Car Repair Industry Through The Eyes Of An Auto Technician
Three important lessons are learned by the time we reach the legal driving age. They are: Number 1: Wear your seat belt. Number 2: Don’t speed. Number 3: Never ever trust your auto mechanic. These gospels are passed on to you by your older generation.
I met up with an auto mechanic and requested him to give me the inside story of the car repair industry. I agreed to keep his name out of it so let us call him Max. Max has been around a long time, getting his hands greased for no less than 30 years.
According to Max, as the car repair industry is attempting to make itself dirt free, some auto mechanics are reluctant to respond. Unlawful attempts are still being made in the industry, for example: employing second-hand parts in the cars and promoting them as new.
Max says, “I would say years ago, it was more par for the course. I would say it happened about 40 percent of the time”. He adds, “Today, I would say it probably happens a whole heck of a lot less. You’re probably looking at about 10 to 7 percent margin, but it does still happen.”
A bane in the form of shady auto mechanics
Max has couple of things to suggest as you search for a good car repair shop. The first one is the appropriate Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certification from places as AC Delco, Ford Motor Company or Bendix. “While ASE certification does not indicate that they’re really good, it does indicate that the technicians go on their own time, or the business has given them the incentive to study, to take the course and go and show their skills are worthy of certification.” (Ed. Note: ASE is an independent and non-profit organization founded in 1972.
Max also requests to notice that a car repair shop holds correct equipment (Such as a proper tire mounting machine with rubber mounts that hardly scratch your wheels or an alliance rack with laser capacity) for better performance. “I want to make sure they have the proper diagnostic equipment. A shop that has invested in the proper equipment to service today’s automobiles is usually a shop that you can trust, because they are not going to buy that expensive equipment and then have people who are not qualified to use it.”
According to Max cleanliness of the car repair shop is equally important. Max says, “I’m looking for a clean shop. I don’t want to see Jake the Junkyard Dog chained in the office. I don’t want to see a lot of dirt around the place. It shouldn’t look like it’s going to be condemned by the health department.”
Max believes that the pricing of the car repairs should be very clear and should be posted for everyone to see. The best thing to do would be to hand over the car repair estimate to the customer before beginning the work on the car. Positive feedback from the earlier customers would be an added advantage. It should not be about how nice they are or how well they treat you but should be about their track record of providing good quality repair.
Sign board for little old ladies – Stay Smart! Stay Alert!
Max, with his three decades of experience behind him, had some interesting stories to tell about the tactics the sales personnel use to get people to do repairs on their car. One such incident happened between a co-worker and an elderly woman. Using scare tactics the poor old woman was tricked into getting her car repaired. The following waiting room conversation between Mrs. M and the auto mechanic exactly as Max relayed it:
Mechanic: Mrs. T., what street do you live on?
Elderly Woman: I live on Main Street.
Mechanic: I live on that street. When do you come home in the evening?
Elderly Woman: About 6 o’clock.
Mechanic: Good. Then I’ll know when to tell my kids to get off the street because I shudder to think of you driving down the street in this car with my children playing in the street because you’re driving a death trap and it could kill them.
“Well needless to say the poor little old lady, just shy of a heart attack, started crying and saying, ‘Just do it, fix it, do whatever you have to do!’ And this is the type of tactic this guy used.” Although Max said these situations don’t happen as often as they use to, but there are instances where mechanics use such unscrupulous tactics.
Plain inquiries
Max possesses an experience of more than 30 years and has encountered many frustrations that gets his oil pressure going up. I asked him what types of things customers do that really annoy him and with no hesitation he says, “People who are shopping auto repair prices.”
Max explained it with a hypothetical situation where people call up inquiring about the cost for a tune-up, when in reality they have no idea what is wrong with their car. The symptoms they specify over the phone require a different treatment. The diagnostics test is the one most are terrified of as they do not like to pay for it. Max says that this test is time and money well spent. You’re paying for a skilled technician to take an hours worth of labor to diagnose your vehicle with the proper computer scan tools to determine where your drivability problem is.
Will you make me a deal?
There are some customers with whom Max does not quite enjoy conversing with. Can you make me a deal? is another question from the customers that puts off Max the most. But he says that he does see to it that he helps people who really need it and are not just out to get a discount.
For example, he would go out of his way to help out a pregnant woman with two kids and car trouble and not enough money to fix it. Max told me, I’m going to the ends of the Earth, to the gates of hell for that woman to get that car running as reasonably as I possibly can and still maintain a profit for my business.” He reiterates the fact that his business is not a charitable organization even while lending a helping hand to people who are in dire need of fixing their cars but are unable to shell out the required amount. “I don’t wear a white collar and consequently, I can’t stay in business if I give away everything I do.”
Trust ” an ingredient for loyalty
Some of Max’s favorite customers are those who trust him implicitly with his job. They just drop their cars and let Max take care of the car repair. They are the one who don’t expect you to give them an estimate or ask how much it would cost. They simply trust Max, his knowledge and skill as an auto mechanic, to get the car back in ship shape condition and ready to roll on the road. “And I never breached that trust,” Max said.
Max, in return for the trust placed in him, tries his level best to adjust his booked schedule to squeeze in these customers and let them out the same day. “I took care of him. Did I give him a discount? No … did I do everything I could to get him back on the road as quickly as possible? You’re damn right I did. And I did it over, say the guy who came in an hour before and said, ‘Can you make me a deal?
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