Automotive Addicts Lounge V2- Why we are all broke:
5,003 replies, posted
Only problem is, the garage would be full of civics belonging to highschoolers who tear something apart and don't know how to put it back together.
[QUOTE=Birdman101;48148551]Only problem is, the garage would be full of civics belonging to highschoolers who tear something apart and don't know how to put it back together.[/QUOTE]
Thats fine. Then they would be there for a lot more hours, and you charge by the hour.
Highschoolers aren't the best at paying their bills. Then if that one won't pay and his broken pile of shit doesn't run, you gotta kick him out and pay to have it towed away, then he goes and tells all his ricer sperglets what an asshole you are.
[QUOTE=Jackpody;48135199]How many miles did the engine cover? Seems weird that one bearing would be completely worn down by usage if the three other ones are alright.[/QUOTE]
166k.
Pretty common in NB Miata's of my year. The cylinder #4 bearing is too thin from factory, iirc. I'm going to try and be uber ghetto and just swap all 4 bearings and the #4 cap without pulling the motor. Should cost be about $80 to do this, so if it doesn't work I'll have the motor rebuilt. The crank doesn't look like it was scored or marred at all, maybe I'll get lucky.
[URL]http://www.miata.net/solo/99miatathrustbearingfailure.html[/URL]
[QUOTE=ToastedBread;48146107]Ah, so those $300-ish machines on ebay? I was thinking of picking one up to do stencils.[/QUOTE]
Yeah basically. The machines are cheap. They're basically a drafting plotter or blueprint plotter with a knife instead of a pen. You can also load a pen into the one i have and draft. The companies like Vinyl Express or US cutter offer you the machine for cheap, with the hope that you will buy vinyl from them. You have now become their client in their minds, and will continue to spend money on supplies from them, but if you're smart, you scrap their garbage program, which works like crap and freezes, and makes lines you don't want, etc... and has no basic measuring system. Then you also don't order vinyl from them - you go to Fellers.
Fellers allows you to find vinyl per Pantone, which is kind of universal for signage, so for instance - I did a sign for a hot rod shop, and they had a very specific pink, and a very specific blue and had the pantone numbers for both, so I was able to easily order the exact color they wanted. Vinyl Express and similar - good luck. They all sell Oracel or similar vinyl, and there is different grades to it. I use 7 year direct sunlight stuff mostly. That's pretty long life for vinyl. The basic stuff is 2 year I think. Aso the transfer tape they send you is garbage. You'll need to order new stuff.
I use VinylMaster which was more expensive than the machine, but it's so easy to use, it's not even funny, then inkscape (which is free).
Also important - there are no free vinyl cutting programs, so be prepared to spend the money on that. I've looked for days, and the only one available is "Inkcut" which is a addon for inkscape, but only available on Ubuntu systems, which I don't have. If you want a kind of advanced (but still basic) setup like I do, it's about $800 total. But I have not made that much money back yet, because I don't charge that much.
Would be a on a pay in advance basis (half hour for $20, hour for $40?). Keys are kept until fees are payed, unless they need them for starting then idk lock the car in? Have a $5 charge if the tool is returned dirty, $2.50 for a tool $1 for a socket, $20/h for an engine hoist, $30/day for an engine stand, keep prices low and fair to cater towards the everyman wrencher.
I remember discussing this last time, if someone were to fly up and split rent/invest a little then they could live in the garage? Just furnish a small office area.
[QUOTE=Valon Kyre;48149476]Would be a on a pay in advance basis (half hour for $20, hour for $40?). Keys are kept until fees are payed, unless they need them for starting then idk lock the car in? Have a $5 charge if the tool is returned dirty, $2.50 for a tool $1 for a socket, $20/h for an engine hoist, $30/day for an engine stand, keep prices low and fair to cater towards the everyman wrencher.
I remember discussing this last time, if someone were to fly up and split rent/invest a little then they could live in the garage? Just furnish a small office area.[/QUOTE]
Locking the car in is an interesting idea, but I feel it might promote some legal issues you may not want to deal with. Lets say they never pay. Now you're in collections, maybe have to put a lean on the car or something.
I feel like a pay as you play system would be in order. No cash basically - they swipe a card. Then work, for every hour, it charges your hourly rate fee. Then they leave, and you shut the auto payments off. This way, if their card is declined like at a gas pump - because there's less than X amount on there, you won't have to deal with it. But if it's accepted, etc... then you start the clock once they pull the car in.
I don't know about charging money per tool - I feel like it should be included in the cost of using the garage. Things like an engine hoist, cherry picker, engine stand - I can see extra for those, but not general tools. I feel like that is the main focus of your service - is that you are helping out those without the equipment to do themselves.
