State of the industry: a running thread

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I've worked in bike shops. If you're on your own it's really hard to balance getting the work done, generating new work, answering the phone, giving customers enough time to make them feel welcome/valued etc etc. You're completely at the mercy of whoever walks in: friendly chatterer who wants to talk about their life in cycling, angry nobhead who tries to tell you the price of stuff, average faffer etc etc. It can be a frustrsting tightrope on a busy day, processing people and work. I also used to run the shop rides - to which all abilities were welcome. I spent a lot of time trying to be encouraging, but wishing i could just get home.
I now work as a wheelbuilder. People can visit the workshop by appointment and we point customers towards email rather than answering the phone, which makes for a much more focused, productive and profitable day.
 
So, I'm poised.... ready for action..... add to basket finger twitching - will there be a modern gravel type bike, that I most definitely don't need, discounted by such a huge amount over the Christmas and New Year sales that I can't resist buying?
 
Takingabreak said:
So, I'm poised.... ready for action..... add to basket finger twitching - will there be a modern gravel type bike, that I most definitely don't need, discounted by such a huge amount over the Christmas and New Year sales that I can't resist buying?
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If there is it will end up being disappointing..........................
 
Takingabreak said:
So, I'm poised.... ready for action..... add to basket finger twitching - will there be a modern gravel type bike, that I most definitely don't need, discounted by such a huge amount over the Christmas and New Year sales that I can't resist buying?
Click to expand...

no, because not one part will be available next year as a totally new something will render you and it daft
 
wynne said:
I've worked in bike shops. If you're on your own it's really hard to balance getting the work done, generating new work, answering the phone, giving customers enough time to make them feel welcome/valued etc etc. You're completely at the mercy of whoever walks in: friendly chatterer who wants to talk about their life in cycling, angry nobhead who tries to tell you the price of stuff, average faffer etc etc. It can be a frustrsting tightrope on a busy day, processing people and work. I also used to run the shop rides - to which all abilities were welcome. I spent a lot of time trying to be encouraging, but wishing i could just get home.
I now work as a wheelbuilder. People can visit the workshop by appointment and we point customers towards email rather than answering the phone, which makes for a much more focused, productive and profitable day.
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Here a shop have solve that very well. They are two guys that run a shop, both are with the customers and one is XC pure the other Enduro. They have 3 mechanics only for that: Fix bicycles but some times if the shop is crowded they help.

They can talk with customers, and work confy. But you cannot take many time with each customer, you have to take the right amount of time. I think they have done a good job.. They take turns on the weekends being one of the two in the shop. And they have very interesting schedules. They like racing and they train so it is the life style I like it. Nice job and time to ride the bicycle.

The shop works very well and have a high rating in google. (4.8 stars out of 5)
 
pwebb said:
Sadly this is all too familiar, I have witnessed people asking the garage to run a diagnostic test to find a fault and expect this foc
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The way I see it is the diagnostic machine is a tool that is required to repair the vehicle, the same as a spanner, ratchet or screwdriver. You don't charge the customer for each use of the ratchet so why charge for diagnostic. I've heard the excuse that they charge because they are expensive machines. But so are the car ramps but you don't charge for lifting the car in the air.

Had a Ford main dealer want £80 and the car for the whole day just for diagnostic. Apparently they want the car to do a full inspection, guess to find other faults to charge me for. Found an indi who did the diog in 3 minutes FOC and booked it in with him to get fixed there and then for £200. There was no haggling, just turned up, diagnosed and priced the work up. I then used him as my main mechanic for about 6 years till I moved house.

I think most people see the diognostic fee as the car repair insustries version of an admin/booking/transaction fee.
 
The 'proper' scan tools are about £3k

Ford want about £900 a year for their official software license, Stelantis won't even bother

There are back doors via the world of the Internet with things like Forscan and VCDS, but these take time to learn and you can cause mayhem if you get it wrong.

We do a flat rate for the diagnostics, sometimes as little as £20 and try to be honest when the vehicle is beyond repair or is going to cost huge amounts. Labour is £85 per hour plus VAT

I had a run of heater blowers last week, a 2016 VW Touran was about 20 minutes flat plus part, an old A Class was a hard 2 hours plus part whereas a 67 plate ibiza required the dash to be pulled as the blower is installed behind the side impact bar - about 4 hours work. That customer simply couldn't afford it.

Wipers - motors rarely fall but the controlling circuitry is in a body control module which falls allllll the time. Some can be replaced with 2nd hand parts but many have to be programmed at the main dealer - astra H was around £1800 after the AC leaked directly onto the BCM creating havoc

Barely any of that can be found by diagnostics, it's broken surface mount components that have failed. If you are lucky you may get a fault code relating to lack of comms with a module

Diagnostics won't tell you about broken wires in a door loom or the boot or water in the ecu

It's hard work
 
@Roasted i get what you are saying about diagnostic fees but think about it from the shop/garage/mechanics view, if someone asks if something can be diagnosed (expecting it to be free) the mechanic has to stop what he is doing, get a tool, plug it in, and hopefully give you an answer, it might take 3 minutes, it could reveal nothing then the search for the issue because (as LGF says) is mechanical, should that be free as well? if it does show a sensor fault and that customer is a have-ago-hero at that point some people will then go home and buy the part/sensor etc online and plug it in themselves, if it's mechanical maybe they'll try and fix it themsleves, so that mechanic has just worked for free, for no benefit, if the mechanic does this a lot he loses time throughout the day that he hasn't or can't charge for, you could say well it's "good will" and the customer will appreciate it and continue to use the garage for paid work, unfortunately this quite often doesn't happen, which means the mechanic/garage has potentially wasted their time with that "customer".

basically it is a hard line to tread because in some circumstances "good will" does lead to work, other times it leads to a person who just wastes your time and expects free work, you basically have to work people out to find out you the time wasters are.

flip side is i don't mind anyone doing their own work, but if you want to do your own work you should buy the tools you need to do that work, if that tool is expensive you either have to buy it or pay someone to do the check for you who has paid for the tool.

@dorset boy i had a similar issue on my old L plate cavalier, (this is 20+years ago) i had bolted a K+N induction kit, magnex exhaust etc on my 2 litre shitbox, i found when i hit about 100mph the engine management light would come on, if you powered through it went off! it became known as the "don't rag me light":LOL:
 
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