Auto Service News

It seems like this news section is dominated by composite doors and not running a garage and recovery service as it started out as. The trouble is, that has just about been the story of these few monthe nothing new or different has really happened, so I am afriad it is another bit of me anout composite doors.
I decided that because the garage was pretty much a safer place after having that side door and the one at the front of the garage fitted, I should get a composite door for home too.
So it was ordered, in black if you are wondering, delivered 10 days later because my wife wanted a particular glass esign and then fitted the next day. Pretty much trouble free except the day i waqs fitted was the only day it rained in a fortnight.
So composite doors, am I a fans? Well pretty much yes as I have boought three of them in pretty much the same number of months, mainly for security reasons, after someone has tried to get into your business or home, it is funny how we change our priorities. We have some American stuff to talk about next time, so these composite doors stories may be goen for good or least for a little while.

You may remember we had an attempted break in a while ago, well it happened again but this time towards the front. We replaced the sire door with a new composite one behind our existing roller shutter and this time, they did not attempt to get in there. They tried to get in another door at the front of the premises.

What is unusual about this is, that the front is open for all to see (not that anyone did) and that the front door is not really an opening to our premises and certainly does not go to anywhere that has any value stuff. So the broke in and then left in disgust when presented with an empty room that doesn’t even have plaster on the wall. Anyway, nothing was stolen, but we still have the cost of replacing the door, the hassle of the call out, so it is time to buy another front door, to discourage these brats.

In the past we found Global door as the solution to a composite door, so we went back. They have a really good door and glass range, in 7 colours and loads of designs. OK I am not a DIYer, but you get my point. Anyway a week later it was fitted, so it now looks good and hopefully will keep our uninvited  guests away.

From time to time we do a bit of salvage work when the garage is quiet (less time now though), but this can get a bit boring and locating car parts and the right salvage project can take more time than the actual repairs. recently though there has been and increase in American Vehicle driving around the neighbourhood, from ford Mustangs, Hummers down to some nice looking SUV’s (sport Utility vehicles to you and me). This got me thinking into buying and selling American Imports, I quiet fancied the idea of a trip over to states, buying some American car and then importing it into the UK. After a bit of research on the internet I came across a site call SalvageSpareFinder, that not only will let me buy USA vehicles, but Salvage American Imports.

This is something I did not know you could from here in the UK. I don’t know that much about dealing in cars (autos) in the States, but I did know that you needed specific licenses to deal with car salvage over there, so surprised to see that anyone can buy USA salvage as an American Import.

There are some truly great looking cars from all standards of repair and you can even buy cars that cannot be registered in the USA as they are deemed as un-repairable (cat B over here), but can be exported out of the States to countries like the UK. What a great source of car parts and the projects you can buy look right up my street. Suddenly that classic car I was talking about last week, doesn’t have as much appeal.

As you know we do a fair bit of vehicle recovery if they should breakdown away for home, so we were a bit surprised to what happen just recently. We got a phone call from a motorist who said he had broken down and could we recover his car back to our garage, which we did wondering why he didn’t want us to look at it by the roadside. We couldn’t work on the car straight away anyway as the garage was full and we had to finish 1 or 2 jobs first but then we would get on to it. So he left and said he would be back soon.

Then we get a phone call from this guy stating that the AA would soon arrive at the garage to look at the car and get it started and would we leave it outside to do so. I found this strange and insisted he paid for the recovery charge at this point, which he did. The AA Patrolman turned a bit later also a bit surprised and possibly a bit embarrassed to find himself working on a car we have recovered back to the garage. He couldn’t understand if this guy had AA Roadside Assistance, why he would have called the garage out to recover the car first and be hit with that bill. The AA patrolmen did a good job and 20 minutes later the car springs to life and work done.

So when the guy turns up to collect his car I asked him, why did he pay for recovery and then get the AA out to fix the car? He then told us that he didn’t think the AA would be able to fix it by the roadside and because he only had an AA Roadside Assistance policy and not a recovery one, he was worried that the car would have been towed to the nearest garage rather than ours, which he said he trusted.

So i asked him, why he did not get the AA out first and if he had not been able to fix the car, then ring us up to pick the car up? He then froze and you can hear the brain ticking, “never though of that” was the reply and an embarrassed motorist drove away in his car, with a recovery fee paid

I have always liked classic cars, but to be honest the cars I really like tend to be the ones I can’t afford so never got close to them, even though my father always had a car and I suppose I grew up with what is now popular classic cars. The other day we found ourselves going to visit a Morris Minor that acquired some brake issues and had to trailer it back to the garage for repair. The issue was easily fixed as Morris Minor parts seem to easier to get than mainstream car parts, and mush cheaper also. In fact after a bit of research I found out that most classic car parts are cheaper than modern equivalents even though they are no longer made in the quantities, probably a message here.

Then I got to drive the Morris Minor, and oh god what a difference, what a clutch and did I move, hardly at all, but it was good fun. So last weekend I was on the internet, looking up prices on Morris Minor convertibles to enjoy the sun, and yes these classic car parts are just as cheap. You will have to tune in later, to see if the wife lets me. I did see an E Type Jaguar cheap, but that would be pushing the boat out too much.