I think the whole operation can be managed with 1 employee on site at all times, and the garage doors close at 5pm or something, and open at 8am. If they have to leave a car in overnight, charge a fee for that, and offer that as a service. Mark all tool locations in their drawers with drawings so you can see if something's missing. Each bay should have it's own box and similar tool set. Have the employee confirm all tools are in the box before the person is allowed to leave. If it's not there, and they can't procure it, keep a list on hand of all tools' repacement cost - charge them for the tool. This might scare people into just bringing their own tools and using those, but you'd still monitor your own stuff when they leave. Charging when a tool is returned dirty is also out, just when you do the inspection before they leave, insist they clean off the tools in the drawer that they made all nasty, and the card doesn't stop getting charged till they're done. That's way simpler. Basically - once everything is back the way they found it, their time is over.
The employee on site would also make sure they're not draining oil/coolant onto the ground, and the stuff they do drain gets disposed of properly. The last thing you want is to be in trouble with any environmental agencies because someone else fucked up.
One of my last thoughts is you can also offer a membership. Sell a full 8 hour day for a discounted rate, sell a week for an even higher discount (someone wants to do an engine swap, etc...) and include the nighttime lockup as part of it. For the membership, maybe offer 3 full days a month that you can use the garage, for a flat fee, that they pay monthly, weather they use the garage or not, so that way they get a discount when they do need it, and when they don't need it, you still get a bit of income, but make it a 6 month minimum membership. Treat it like a gym membership. $120/month weather you go or not, but I'd charge more than that maybe.
If you have 5 car bays.
Charge $30/hr to use one. That's a maximum of $240/day per bay. $1,200/day total.
Factor in an engine stand rental - $25/day or so, if all 5 bays had one out or any special tool, it'd be $125 extra. If they don't break it, this is all extra money.
Stay open 7 days a week. People like to work on stuff on the weekend. It's a bitch when the mechanics are closed saturday and sunday.
$8,400 a week possible income basically.
Then factor in some memberships maybe - 20 people might have one? $4,000 a month, if you charge $200 for the basic membership.
Offer some kind of gold membership, maybe get a deal with a towing company that will retreive their car and take it to the business for "free" etc... as part of the package.
I have so many ideas of this type of business Sally, unfortunately in California it'd be hard to make it fly.
Maybe even have a 6th booth for DIY painters... ok I'm done.
Taking keys wouldn't do much, only idiots don't have spare keys. I'd say just record all their info like license, plate, name, address, ect. And call the cops if they try to get away without paying. And it also goes without saying get some security cameras and record everything.
[QUOTE=Clark;48147178][img]http://i.imgur.com/wtcsely.jpg[/img]
My 2006 US Spec Exige visiting her birthplace in the UK.[/QUOTE]
All I see is a mini cooper with a body kit + wing
[QUOTE=Serj22;48149454]Yeah basically. The machines are cheap. They're basically a drafting plotter or blueprint plotter with a knife instead of a pen. You can also load a pen into the one i have and draft. The companies like Vinyl Express or US cutter offer you the machine for cheap, with the hope that you will buy vinyl from them. You have now become their client in their minds, and will continue to spend money on supplies from them, but if you're smart, you scrap their garbage program, which works like crap and freezes, and makes lines you don't want, etc... and has no basic measuring system. Then you also don't order vinyl from them - you go to Fellers.
Fellers allows you to find vinyl per Pantone, which is kind of universal for signage, so for instance - I did a sign for a hot rod shop, and they had a very specific pink, and a very specific blue and had the pantone numbers for both, so I was able to easily order the exact color they wanted. Vinyl Express and similar - good luck. They all sell Oracel or similar vinyl, and there is different grades to it. I use 7 year direct sunlight stuff mostly. That's pretty long life for vinyl. The basic stuff is 2 year I think. Aso the transfer tape they send you is garbage. You'll need to order new stuff.
I use VinylMaster which was more expensive than the machine, but it's so easy to use, it's not even funny, then inkscape (which is free).
Also important - there are no free vinyl cutting programs, so be prepared to spend the money on that. I've looked for days, and the only one available is "Inkcut" which is a addon for inkscape, but only available on Ubuntu systems, which I don't have. If you want a kind of advanced (but still basic) setup like I do, it's about $800 total. But I have not made that much money back yet, because I don't charge that much.[/QUOTE]
Great info. My dad actually works for a signage company, so getting quality software might not be an issue (that is, if it's even compatible). It's just that getting him to do cuts for me is a bit of a pain cause there hasn't been a lull in production for months.
