Auto Service News

The great thing about lighter nights is things calm down, the bad thing is cash flow. Our roadside assistance service has slowed down a bit recently since the snow has gone and to empty someone permanently on nights can cost more than what we get in return. This sort of a middle sate, as in one hand very few people are going on holiday and knocking the miles and breakdowns, and in another the really cold nights have just about gone.

Cars that were going to struggle with the winter months, have probably already failed and been repaired. So I sit down and start changing the priorities on the garage, form night call out roadside assistance duties, to servicing and possibly a new salvage project.

We have been looking at some American salvage projects lately, but that is for another blog post. Good luck with Toyota that seem to be having all these recall issues, I have worked only on a few of these why? because in my opinion they rarely breakdown, but of course there have been serious issue with these in the USA, lets hop none over here.

OK our mini excavator got to work hard as the sow kept comming down and down, These little vehicles are excelent in the snow and their rubber tracks can cover just about anything at any low temperature. But we must have given it too much work as eventually these rubber tracks snapped and this little excavator was going no where. So thanks to the internet and in a few days, minimax parts had sent out a new rubber track set. In fact I want to mention minimax rubber tracks a bit more, because when everything stopped, somehow their delivery got through and it was only for this delivery we were able to clear the garage yards and forecourt and get our recovery vehicle out. Each morning, when someone got in. the first job (after a cup of tea) was to get in to the little unit and move the sow to an area, which normally has parked cars on, but there were not many thereat this time. I know most of you do not have a mini excavator, well there are worse things ot buy with our British winter

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.

It will be no surprise to you all if I was to say our car breakdown cover service has got extremely busy is a short period of time. The call outs are a mixture of cars breaking down at night with the extra battery power needed for the cold weather and the mornings where the normal most reliable car suddenly does not want to start on the way to work.

The night time call outs have been the easiest to sort. Normally a good battery booster can give the extra power to get the most stubborn of car started again, if not the jump leads get attatched to the recovery vehicles batteries. We makes ure they have enough juice tio get home under their own steam, checking the alternator.

The morning breakdown cover call outs have been a different story. In nearly all cases the lack of starting has been becuase of cylider head issues in that the owner did not check antifreeze levels and now the car wont start becuase of water in the cylinder. What is ironic about this, is that is most cases you can still get away with a few days driving before the car will not start. Yet these owners, still did not get the car seen to when clearly they knew they had an issue.

Anyway, this is money for us, this is what we do and to be honest, if everyone maintained their cars the way they ought to, we probably would not be in business, with the exception if servicing.

It is not advisable to use certain type of used car parts, but for such things such as engines, gearboxeass, lights and other large items buying used can not only save you money but give you a longer lifespan. The after parts market (new car part copies) do deliver cheap car parts, but often these are not amde to anywhere near the quality than the orginal parts were.

So here we are needing to fix someones car and we have to quote for the parts first. Well often we used car pare locator services like carsparefinder, which will give quotes from several breaker yards up and down the country. the bad news is, we have to wait for delivery and often wait for the customer to make thoer minds up, only ot find the one and only BMW engine was sold 3 hours earlier because teh customer just would not believe how lucky we were to find that engine.

Of course we have to guarantee the work we do, so fitting good quality parts is key ot our success this is something the customer often does not appreciate. They have the view, if it goes wrong it is our fault.
So we often make the decision and if the customer does not go with our suggestions, we decline to repair the car and encourage them to pick it up and go elsewhere. It does happen not and again.

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.

Yes I hve been poorly, something my wife calla “Man Flu” and yes I have been away fromt the garage. I have come back and of course we are no further on with our salvage projects, everyone is in a bad mood because the garage it starting to get cold and we have not brought the big heater blowers in yet.

I hate this time of year with the dark nights and really do hate bonfire nights etc. It gets too cold and we need to work wioth the lights on, raher than sunlight. It is one of the downsides of working on cars, is the enviroment you are working in. On saying this, it isn’t half as bad as what our riadside recovery guys have to di, especially if they answer a call hrough the night. Lying under a car on the side of a duel carriageway at midnight is not the my idea of a good job, which is why I employ others to do it.

It will not be long before cars will not start and those without breakdown insurance will be ringing us up to help. It is a good job too, becuase there is good money to be made with 24 hours recovery service, i often wonder why many do not buy national breakdown cover, currently the Green Flag are doing this for a mere £20, less the Friday night’s beer.

No thta is not why I was ill. now it is time to get back to work.

Ok a friend of mine bouigh a pretty new BMW 3 series a few months ago as a salvage project. It was a water damaged car that did not start, but the price was good and he had acces to a BMW garage should things not go his way. The car came to us first and we worked on it in our spare time. Luckily we did not buy any paarts as it became clear very quickly it needed the proper BMW diagnostics.

So the car went to BMw dealer and there it has stood for the last 6 months. Yes the diagnostic machine has been attached but becuase of the water damage affecting the electraics, they cant get the machine to work and establish why the engine will not start. they have tried many things and you would think a BMW dealership would find the issue, but alas no.

There is a message here. Only buy salvage projects you know how to repair and have the knowledge and experince and access to parts you need to complete. this car has probably lost a grand in value just waiting to be fixed and who knows what issue the car will have if it evr gets on the road.

I feel for him. but it is not something I would have done.

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