ideal car shop
 

?

Re: Ideal car shop
 

aka that's a really good point! umm well said.

Re: Ideal car shop
 

ah, k danke..