[QUOTE=Psygo;48147807]anyone know where I can find a wiring diagram for the airbag systems of a 1999 peugeot 206?[/QUOTE]
Owners forum, maybe you could get your hands on the workshop manual?
[QUOTE=Serj22;48149556]Locking the car in is an interesting idea, but I feel it might promote some legal issues you may not want to deal with. Lets say they never pay. Now you're in collections, maybe have to put a lean on the car or something.
I feel like a pay as you play system would be in order. No cash basically - they swipe a card. Then work, for every hour, it charges your hourly rate fee. Then they leave, and you shut the auto payments off. This way, if their card is declined like at a gas pump - because there's less than X amount on there, you won't have to deal with it. But if it's accepted, etc... then you start the clock once they pull the car in.
I don't know about charging money per tool - I feel like it should be included in the cost of using the garage. Things like an engine hoist, cherry picker, engine stand - I can see extra for those, but not general tools. I feel like that is the main focus of your service - is that you are helping out those without the equipment to do themselves.
I think the whole operation can be managed with 1 employee on site at all times, and the garage doors close at 5pm or something, and open at 8am. If they have to leave a car in overnight, charge a fee for that, and offer that as a service. Mark all tool locations in their drawers with drawings so you can see if something's missing. Each bay should have it's own box and similar tool set. Have the employee confirm all tools are in the box before the person is allowed to leave. If it's not there, and they can't procure it, keep a list on hand of all tools' repacement cost - charge them for the tool. This might scare people into just bringing their own tools and using those, but you'd still monitor your own stuff when they leave. Charging when a tool is returned dirty is also out, just when you do the inspection before they leave, insist they clean off the tools in the drawer that they made all nasty, and the card doesn't stop getting charged till they're done. That's way simpler. Basically - once everything is back the way they found it, their time is over.
The employee on site would also make sure they're not draining oil/coolant onto the ground, and the stuff they do drain gets disposed of properly. The last thing you want is to be in trouble with any environmental agencies because someone else fucked up.
One of my last thoughts is you can also offer a membership. Sell a full 8 hour day for a discounted rate, sell a week for an even higher discount (someone wants to do an engine swap, etc...) and include the nighttime lockup as part of it. For the membership, maybe offer 3 full days a month that you can use the garage, for a flat fee, that they pay monthly, weather they use the garage or not, so that way they get a discount when they do need it, and when they don't need it, you still get a bit of income, but make it a 6 month minimum membership. Treat it like a gym membership. $120/month weather you go or not, but I'd charge more than that maybe.
If you have 5 car bays.
Charge $30/hr to use one. That's a maximum of $240/day per bay. $1,200/day total.
Factor in an engine stand rental - $25/day or so, if all 5 bays had one out or any special tool, it'd be $125 extra. If they don't break it, this is all extra money.
Stay open 7 days a week. People like to work on stuff on the weekend. It's a bitch when the mechanics are closed saturday and sunday.
$8,400 a week possible income basically.
Then factor in some memberships maybe - 20 people might have one? $4,000 a month, if you charge $200 for the basic membership.
Offer some kind of gold membership, maybe get a deal with a towing company that will retreive their car and take it to the business for "free" etc... as part of the package.
I have so many ideas of this type of business Sally, unfortunately in California it'd be hard to make it fly.
Maybe even have a 6th booth for DIY painters... ok I'm done.[/QUOTE]
You could do like our business does. Our rental system is pretty user friendly to work with where we set up an account; allow x-amount of unpaid balance before collections process starts; have perks for setting up an account.
Four our business, our rental agreement covers maintenance minus expendable parts and chemicals on the water conditioning equipement. If something breaks down, the company (us) pays for the trip, labor, and parts so long as the customer keeps up with his rent.
If the renter defaults; A. we require Cash on Delivery of remaining balance before service, B. After 3 months of unpaid balance or in excess of $500, whichever comes first, we maintain the right to remove equipment from the customer; C. If the customer refuses servicing to remove equipment under default or we are denied access, the collection claim is sent to court where with their signature on the rental agreement, there isn't a single court case we've lost where the customer got to keep their equipment.
I know it's not what you want, but a contract should be signed obligating the customer of the bay to pay for an hourly usage of the bay, tools borrowed, and it needs to clearly state overage charges per-hour. Each bay should be independently separated tools-wise, and tools should probably be kept out of the bay directly which could easily be snagged with an armory-style check-in, check-out process. Even more-so, I think it should be a members-only type of thing at first.
The membership process should have important contact details, track goods and hours used in the shop, and have ways of reimbursement or contact details for the courts in the event of issues. You definitely should have strict do's and don't's for the shop where certain activities should require a specific amount of training prior or atleast supervision from a certified mechanic you have on hand (for legal reasons to protect you).
