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Backstreet garages, writing on the wall?


Timewaster

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On 11/26/2021 at 12:34 AM, Jason_Robb said:

I’m serving my apprenticeship in my dad’s/grandad’s/great-grandad’s garage, it’s certainly not a dying trade, but one that’s diversifying.

We’ve done work to a variety of hybrid and electric vehicles from Teslas to BMWs , Nissans and Toyotas. There’s still work to do to them. At the end of the day, parts will always wear out and people will break them.

That being said, we’ve not entirely stood still. The vast majority of our work is servicing and repairs on nearly new (in and just out of warranty) vehicles, we’ve been able to get ourselves into this market over a long number of years but as a result there’s a fairly high turnover of vehicles. We’ve recently upgraded our MOT testing capabilities as this area of the industry isn’t expected to change as much as the servicing and repair side, and we’ve taken to doing more motor homes and commercials.

It’s going to change, but as my granddad says, “it’s always been changing”.

See if you can get them to put you and the garage through the HEVRA scheme and get the EV certification, gotta be worth it in the long run if you can get certified relatively early and build your hybrid / EV brand before the local competitors.

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14 hours ago, Rod/b said:

See if you can get them to put you and the garage through the HEVRA scheme and get the EV certification, gotta be worth it in the long run if you can get certified relatively early and build your hybrid / EV brand before the local competitors.

That's the plan hopefully. Once the apprenticeship is served I'd quite like to get as many qualifications as I can.

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1 hour ago, Jason_Robb said:

That's the plan hopefully. Once the apprenticeship is served I'd quite like to get as many qualifications as I can.

I've got a meeting on Monday with some bods about the next phase of Apprenticeship Standards and EV-ness.  I'll be  very much a fly on the wall but it'll be inetrested to see what direction they're thinking of going in, i.e. EV to be included in the normal Standards or create a new one.

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50 minutes ago, Dabooka said:

I've got a meeting on Monday with some bods about the next phase of Apprenticeship Standards and EV-ness.  I'll be  very much a fly on the wall but it'll be inetrested to see what direction they're thinking of going in, i.e. EV to be included in the normal Standards or create a new one.

With the way things are going I think it’s only a matter of time until EV is brought into the apprenticeships as standard, and the sooner the better in my opinion. 

We did cover basic EV health and safety when doing our health & safety section (basically identifying an EV and knowing not to meddle with them), so it’s starting to come in already.

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34 minutes ago, Jason_Robb said:

With the way things are going I think it’s only a matter of time until EV is brought into the apprenticeships as standard, and the sooner the better in my opinion. 

We did cover basic EV health and safety when doing our health & safety section (basically identifying an EV and knowing not to meddle with them), so it’s starting to come in already.

Completely agree.

It'll be interesting if it's a new stand alone one though (my guess is yes) but I bet it'll be a fecker for businesses to facilitate. The requirements will all but rule out non-franchised, in the early days at least.

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Going back to disposable cars….

when I bought my first car in 1995, it was 8 years old and cost £1200. Was a Rover 213S with under 30k. I sold it 2 years later to a scrappy as it had thrown a second head gasket.

these days, 8 year old cars are regarded as new. I’m driving a 10 year old Merc with 180k which is barely broken in. Any 10 year old car with low mileage is very much sought after,

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On 11/25/2021 at 12:36 PM, Bren said:

Anything that might be a ball ache or take time tends to be turned away. My friend took a defender to the garage that messed us about with the vectra - the defender needed a head gasket replacement. They agreed to look at it but left it outside for a week. He had it recovered elsewhere.

It's a mix of things - cars are a pain to work on. Getting parts from the EU if they are not in stock holds things up. Having something on a ramp that turns into an utter ball ache means the ramp may not be used until the job is finished. Simple jobs that pay ok and have a quick turnaround are preferred to something that can become a 'mare. I think as well a lot in the trade simply do not have the skill sets to keep up any more.

It's no surprise people want new or nearly new cars.

What an impatient person . Could the garage have possibly been booked up for a week or two already when he dropped  it off ? 
“ we can take a look at it “ implies that they will when they get a minute not drop all the other prebooked work like a hot potato .

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I disposed of my 79 Princess for £20 at 8 years old  because one or the gearbox bands was slipping, and I couldn't find another box. It was a very early 2.0 and all the transmissions at the scrapper were for a 1.8. I later became suspicious that the 1.8 boxes would have fitted, but it was too late then.

