Automotive Discussion

Post a Response

How's business?

Posted by Sean Connelly on July 31, 2008, 8:28 am
Sean Connelly

Just wondering how business was for everyone given the current climate?

Our local Fiat/Nissan dealership has just gone into receivership, and I suspect it won't be the last one.... New car sales are way down again.

We've had several small workshops set up with just the one guy in there, so will be interesting to see how they fare.

For us, we seem as busy as ever, possibly more so considering summer is usually a quiet time for us just before the meltdown that is August/September.

Guess Joe Public are planning to keep hold of their cars longer....so possibly more work still to be had yet.

Regards

Sean

Re: How's business? Busy!

Posted by tony bickers on July 31, 2008, 11:06 am, in reply to "How's business?"
Tony Bickers

Well, I am now booking into the third week of September ! Around here we have just lost a Mitsubishi/Fiat dealership, the local ford main dealer group is now making 13 redundant, I think it is the big players with £100 /hour plus labour rates that are suffering to the independants advantage.One of my reps was in yesterday who I do work for wanted a cambelt done on her 2001 Clio 16V, told her it would be back end of September before I could get it in so she got a dealer quote, £700 !!, needless to say she is going to take it gentle until I can do it in 7 weeks time, the dealers have cut their own throats and are now suffering.

Re: How's business? Busy!

Posted by sean savage on July 31, 2008, 12:39 pm, in reply to "Re: How's business? Busy!"
Sean Savage

works very busy for us in the leeds area. i am finding an awfull lot more first time customers ringing and asking for prices when they have always gone to the main agents and booking with us. i have recieved a lot of new work from the good garage scheme to be honest due to people googling the local garages when they decide to leave the main stealers so thats paid dividends this year. also had 3 companys who are based in london who the customer contacts,they look us up in the guys local area and book it with us,tey have payed very good servicing prices and just add thier take onto the customers online booking. just hate this holiday period when staff are off and works so busy. maybe we will all be seeing some good regular stress free servicing jobs more often now then.

regards
sean

Re: How's business? Busy!

Posted by lee mackintosh on July 31, 2008, 9:44 pm, in reply to "Re: How's business? Busy!"
Lee Mackintosh

a few weeks back we had a little drop off in work load (still enough to do though) but now its gone mad again and we just can't keep up.

Like you we're booking 3 weeks away but it soon comes around.

Re: How's business? Busy!

Posted by Barry Rudd on August 11, 2008, 6:18 pm, in reply to "Re: How's business? Busy!"
Barry Rudd

I have found that a good indication of how busy the trade is, is the volume of traffic on forums.

I have noticed a drop off at garages on my travels over the last few weeks and have myself experinced a reduction in inquiries and more haggling and cancellations this last week than is normal for the time of year. Everyone seems to be moaning about the price of bread more than the weather

cheers
Barry

Re: How's business? Busy!

Posted by Peter Lomas on August 15, 2008, 1:41 pm, in reply to "Re: How's business? Busy!"
Peter Lomas

You can tell im rushed of my feet,
Only just got time to post this link
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html
Regards Peter

Re: How's business?

Posted by Bryan Smith on August 16, 2008, 9:42 am, in reply to "How's business?"
Bryan Smith

Like most others here I can't keep up even though I just put my labour rates up by nearly 20%. All I am getting at the mo is 'can you service it before I go away?' or 'can you fix it while I'm away?'. As others have said I think we will benefit and the dealers will lose out.
Regards, Bryan.

« Back to index

[ Automotive Discussion ]