Of course the Economy is the very first worry , how will it go , where will it go ?
As I see many of my close Friends struggle to hang on to their Home and some that lost it already . Most of the Time , due to loosing their Job of many years . Yes , some with beautiful Homes and a Family , grandchildren and the next thing they living in their Car .
It doesn't seem to matter , what Position ... Job title ... how long one was working for somebody , some big Company ... you wake up and realize , this is a day , that you never wanted to see . It's bad enough , to see Children without Parent's ( not because they don't have any ) , but to see Parent's with a Wife and Children out of work and nowhere to go . I really can not put myself into their Shoe's , because ... I can not imagine this ever happening to myself . But , am I immune to all this ? I think nobody is .
As of now , I feel that I am pretty safe ... Jobwise . As the Auto Repair business , did take a big hit , due to a few things as of late .
#1 : As the Economy was still good and the Housing Market went skyward's , many with Homes had all of a sudden unexpected wealth from their Equity of their Homes . So , as I noticed ... many more People driving new Car's , which they either bought or leased . Result : Less repair's for Shop's like our's .
#2 : As the Economy went downward's , many that had big Payment's / Leases on their Car's , out of nowhere , find themselves Cash strapped and as Employer's cut back Job's or lay'd people off , sometimes on a day's notice .
Now of course , new Car , no Money to pay or Fix them ( Maintenance of their Car ) . So they were inbetween , giving their new Car back and bring out the old ( sitting for year's , somewhere unseen ) to get them running again . So , as you know , this wont be cheap , Mechanical wise , Registration and Insurance and in many cases a Smog Check , which in California is pretty stiff on older Car's .
that by itself can cost from many Hundred's to over a thousand Dollar's real fast .
#3 : Now , with the ... " Bring " in your 25 or newer Cluncker ( if it get's less than 18 miles a Gallon ) and receive $ 4500 off a new Car's Price . So .... now the Government is pushing new Car's and helping People get rid of their old ones ... ones again . What are they trying to do ? Put all the Repair business's OUT of BUSINESS ? Just figure , new Car's ... most no Tune-up needed for 60,000 to even 100.000 miles . What does that leave for us Independent Repair Shop's to do ? Oil change , Brakes and some other stuff that break's , due to neglect . Not much to keep all the Shop's going , that are halfway decent and the ones you can trust .
As our Shop is Family owned and alway's has been , I'm the next one to get the control's , as my Uncle is going to be 66 year's old . As we have a running Lease on the Building , and it was time to renew ... I was added to the Lease . Concidering , that my Uncle want's to retire in about one to three year's at most . So where does that leave Me , in that time ? I have 10 year's to go , for me to call it quit's .
Now , this is where the thinking comes in , is this Business doomed , as more and more new Car Manufacturer's make it harder and harder for the normal Family operation to stay in Business . Mercedes now , as of '05 Model's ... a Shop has to be on the Internet when Changing the Oil and one has to call Germany , to get the okay to reset the Oil Service Light . Yes ... this along with having no more Dipstick to speak off , is how bad it's gotten . I'm sure the other's will follow not to far in the Future .
To think , what these People get away with , is Criminal ... why ??? Because , it's the Buyer that " PAY'S " for all that extra ( not really needed Item's ) . Does anybody really need a talking Car ? Well watch out that will be next .
So anyway , that is my main worry in this lousy ( Calif . especially ) Economy .
I can see myself and my Sweetheart , going back to my second Home ... the beautiful Country that my Wife was born in . If that is alright with my Lao Po of course .
Well , back to Work tomorrow and work on those nice BMW's , that make up about 40% of our work . They do need alway's something , even though their nice Car's . Hehehe
1) People will come to your business because of YOU. Personality trumps always. I give my business to the independents rather than the 'cold soul less' dealerships.
ReplyDelete2) Have you considered selling the business ? In five years when the economy hopefully picks up ?I'm assuming that there'll be no other family member that will take over in ten years when you retire.
I am the last in line . Everybody else is in another field . Anyhow it is not as it used to be . The Tools required nowaday's are in the ten's of thousand's of Dollar's , with not much return . Unless you use them nonstop and People still want everything for nothing . These new Car's , not even Dealer's know how to fix some of the electronic stuff , they have on these Car's .
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