I don’t know what sex the writer is has to do with anything. This sounds like an argument of women in the workforce some 30+ years ago.
It sounds to me like whoever did the hiring (no doubt a man) either didn’t choose the woman based on her work skills or simply picked the wrong person. The problem is not the woman.
It is men that objectify women that are the problem.
Are you selling your shop?
Or are you retaining ownership, but are hiring somebody to manage the place?
Sold. Time to pass it on to the next lucky guy. The business is on leased real estate which was up for extension/renegotiation in a year, and I would have had to make a decision at that point anyway. After 8 years of building a reputation it was hard to let go, but with my wife’s new position and a decent job for me I expect we’ll take home 25-30% more than we did here. Sometimes you just follow the money.
And as a side note to those who complain about high prices for car repair, a skilled experienced mechanic still doesn’t make a decent living in this industry.
Hard to leave a town I’ve called home for 25 years, but what the hell? There are cars to fix everywhere.
I will reiterate that I don’t have a problem with a woman holding a service writer or even a service manager position.
The qualifier is whether or not they can do the job properly and avoid the drama and lame BS that has nothing to do with the job at hand.
My personal experience with women in those positions has not been good and believe me; I didn’t even scratch the surface on the negatives.
I do take offense at things interfering with my paycheck and the clock, perpetrating parts fraud on customers, and in the case of the female Subaru service manager; constantly trying to shove her Valiums off on me every time she saw me hit a snag with a car.
Her favorite phrase as she goes for her pocket, “Here take two or three of these…”.
“The qualifier is whether or not they can do the job properly and avoid the drama and lame BS that has nothing to do with the job at hand.”
Of course. And that would be important whether it is a man or a woman. There’s no difference.
I have an interesting observation to make . . .
there are some guys at work that “give up” very quickly and ask others for ideas and/or diagnosis
then they do what was recommended and the car is fixed. But I’m not sure they actually learned anything
Others will read the criteria for setting the code, read how the system works, and then systematically diagnose the problem and correct it. When doing that, you can be sure they not only fixed the problem, but learned something, and will be better prepared for future repairs
The guys that don’t/can’t learn how to figure things out for themselves . . . they’ll be “fine” as long as there is somebody willing and able to help them. But they may someday find themselves in a situation where everybody is either too busy to help them, or the other guys literally can’t help them, because they haven’t run into the problem themselves, or also don’t understand how it works.
One could argue that the guy who very quickly asks for help, does what is recommended, fixes the car and moves on, is the smarter guy, because he got the job done without spending any time reading up on the problem
But you could also argue the guy that doesn’t ask for help, and figures it out on his own, is smarter, because he not only learned something, but he’s able to work independently. And he didn’t tie up another mechanic’s time, which isn’t efficient for the shop.
I notice people usually feel VERY strongly one way or the other . . . 
Some people who quickly ask for help might learn more in less time than a guy who has to figure it out on his own. The guy who asks the same question more than once is the not-so-smart guy that you’re talking about… 
I’d think either type could be equally smart. It depends on which way they learn best.
When I started working as an engineer almost 40 years ago…there were some women in the field also. Some older engineers use to complain about them…saying “Those little girls are very disruptive in the workplace.” Or…“I can’t concentrate with these girls walking around.”
It became obvious very soon…the problem wasn’t with the women…but with the older men who just had no idea on how to deal with women in a workplace environment. I guess after 40 years there are areas that still need improving.
@Joe Guy
“than a guy who has to figure it out on his own.”
What about the guy that WANTS to learn it on his own, versus asking somebody else to figure it out and tell him what to do . . . ?
That’s the guy that’ll be able to function well on his own, or with guys that are not so sharp, or unwilling to help
I’ve even know guys who’ll go up to a colleague and say “Just tell me what I need to do. I’m really not interested in learning anything.”
Very blunt and to the point . . . nothing wrong with that
What about the guy that WANTS to learn it on his own,
A few years ago there was a young guy working with me, he had come from several years at a dealer where his main method of learning was pattern failures. Things are different at a small indy shop. He had been looking at a driveability complaint for about 30 minutes. I walked by, looked under the hood, took a quick look a the scan tool and walked away.
He asked “You probably already know what’s wrong, don’t you?”
I said “Yup.”
“And you’re not gonna tell me, are you?”
“You’ll never get any better if I give you the answers.”
He’s now a damn near top-notch tech making a decent living. I’m proud to know him.
@MikeInNH Agree! The shop I usually patronize for repairs has a woman “service writer” who is quite familiar with cars. And she does not push unneeded stuff. This shop also has a female mechanic.
The Mazda dealer where our Mazda3 goes for maintenance (still under warranty) has a young girl service writer who is as adept as any male service writer and is much more pleasant to deal with. She refers warranty items to a special “warranty guy”.
The tire shop at the corner where we go to have our tires rotated has both men a women at the from desk. The most miserable and opinionated one is a guy in his late 50s who stopped having any original thoughts when he left high school. I try to avoid him.
I’m glad to hear that guy turned into a top-notch mechanic
I’ve seen plenty of guys that seemed smart enough, but didn’t want to use their brains. They’re happy just to be told what to do and let somebody else figure it out for them
As for pattern failures, you have to take it with a grain of salt
Just a few days ago, I had a truck in the shop with a code for the app sensor. The fault code was mentioned in a tsb which mentioned water getting into the cab, and getting into the connector. I quickly determined that tsb definitely did not apply, so I disregarded it. Then I proceeded to diagnose and fix it the regular way.
