Management: Employee Uniforms Increase Consumer Confidence
First impressions matter in every industry, and the automotive service aftermarket has its own set of challenges and needs. Your employees define who you are and what your company stands for; the appearance of your facilities and team are a reflection of the services you provide. What impression are you making on your customers?
Publisher’s Perspectives: Lessons from the Dentist
Do you ever envy the business of your dentist? In many ways, dentistry is similar to your auto service business. Nearly every mouth needs some dental care just like every car on the road needs service. The dental hygienist is doing the cleaning and the flossing like the tech who’s in the oil change bay
Alignment Update: Alignment Bay Neglect
Four Steps to Help You Get More Alignment Sales
Selling Services: Marketing Nitrogen to Your Customers
What’s wrong with air? Like a slumbering giant, the passenger and light truck tire industry is slow to evolve and slower to accept new products and ways of thinking. Take the current buzzword going around: nitrogen. That inert gas has the industry and, as I found out, consumers, in an uproar about who and what
Editor’s Notebook: Lack of Effort Loses Sale
You Must Earn Your Customers’ Business With so many choices today for everything we buy, whether it’s food, furniture, clothing or cars, customer service is more important than it’s ever been. Customers have tons of places to buy products, either in brick and mortar establishments or online, but not every place delivers a high level
Diagnostic Solutions: Fluid Maintenance…Selling Needed Services Vs. “Wallet Flushing”
Good import shop managers stay on top of their annual workflow by placing jobs like timing belt and brake replacements into categories that can be tracked on a historical basis. If a shop has faithfully tracked the kinds of work flowing through its service bays during the past 10 years, it might become apparent that
Perspectives: Lessons from the Dentist
Do you ever envy the business of your dentist? In many ways, dentistry is similar to your auto service business. Nearly every mouth needs some dental care just like every car on the road needs service. The dental hygienist is doing the cleaning and the flossing like the tech who’s in the oil change bay
Directions: Techs Offer Feedback on Proposed A/C Refrigerant Ban
The following comments regarding the proposed ban on the sale of automotive refrigerant to consumers (see page 32 of the May issue of Underhood Service) were e-mailed to me in the past few weeks. Most of the comments were directed toward Tom Brown and the coalition opposing such legislation. Note: Comments below may have been
A/C Tech Feature: The Future of R-134a
With all the talk about global warming and climate change, many people are wondering what the future holds for R-134a as an automotive refrigerant. R-134a was introduced back in the early 1990s as an "ozone safe" replacement for R-12. Unlike R-12, R-134a contains no chlorine, so it can’t harm the ozone layer that protects us from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation.
Tech Tip: Common Mistakes to Avoid when Resurfacing Cylinder Heads and Blocks
Cylinder heads and blocks may need to be resurfaced to restore flatness or to improve the surface finish, or milled to change the deck height for a variety of reasons. The deck surface on the head or block may need to be resurfaced if the surface isn’t smooth or flat. A head may need to be resurfaced after welds or other repairs have been made, or milled to increase the compression ratio.