The guys have been complaining lately about the process we have for  picking customers up or dropping them off. You we we do not hire out courtesy cars, so one of us ends up dropping off customers and picking then up and often this is in their own private vehicles. Often I give the guy the keys to my car, but i am not the tidiest of car owners and no are my kids.

So a consideration is to buy a company car for the garage or to be more exact lease one. I had thought about using one of the salvage vehicles we do from time to time, but the time it takes to repair each one, means I need a profit back. I have been looking at contract hire rates and to be honest, some are a very small outlay, considering I can claim back all the VAT (as the car will only be used on business and will stay at the garage) and set other costs to the business and always have a nice clean new car.

On saying this, I haven’t fully decided if contract hire is for us yet, being in the trade I often get offered great cheap cars, but even a cheap car means taking money out of the business, so for now the brain cells are working on what is right for us.

I had someone around explaining about health and safety and how to avoid accidents in the workplace, you know what I mean. we know about goggles, earmuffs, cleanliness in the loos etc, but never heard of intrinsically safe equipment. It seems wherever there is the risk of explosion, i.e. around petrol, we should be using equipment that dos not emit heat or any sparks that could cause an explosion, examples being computers and mobile phones.

Now I can understand a bit more if we sold petrol, but we don’t and what’s more how do you make an intrinsically safe welding torch, as we do weld all the time and I can tell you there are hell of a lot sparks coming out of that. Another way to describe this stuff is ATEX equipment, something to do with Europe and explosions and I can see their uses, as we watch what is going on in the Mexico gulf oil rig, but while we use welding torches and every time we start up a car, a huge amount of electricity of forced through the spark plugs (notice the word spark), I am not sure we are yet ready for this Atex equipment stuff just yet.

There is nothing more worrying than getting a phone call telling you the alarm at the garage has gone off in the middle of the night. Arriving 30 minutes later it didn’t take long to see where the entry point was, the metal roller shutter was prised open and the white PVC door looked smashed in.

Luckily it had stopped there, for whatever reason the person concerned did not get any further, of if he had, never took anything. Coming back later in the morning, it became apparent that the metal shutter by itself was not strong enough and we would have to look at making the PVC door stronger, or replacing it. This is the time I learn about composite doors something I had never heard of before. It seems these composite doors are made around solid wood frame with sturdier insides than the PVC versions, so entering is harder, even fo the professional. Watching videos on you tube, convinced me that these composite doors are the way to go, after watching a burglar smash in a PVC door in seconds.

The composite door was purchased from Global, who had it delivered 3 days later and I got my mate to fit it. the roller shutter was repaired and had been fixed the first night. The results is hopefully a more secure office, especially as we have added a camera and light above the door also, so even of they try to get in, hey will be on TV. Lets see how much the insurance company pays out.

There was a time that in order to keep your warranty of a new car you could only get it serviced from the main dealer and in the case of certain German cars, this could be expensive. I fact many car owners had no choice but to pay what the dealership wanted in order to keep any warranty in place. Things are not quiet the same now since the European government got involved and stated that servicing cars can be done by other reputable garages. So over the last few years we have found ourselves servicing cars that would have gone to dealerships, making us happy and the customer, who is of course saving money by using our services.

A lot of cars are not actually owned by the drivers but leased instead. Often these lease contracts insist of certain mechanical serving to occur at certain periods during that cars life, otherwise fines or excess payments can asked for at the end of the lease period. We find ourselves servicing these cars in higher volumes than ever before, which can bring in company car owners and small business work, which we are happy to oblige with. The problems we have had with this is that newer cars have technology that requires ourselves to invest in certain equipment we did not need before. There is often a complicated way of order parts also through the dealerships, as even though we can service we have to be very careful with the quality of parts we put on these cars. Not that it matters that much to the lease companies, who normally have these cars sold before the end of the contract to retailers. I have considered using a lease car for my work, but in truth I am always dirty and there is always some sort of transport available in the garage, so it would only be for days off that I would like a nice car. But days off are too rare to justify a new car and anyway, the salvage project we do, turn out some nice cars, albeit a few years old.

You probably already know about our mini excavator that clears the snow away and lifts engines and loads of other heavy work. Well up until now I had no idea that a bucket was anything else but something to out water in. It seems that these things on the end of our excavator is called a bucket, which seems totally obvious now and the small things sticking out are called bucket teeth. The bad news is that these are now worn down, the good news is you can buy bucket teeth separately rather than replacing the whole bucket.

This is where we are now, coming into spring and trying to lift an engine from he yard in to the garage and of course one of the bucket teeth decide enough was enough and snapped. After a bit of a panic we found out that this was not big deal to replace just like the UK rubber tracks we had done late last year.

Give me a car and I know the bits and pieces but as soon as you move out of this area, the brain does not kick in as quick. Again we found delivery quicker than we get parts from our auto-factors, seems we are in the wrong business. An update of everything else we do in the garage is well overdue and I can’t blame the weather now as it has cleared up ages ago. It is also not that busy, so maybe the salvage projects will start again, lets see an I  will try top post again soon.