Anyways . . . I’ve never owned a shop or worked in an indy shop
I’ve been fleet, then dealer, then fleet again
But it definitely takes awhile to adjust and/or readjust. I’m inclined to think a dealer is not the best place to learn. I certainly learned more when I was gone from that place. The dealer wanted you to think the factory way, or not at all. And if you were incapable of thinking outside of the box, there were a lot of things you wouldn’t be able to figure out.
No offense to anybody reading this that’s currently working at a dealer and happens to think otherwise
db4690 wrote:“What about the guy that WANTS to learn it on his own, versus asking somebody else to figure it out and tell him what to do . . . ?”
That’s good too. But in order to know whether he is smarter than the average mechanic it would depend on how long it takes him to figure it out on his own.
If it takes him a week to figure out how to check the blinker fluid level, he would have been smarter to ask for help…
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@Joe Guy
I’ll say one thing about people in general
And I do NOT car if somebody disagrees with me 
I have found that people learn best . . . and it tends to “stick” . . . when they do figure it out on their own
Some people learn just fine when some guy is lecturing in front of a blackboard, explaining how some new car technology works, how to diagnose and repair it
Other people learn much better when they figure it out on their own, in the shop.
I’ve also observed that people generally do not like to raise their hand during those factory-paid “training” modules and say “I didn’t understand that. Can you explain it again.” Believe me when I say there are MANY guys that didn’t “get it” yet don’t want to identify themselves as such. And there are many instructors who do a “less than stellar” job explaining things. If they explain it, so that ONLY the genius-level guys get it . . . then they aren’t a very good teacher, if you think about it
I do computer/electronics repair and have done work for some shops. It sounds like there are a lot of similarities between the two lines of work as there are any many other service type jobs. Here is what I have learned since starting my business.
- You will want to get all the business you can at first. It may be tempting to offer certain services for free but I would HIGHLY suggest against doing this. I ended up with people leaving things behind, telling you to do repairs and then not having the money to pay, threatening/unreasonable people looking for something for nothing, etc.
If you want to offer something free, offer it as part of a pay service. For example, I offer free recycling of most old electronics (exceptions apply) with ANY paid service. So someone can pay for a diagnostic and get something else recycled. Since time is already taken dealing with this person, recycling stuff for free isn’t a big deal. Some items get me nothing in scrap value while others have considerable scrap/junk value to offer so this is a great idea for me. I charge for items like old TVs/Monitors with the CRT tubes that contain hazardous heavy metals as these cost me to dispose of properly.
For cars, offer a free safety inspection with any service or oil change. You might pick up more work finding worn out brakes, ball joints, etc.
If you want to help a disabled veteran, etc., make sure they REALLY are in need. I tried doing some free work to help people out and have never experienced more unappreciative and rude people in my life. Not only do they want service for nothing, they want it delivered to them on a gold platter and fed with a silver spoon.
Offer any service you want for free but require SOME money upfront and couple that free service with another one they have to pay for. I require $35 upfront and this has run off a lot of trouble for me.
- Get your name out there. I have actually found the old fashioned phone book to be MUCH better than newfangled online advertising. Part of this may be that you cannot look up the number of someone to repair your computer when it is broken but I seem to get quality people out of the phone book. I do some online advertising in a local classifieds type site similar to craigslist. This is cheap and brings in a mixed bag of people.
The vehicle logos are a good idea and I haven’t done this yet but plan to do so.
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FORGET ABOUT ADVERTISING ON FACEBOOK!!! That is unless you want to spend more time babysitting adults. I spent about $150 on FB advertising and was truly in amazement there were as many people like this out there. I mean these were people who you wonder how they have enough intelligence to wake up in the morning and function on their own. FB may work wonders for others but I found this to be a disaster for me. Create the free business page on FB but I wouldn’t spend a cent advertising there.
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Cater specials to your area. Offer discounts to the military if you are near a base. I am near Ft. Leonard Wood, MO so that is a big deal here. Is there a major employer or employers in town? Offer a day when they get a certain percent off labor. I haven’t done this but have considered it.
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I personally work whenever needed, including evenings and weekends. I also offer service calls onsite. There are many people who can’t get someone out to hook up a printer or router which is like a 5 minute job. For this reason I include the roundtrip drive time in my bill at standard rates. I have done many 5 minute jobs that take an hour or more to drive to. My flexible schedule has gotten me many jobs that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
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Don’t let people try to talk down your rates and lower your price. This goes along with 1. If they think they can get away with this, you have opened the door to more problems with these people. They will think they can get away with more crap.
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Don’t be afraid to walk away from a job. I have gotten up and walked out on customers that were threatening or otherwise unreasonable several times. Do not be afraid to say “NO”. The sooner you learn this, the better. It will save time and money in the long run.
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Go to a local business expo if they have them. You can talk in person to customers and get your name out that way. I did this and picked up some work.
Great thread! I’m glad that I’ve found it. My uncle has a small car repair garage. he works hard and I want to help him improve his business.
I should say, it is great to learn from the experiences of others.
Any updates are apprecciated though.
Last entry before yours was over 7 years ago.
For any business - you NEED to know exactly how much it costs to open the doors each day. To do this you have to have a detailed understanding of all your expenses (rent/mortgage, Ins, Payrole, equipment rental, hazardous waste disposal, tools…etc…etc). The list can be very large. Best to use a spreadsheet.
If you want to attract millenniums you need to advertise on social media sites. They don’t read newspapers. They don’t listen to local radio channels, or watch too much local TV channels. There are companies that will help you with this…but at a cost.
Location, location, location. Even for a garage. Drive-by customers can account for a lot of work.
To me…An honest mechanic is worth his weight in gold. While most are good hard working honest mechanics, there are far too many that aren’t. I avoid them like the plague.
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