If you want to put your skills and knowledge in the mechanics of cars to use in your own business, this post takes a look at a point of consideration.
Location & Your Customer Base
Where you choose to locate your garage is very important as it can make or break your business. Demographics play an important part in any business that relies on permanent premises for its trade.
If your business is located in an affluent area, that will be reflected in the type of vehicles you’ll be servicing and repairing – larger, newer performance vehicles. Likewise for less well-off areas where you’re more likely to get older, smaller and cheaper makes of car. Similarly in rural areas, off road and 4×4 vehicles are more likely to come to you.
So use this information to your advantage. If you have a specialism, advertise it – make sure the right customers come to you.
Sourcing Car Parts
Naturally, as a mechanic, you’ll need to be ordering in car parts for your customers when theirs need replacing. There is a tendency among customers to ask garages to fit parts they’ve sourced themselves, but this can lead to compatibility problems, especially with expensive parts. Make sure you choose a well-established and reliable retailer to source parts – especially from overseas. Then, choose an experienced courier like TNT who are experts in the automotive supply chain to make sure you can offer a customer a definitive time frame for their repair.
Equipment
Whatever the size of garage you’re opening and whatever the budget you have, these are some essential tools and pieces of equipment you’ll need in order to succeed. If you do have a limited budget when you’re starting out, these are important essentials to have.
Hoists
Getting to work on difficult to reach parts of a car is near impossible without the right equipment. Using hoists is the best way to get around this.
Tools
Take note that nuts and bolts aren’t standardised. So for this reason, you’ll need spanners to cater for a variety of gauges.
Tyre Changer
For small garages it saves a lot of time and allows you to get more done without resulting a lot of strength and energy-heavy wheel changes.
Auto Scanner
This is an important diagnostics tool and helps you identify problems with minimum effort, allowing you to get quick explanation and solution for the customer.
This post is just the tip of the iceberg for those looking to start their own garage, but provides a good place to start.
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