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It makes sense money wise for alot of small business. Labour intensive work added to a constant supply of easy work just makes life difficult, if you offer to look at it between jobs it wont be fast enough for the person and if you charge them full wack hourly to get it done asap it will be to expensive for them, decline and let them be someone elses problem. 

Most of bodyshops round here i know will turn down full resprays as its too time consuming, my friend whos a one man band painter can have 3 cars with localised repairs on the go at the same time and knock all three out in a day or two with each car at say around 400 - 500 quid each thats easy money for him.

For him Spending a week rubbing down finding more and more  wob/newspaper/pubes/bean tins/etc  on somebodys "pride and joy"  that "just needs a blow over" just doesnt work in his favour so he declines most of them. 

I know a couple of guys that take on all unwanted local mechanic dirty work, engine swaps, clutches, blown turbos, crashed lease cars, people who are "skint", roundabout campers, trucks that have a hard hard life etc etc.

They are always busy but spend ALOT of time chasing down parts fixing other problems that the car has as it was fucked long before its current new problem.

Alot of people have High expectations for unrealistic money.

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6 hours ago, twosmoke300 said:

What an impatient person . Could the garage have possibly been booked up for a week or two already when he dropped  it off ? 
“ we can take a look at it “ implies that they will when they get a minute not drop all the other prebooked work like a hot potato .

I wouldn't have been happy. They left ours outside - for six weeks. If you can't do it you say " Sorry can't do it". You don't agree to look at it then leave it.

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6 weeks is one thing but to take it away after a week is just impatient .

Customers are never bloody happy anyway 😂

Had a hilux in last week that needed a fair bit doing for the mot . Came in for test on Monday . Told the guy the news and estimate etc and he said go ahead and that he didn’t need it for the week anyway .

Still rang me twice a day every day that week to see if it was done tho ! 
 

Maybe that garage could see a clear space to do yours but got fucked over by parts / customers adding an dens etc so it got delayed. 
 

I would love to see some people have a crack at running a successful garage . 

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1 hour ago, twosmoke300 said:

6 weeks is one thing but to take it away after a week is just impatient .

Customers are never bloody happy anyway 😂

Had a hilux in last week that needed a fair bit doing for the mot . Came in for test on Monday . Told the guy the news and estimate etc and he said go ahead and that he didn’t need it for the week anyway .

Still rang me twice a day every day that week to see if it was done tho ! 
 

Maybe that garage could see a clear space to do yours but got fucked over by parts / customers adding an dens etc so it got delayed. 
 

I would love to see some people have a crack at running a successful garage . 

Do you reckon, with a straight run, you could fit a second hand clutch and flywheel in a week? On day 5 would you also require the customer to come in after work to help put the thing back together? 🤣

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When I showed pictures of the welding I did on the SD1 to a bodyshop they enquired if I did work on the side? I said no.

People have said I should do welding - problems is anything to do with the motor trade is perceived as low skilled and therefoe low paid. 90% of welding is prep - people do not want to pay for their seats and carpets and petrol tank to be removed. 

I deal with the public everyday. I will only ever work on my own stuff.

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6 minutes ago, Bren said:

When I showed pictures of the welding I did on the SD1 to a bodyshop they enquired if I did work on the side? I said no.

People have said I should do welding - problems is anything to do with the motor trade is perceived as low skilled and therefoe low paid. 90% of welding is prep - people do not want to pay for their seats and carpets and petrol tank to be removed. 

I deal with the public everyday. I will only ever work on my own stuff.

try telling people you can paint cars ...everyones your pal if they think you can patch up thier shitbox for a case of beer , all goes silent when you mention 1000s of pounds would be involved 

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An Eastern European guy painted both rear quarters, back door, corner of one bumper and pulled out one creased rear arch on my car.

He charged me £400. Less than half what the guy I have used in the past quoted.

I cannot confirm if he made any money.

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6 minutes ago, Bren said:

An Eastern European guy painted both rear quarters, back door, corner of one bumper and pulled out one creased rear arch on my car.

He charged me £400. Less than half what the guy I have used in the past quoted.

I cannot confirm if he made any money.

In fairness, paint costs fuck all. I bought some metallic/pearl paint from a well known place in Saint Helens which cost me £32 a litre which would have done twice the above. Thinner is hardly super expensive and primer is £8.50 a litre. Even if it cost him £100 for bits, the cost is always labour. Chances are, he did it in some dodgy warehouse with a hairdryer or something.

Perhaps as he was doing it cash and time wasn't an issue for him, he was happy to do it for the £5 an hour or so.

