Directions: A Resolution To Grow In 2013
Not everyone can afford or wants a new vehicle, and there are plenty of routine maintenance opportunities available for the vehicles already on the road.
Directions: Performance Review
As we close out 2012, it’s time to take a few minutes and look back at how your shop performed this year. Did your profitability go up, stay the same or go down this year? We’re hoping it increased for you, and we are expecting better times ahead as we look into the Do It For Me (DIFM) market in 2013.
Directions: Top 20 Automotive Related News stories for 2012
Underhood Service takes a look at some of the top automotive related articles from 2012. What is your top story from this list? What do you think should have made the list that isn’t reported here? E-mail us at [email protected]
Editor’s Notebook: What Keeps You Up At Night? Overcoming Next Year’s Biggest Business Challenges
As the year winds down, it’s not uncommon to think about challenges in the year ahead and how you will be addressing them. We often hear that the things that keep shop owners awake at night include those issues that relate to profitability, productivity and shop operations/expenses.
Editor’s Notes: There’s An App For That
Are you using your smartphone as a tool at the shop? The applications that have been developed specifically for the automotive repair industry are incredible. Not only can you take photos of repairs to help explain a diagnosis to a customer, you can also view live engine data, retrieve fault codes and clear check engine lights.
Editor’s Notebook: Maintenance Matters! Vehicle Checks and Customer Education Yield Unperformed Maintenance Dollars
What’s the value of the un-educated consumer mindset toward preventive maintenance and its link to better-performing, safer, longer-lasting, more fuel-efficient vehicles? It’s a whopping $60 billion-plus. One of the main contributors of unperformed maintenance is consumer neglect due to the lack of knowledge about vehicle system operation, and the need for system checks at
Editor’s Notebook: We’re Kicking Things Up A Notch and Remaining Steadfast in Our Mission
In today’s competitive service environment, you need to work both harder and smarter to stay ahead of the competition. Beyond delivering highest-quality repairs and offering top-notch customer service, you wrestle with tough shop management issues on a daily basis. You also work hard on improving important business-building elements, like shop image and reputation, and making
Viewpoint: Brine Time/Corrosion For Cash
It is not the adverse driving conditions that scare me. It is a truck with a large white tank strapped to the back spraying brines on the roads as a new strategy called “anti-icing.”
Menu-Based Pricing Must Go!
There is no doubt that menu pricing can simplify the selling of maintenance, but when it comes to solving brake, suspension and wheel assembly problems, it can create more problems than it can solve.
Directions: Autonomous Autos Take to the Streets
There is a lot of speculation on how driverless vehicles – which are already on the roads as test cars – will impact the service industry.
Editor’s Notebook: Fall Car Care is in the Air and Central to the Northwood International Auto Show
If you’ve ever been involved in or hosted a Be Car Care Aware event, you know the power it can have in educating customers about how much money they can save with proper vehicle maintenance. You also know the value-added benefits of heightening your shop’s image in the community, earning existing customers’ lasting loyalty and prompting new referrals along the way.
Directions: Are You Ready for the Most Tested Fuel in History?
In mid-August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed a lawsuit that challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to grant a partial waiver for 15% ethanol (E15) content in gasoline for 2001 and newer model year cars and light trucks.