Auto Service News

One of the hardest vehicles we find to work on is the Mercedes. Although we know these car are engineered (and possibly over engineered) and really go wrong, when they do they are a nightmare to repair. The reality is these cars are only designed to be repaired by their own dealerships or trained mechanics. This seems like and appropriate solution, as it protects any warranty that for some parts or bodywork can be several years long, but the fact is, if a Mercedes breaks down, it will be the local garage that has to deal with it, unless they have a breakdown recovery policy to transport it to their local Mercedes dealer.

Just about everything is electronic and without the right equipment you can think twice about getting access to certain engine functions. We are lucky in that we know a trained Mercedes engineer, although trained in heavy vehicles, still can get access to the equipment needed to repair these cars, although we still have to trailer the cat for 10 miles to his garage, of which he is only there part time.

I write about this, because this month we had two Mercedes in, both around five years old and because the value of these vehicles had dropped immensely, the owners did not want a dealership type bill to get their cars back on the road. We got the parts ordered and eventually repaired, but the hassle was probably too much for us, as even though we made a profit, we could have done 2 other jobs in the time, without the hassle. I love these cars when they work, but when they don’t, I’d rather have something cheaper to work on.

Not many posts recently as to be honest we have been too busy. I just don’t get this financial downturn it is not effecting us at all and to be honest, we are probably busier than ever. Of course it is possible that many are no longer buying breakdown cover, but as cars do not know about this financial crisis they still breakdown like they always did. This has meant the nights have been buoyant with regular call outs, even to some distance away from the garage.

We have had no time to work on our salvage projects, but again this is probably a blessing as just as the used car market prices have shot up, so have the salvage prices too. I wish I had bought a bit more at the beginning of the year, when prices were just ideal.

Light nights mean the classic cars come out; I used to own an MGB and had to sell it unfortunately, due to time restraints and also something to do with the fact that by the time I get home I am sick of cars. I do this for a living so struggle a bit when it comes to doing for pleasure except if there is a fast car involved and then it is different.

In fact even driving is just too much bother now. I choose holidays where there are as little cars about as possible, ideally boats or even just a beach but not cars and certainly not where I have to drive one. It might breakdown, I just don’t like busman’s holidays.

The biggest storyline was a car fire; god did that take some parts to fix. Our fault and the engine was fine, but the electric wiring was a nightmare and locating the correct wiring parts unbelievable and expensive. Thank god for the internet and car part locator services like CarSpareFinder.

So until things change, time to sign off.

There is supposed to be less money around at the moment and I certainly know of some garages that are struggling to get through the month. Looking at the issue from afar, it seems to be the main dealers who are struggling and I have certainly had complaints from customers about over charging and using or garage service instead.

It may be that main dealers are seen a bit like a bit of a luxury and even a small saving is a saving by using smaller independent repair services may be the way forward and keep us little guys in business.
One particular story consisted of someone who had put their car into a main dealer for an insurance repair job. This was not a salvage car, just a bit of paintwork after someone had used their keys on the paintwork. The owner asked for the MOT to be done at the same time.

This was the first MOT at 3 years, but when the report came back, it had a few little things added that needed doing. The owner said they would do the jobs themselves, but was astounded to find they would charge a re-sit fee. Although not a legal requirement, most garages offer a free re-sit within a certain amount of days, to the point it is unusual for anyone not to offer this service.

The results was the customer could not believe that after all the insurance work she had brought them, they would first written down issue with the car, that could be fixed quicker that write them down and then have the nerve to request a re-sit fee.

This dealer sits in an affluent area, but word on the street is that its employees have been informed there will be redundancies. (I wonder why). In times like this, you need to give superb customer service, not squabble over a few quid. This customer now comes to me, this dealer has lost customer for the rest of this customers life. It is not about salvaging cars, it is about salvaging jobs.

If the smaller garages play the game right, offer good value and do not charge for breathing, they could do well out of this recession.

If I had to tell you something about January 2009 it would be it has been cold. Just about everything we have done this month has meant being wrapped up just to keep warm.

First the garage, which to be fair is always cold this time of year even with blowers throwing out the heat, but when the blowers decide not to work, the work just slowed down. At one point we were 2 days behinds with fixing the cars, not because we were busy, but more because we couldn’t expect everyone to stand over a freezing cold car for 4 hours until lunch time.

So everyone was fed hot coffee and regular breaks just to keep people here. The breakdown cover call outs were no better. Just pick a time of day or night where that thermometer went to its lowest point; that would be when the breakdown cover call would come in.

It is inevitable that cold weather increases the likely hood of a recovery call out, but at least when you got back to the garage you would warm up, but not this month. The salvage projects got put on hold which was a shame as prices were very low on the auto salvage auction we use and so would have liked to have bought some more salvage projects in. But when you are behind with customer cars and lacking in space it just did not make any sense to do so.

We have seen an increase in breakdown cover call outs and the amount of times we heard from the owners of the vehicles that normally they would have an annual roadside assistance policy but because money was tight had decided against it and took a chance, was astounding. I can’t believe it, but we are benefitting from the credit crunch and what customers don’t even get is that your car will breakdown credit crunch or not. The weather forecast for this weekend is even colder blizzards, god help us.

It is true we offer a 24hr roadside assistance and recovery service and it is also true if we promise a car to fixed in our garage by a certain time, unless we have been let down by a car parts supplier or something similar, we will do our best to bide by that time.

However when Christmas time comes we have to be more sensible about promising times and how we manage the breakdown cover side of the business.

As a family man I work hard right through the year and I a fortunate to have a hardworking group of guys working for me also, so when Christmas approaches I feel it is the time to spend more time with the family and the guys who work for me, get the same benefits. So when it comes to quoting on completing jobs within the garage, we are always over-quote, to allow for any upsets in the routine. We also refuse work, to be sure the work we have got on, can be finished in time, as it is surprising how much work we get in prior to Christmas.

With more cars on the road taking their owners to late night shopping and visiting friends and relatives, they maybe should have visited earlier in the year; we also find our breakdown cover calls are up, in the run up to Christmas. This we can handle, but come 2.pm on Christmas Eve, the garage and the breakdown cover operation gets shut down for a least a couple of days.

We stick an answering machine on, explaining this point and give alternative numbers to ring, from local garages I know cover this period, but for me and our guys we are closed and my family comes first. Of course the national operators have standby peoples and rotas to get through this period, unfortunately we don’t have these benefits.