Problem is, a proper place is going to be £50 an hour because whilst the painter won't get anywhere near that, the cost of the rent, electricity, setting up the spray booths, prep and so on, it's going to hurt. I notice at Richard Hammond's new place, he spent over £100k on setting his stuff up and it was hardly state-of-the-art.

 

I've noticed that there's a huge price difference between getting your car resprayed down South and up North. I'd really like to get mine entirely recoloured, but I'll be fucked if I'm going to pay £2.5k for the privilege when the car is barely worth £4k. Ironically, an MR2 Roadster is about 1/2 the paint area of my Mercedes Estate (and don't I know it when I'm washing it - the MR2 takes about 1/3 of the time)

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20 minutes ago, TheOtherStu said:

In fairness, paint costs fuck all. I bought some metallic/pearl paint from a well known place in Saint Helens which cost me £32 a litre which would have done twice the above. Thinner is hardly super expensive and primer is £8.50 a litre. Even if it cost him £100 for bits, the cost is always labour. Chances are, he did it in some dodgy warehouse with a hairdryer or something.

Perhaps as he was doing it cash and time wasn't an issue for him, he was happy to do it for the £5 an hour or so.

Problem is, a proper place is going to be £50 an hour because whilst the painter won't get anywhere near that, the cost of the rent, electricity, setting up the spray booths, prep and so on, it's going to hurt. I notice at Richard Hammond's new place, he spent over £100k on setting his stuff up and it was hardly state-of-the-art.

 

I've noticed that there's a huge price difference between getting your car resprayed down South and up North. I'd really like to get mine entirely recoloured, but I'll be fucked if I'm going to pay £2.5k for the privilege when the car is barely worth £4k. Ironically, an MR2 Roadster is about 1/2 the paint area of my Mercedes Estate (and don't I know it when I'm washing it - the MR2 takes about 1/3 of the time)

He did it in a shop. With a booth.

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Cheap paint  is cheap. A paint scheme with Sikkens or some other top end stuff can be thousands and thousands.. quality spraygun is hundreds, decent booth 30k+, gunwashing machine,extraction,tack rags,pre clean,masking paper electricity and gas to bake at gask mark 4 for an hour... bodywork is EXPENSIVE if done right...

But you can get good results from some pound shop primer and a Halfords aerosol.. choice is yours! Its in a years time you will see where the money goes..

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58 minutes ago, Barry Cade said:

Cheap paint  is cheap. A paint scheme with Sikkens or some other top end stuff can be thousands and thousands.. quality spraygun is hundreds, decent booth 30k+, gunwashing machine,extraction,tack rags,pre clean,masking paper electricity and gas to bake at gask mark 4 for an hour... bodywork is EXPENSIVE if done right...

But you can get good results from some pound shop primer and a Halfords aerosol.. choice is yours! Its in a years time you will see where the money goes..

I quite agree.

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You can see here just how much the guy who painted my T25 for £650 in the garage behind his terraced house enjoys his job. Nice bloke, but a nightmare to work with and hardly making a wage let alone a living.

860387_10151651393632143_1329942163_o.thumb.jpg.93e63a323067dd083cf53d750252840a.jpg

He also would much rather do dozens of little jobs instead one one big job. He does the little jobs on the drive (anything up to painting a full side of a car 😂) but never turns the big jobs down, he just gets them in and strings people along til he has a quiet few days and actually gets on with it. Usually very quickly makes a bit of a start on the big jobs so the customer can't just come and pick it back up as the side will be in primer or he's taken the doors off.

 

He recently actually did set up properly with a big workshop and spray booth etc, but old habits die hard and he filled the workshop with big jobs in the "queue" and ended up just doing all the work outside under a tarp, until the landlord got too many complaints about fumes and overspray and he went back home.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, TheOtherStu said:

Quite honestly, if he kept it for the next 4 months, it wouldn't be an issue.

absolutely never say this to a painter! 

You know when you drive past a garage and there's a car in the corner of the yard, no doors on, covered in moss? the one that's still in that same place on google earth going back to 2005?

That bloke said "yeah, no rush I don't need it for a few weeks mate"

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6 minutes ago, cobblers said:

absolutely never say this to a painter! 

You know when you drive past a garage and there's a car in the corner of the yard, no doors on, covered in moss? the one that's still in that same place on google earth going back to 2005?

That bloke said "yeah, no rush I don't need it for a few weeks mate"

Oh, don't worry, I wouldn't. I'd be chasing them every week at least. But they don't need to know that.

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