One of the downsides of being good at what you do is that you build up a reputation for being reliable. Is that bad? Well, it depends on who is relying on you. I’m all for the customers knowing that Parkit Motors is the place to bring your car. This is why we exist, and what we want to be doing. I love a challenge, I love the quirky jobs sometimes. Heaven help me, when I can get into it I even enjoy those hard-to-diagnose problems. My issue is with the other side of the coin, by which I mean the trade jobs. Don’t get me wrong, I am more than happy to help a fellow garage, particularly if we can make some money at it. The problem is that sometimes we don’t seem to be making any money at all in this scenario. As I have mentioned before, we are very well known in our area for getting to the bottom of those sticky problems. Issues arise when those garages end up just relying on you to deal with all their headscratchers. A good case in point is my old friend High Street Ken. He called me a couple of weeks ago regarding a Fiat he had in. It had no end of DTCs, and his lot, he said, couldn’t get to the bottom of it. Would I mind taking a look. I rolled my eyes, although I’m not sure who for as this was a phone call, and agreed. This has become a regular thing, so much so that I’ve started apportioning him a loose slot, usually in the afternoons, particularly in the beginning of the week. The last thing I want is his cars causing a logjam in my yard across the weekend. When this started to build up, I was fitting him in where I could between my jobs. The impact here was though that it was leading to my customers not getting their cars back fast enough. I also seemed to be doing it all a bit too cheap if you ask me. I upped my rates, and put some boundaries in place, which to be honest he took in his stride. The problem with the Fiat turned out to ultimately stem from a small water leak, which had affected the PCM. We got to the bottom of it, eventually, and got it back to him in time for Friday afternoon. Running a garage business is not just about fixing cars. I learned that pretty early on. The key to it is efficient time management. You sell time, and if you work efficiently you can make time to sell back to others. The trick is to make sure it’s not eating into the time that you are supposed to be selling to the customers, at a premium. What I really need is a time machine. Not the sort that goes up to 88 miles an hour, or masquerades as mid-20th century street furniture. What I want is something to make me more time, so I can fix more cars. ONE IS KENOUGH? 66 AFTERMARKET MAY 2024 TEABREAK: MEMOIRS OF A MOTOR MECHANIC SPONSORED BY www.aftermarketonline.net
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