Auto Service News

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.

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.

I can’t believe how lomg it has been since the last post, but like most of the people in the UK we have been caught up with Christmas, snow and more snow. As far as roadside assistance is concerned, you would think that snow would bring more call outs and more money, well you are half right. The emergency callls came in strong and fast, but we also had our issues with the snow. In fact we also broke down and got stuck just like everyone else. We also need staff to drive these recovery vehicles and if they can’t get to work, the vehicles designed to get you going, find them selves under inches of snow within our yard. Tes the garage was also slow, as no one could get their cars in, and in fact were not that bothered , knowing it was Christmas and they were not going anywhere soon. Thnk god for our mini excavator that cleared the snow, but there is a story there too, to be told on another blog post. Well happy new auto year for 2010 and hopefully, we will have more to talk about soon.

Oh how I hate this time of year even though as far as the business is concerned it is normally the busiest and most profitable. The dark night have come in, drivers still drive as if the sun is shining not wanting to take that extra 5 minutes to from get home from work and so the result is phone calls from the police to collect cars that have been involved in a smash of which we get paid (eventually) from the insurance company or the cars owner if they are only third party.

Our breakdown cover operation has to be stepped up from the lull since the end of holiday season, but now it is about working in the dark and often the rain. Once again (it happens every year) drivers would prefer to take their chances when it comes to the reliability of their cars and so we will benefit from the breakdown cover call outs and subscequent repairs. We are reletivly competitive when it comes to prices, but don’t think we can beat the £20 that a certain breakdown cover organistion is offering roadside assistance at the moment, we charge more than that just to visit the car.

Winter services also pick up from the sensible crew who want their cars to get them through the winter, so all in all good business, but the weather stinks. Whish I was that guy from the “Garage” who has a TV series out in sunny Spain somewhere. Ok he has the Spanish to deal with, but at lease there is more sun than rain.

We always want to do every job in the garage in the quickest possible time, the quicker we do it the faster we get paid and everyone is happy. we do however try to give priority to the small business owners out there, where every hour their car is off the road the more they lose money.
Problems arrise when certain businesses leave things until the last minute and expect us to fit them in with little notice. We can often handle this, except when 2 businesses want their cars done on the same day without any notice.

Owning a driving instructor school can be lucrative in this current climate or redundancies and lay offs, but it would be nice to get warning over the maintenance of their lease cars. This business offers driving instructor training middlesbrough and has a fleet over over 20 cars. we have a great relationship, but trying to fit in their schedule to ours is a nightmare sometimes.

These driving instructor training course seem to be everywhere on TV at the moment with fully maintained cars (that you have to pay for and are leased), but if it works for some, good luck to them, just make sure if you want your car serviced you give us plenty of notice, in-fact why not stick it in your planner now and let us know the date. We can take it on from there.

Sometimes we get a phone call that attempts to get us to service 20 cars in one day (dream on), even much larger businesses would not attempt that, not to mention there is often parts to order and invoices to be discussed over the phone before work can continue.

It is not just the UK, that has a scrappage scheme and in fact it was suggested that the UK was too late to get in on the scheme and so many of European buyers had bought their cars with Germany and France benefiting greatly. However in certain areas they are now the point of reducing the amount of money available, (normally 2000 euros). Take Spain for example, with their scrappage scheme called the Plan E2000.

A typical area in Spain is Murcia and originally they added 500 euros to the 1500 euros agreed by the National Government and car dealers. But now they have run out, money after 1600 cars have been bought dispensing with the 8,000.000 euros set aside by Murcia. You do see a lot of older cars in Spain, as the weather is kinder to bodywork than the UK, so the Plan E2000 may have been a better deal out here, especially as used cars are more expensive than the UK, which is reverse to how it was 10 years ago.

It may be that Europe as a whole has done it’s bit to stimulate the new car market, it is just a shame that cars made in Britain don’t not seem to have sold as well as the German or Korean cars

Well i thought so. Taking my family down the motorway to Cornwall, (you know the roads), first I find myself in a long queue of cars but then I find we have pulled over because one of the kids now felt travel sick. The lay-by we were in was a drive in drive out type, so i could not see who else was in the lay-by, because if I had, my child may have had to hold on for another few miles. Standing next to her car, was a youngish woman with read hair (well nearly bright red) leaning against the car, ringing someone and pretty much shouting down the phone. It was the shouting that allowed me to overhear the conversation. In short she had broken down, on her way to some new job on a holiday camp site and her ageing Ford Fiesta. Although starved of oil in the engine, water in the water bottle, air in the tyres had let her down.

I now have a dilemma, as a mechanic I can fix her car, as I pretty much knew it was an earthing issue somewhere, or I get on with my well earned family holiday, that my wife has been waiting for, over the last few months. The devil on one side said No”, she should have breakdown cover”, but the angel on the other said, somewhere she has a mother worrying about her now.

So I offered to help and surprisingly my wife agreed and 10 minutes later I had found the bare wire, taped it up and her car started and away she went with a smile on her face. So I was on holiday, but working, I was now 30 minutes later than expected, my child was better thanks to the prolonged stop, but my hand were full of oil and I would need to stop at a service station to clean up properly, as I did not have overalls with me. I just don’t get it though, you can buy breakdown cover for little over 20 quid and the phone calls she was making to get some help, probably cost more than that. I’m glad I can forget about the loony’s for the next fortnight.