So I've been driving around my Integra more and more being my only car with A/C. Something is seriously wrong with it in the front suspension now. When you're going around a corner the car is all rear end, if you take a hard 90 degree corner inducing lift-off oversteer is almost a given. It feels like hell trying to drive up a country road or highway at a moderate to normal speed and inspires absolutely zero confidence in what direction it's gonna go.
I'm thinking the front swaybar endlinks have failed, I don't see anything mechanically wrong with them but they are definitely not in perfect shape. The front brakes are toasted and I've driven the last 25k miles with warped rotors and the hawk pads I bought have dusted and drug themselves to death. I bought some new Centric blanks and Centric/StopTech pads though.
The rear end of the car still violently pops when loading/unloading suspension, I've tried a ton of different stuff with a buddy of mine and I'm pretty sure the swaybar is actually rotating the LCA in the car and causing it to make noises. I also found that the front LCA bushings are failing as well.
Oh and to top all of this off the car now smokes like crazy after sitting in high vacuum for a while and taking off from a stop. It also smokes pretty solid sometimes when wound out in higher gears.
My Civic however handles amazingly and the suspension is insanely sorted now, the only weak spots on that car at all are the cheap shocks, cheap tires and the stock DPFI D15B2.
13 hours today, finally running. Idk how to embed dropbox on here, can't seem to get public links on mobile
[url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/esuu4dh1jc8r9dd/VIDEO0122.mp4?dl=0[/url]
ive had the top and doors off of my jeep for almost a month straight now because Oregon is getting no rain for some reason.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/TYNE56U.jpg[/t]
Anyone want to buy a shitheap?
[url]http://appleton.craigslist.org/cto/5062778841.html[/url]
Welp, 4 months until I turn 16 and I already helped buy my first car. Going to pick it up tomorrow.
2007 BMW 328xi, 60,000 miles, medium gray color, can't wait to be spending thousands in repair bills and premium gas.
[sp] But seriously I am super psyched for it, fucking love it.[/sp]
[IMG]http://images.cars.com/supersized/DMI/154584/5236A2/01.jpg[/IMG]
We tied the record for consecutive days above 90 here at 10 in a row. The 11th day dropped to a crisp 87, then it went back up above 90 the next day.
[QUOTE=clutch2;48152349]Anyone want to buy a shitheap?
[url]http://appleton.craigslist.org/cto/5062778841.html[/url][/QUOTE]
What the hell :v:
[img]http://puu.sh/iSeRf/8704a95a2f.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=Zorlok;48152940]What the hell :v:
[img]http://puu.sh/iSeRf/8704a95a2f.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
Obviously it's a transformer
[IMG]http://images.craigslist.org/01111_9EtT9fQSphQ_600x450.jpg[/IMG]
What the fuck even is with the face :v:
[editline]8th July 2015[/editline]
That face is what accelerates the car from just being a shitheap to being funny. Everything else is trashy ricer stuff, and then there's just a fucking face in the car for some reason.
Is that an LCD screen in the steering wheel,doesnt that car come with airbags?
[QUOTE=Starlight 456;48152957][IMG]http://images.craigslist.org/01111_9EtT9fQSphQ_600x450.jpg[/IMG]
What the fuck even is with the face :v:
[editline]8th July 2015[/editline]
That face is what accelerates the car from just being a shitheap to being funny. Everything else is trashy ricer stuff, and then there's just a fucking face in the car for some reason.[/QUOTE]
Honestly I lost it once I saw the face, almost had to spit my drink out. But really though, that poor car. I love those old 300ZXs, so it's always vomit inducing to see one that has been completely riced to hell and back.
Somebody was obviously in the trunk when he slammed the brakes.
Sittin in the office taking care of business reading threads, then that post happens and I spit onto my screen it caught me off guard so well. Comedy gold.
[QUOTE=clutch2;48152349]Anyone want to buy a shitheap?
[url]http://appleton.craigslist.org/cto/5062778841.html[/url][/QUOTE]
Someone has this piece of shit and [I]honestly, firmly believes it's worth 4500 dollars.[/I]
[QUOTE=Tmaxx;48154047]Someone has this piece of shit and [I]honestly, firmly believes it's worth 4500 dollars.[/I][/QUOTE]
No lowballers I know what I got
I also like how, judging by the map, it appears to be just abandoned by the side of a highway.
[QUOTE=Tmaxx;48154047]Someone has this piece of shit and [I]honestly, firmly believes it's worth 4500 dollars.[/I][/QUOTE]
3500 without the wheels though!
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