You need to look at what most shops work with. Doing a water pump on a PT cruiser is not a piece of cake. Your looking at pretty much dropping the entire front end out of the vehicle. Not only do you have to remove the timing belt cover, but the crank pulley requires a special puller and you have to disconnect the A/C. Now Johnny might be able to get away with doing the work for $450, but a shop has to have the equipment to recover the R-134a or face a fine if caught releasing it to the atmosphere. And if the bearing has not been replaced to the new style, that is another part to change.

Engineers are not mechanics, so all they have to worry about is putting the package in the car, when the mechanic has to dig halfway into the car to do anything, thats where the labor adds up.

Shops really do not make much on the smaller parts, its the big kits where you might make some cash. The labor of installing the part is where the money is.

As far as needing 3 mechanics, the shop I am looking to run will be doing a little bit of everything, not general specific, and not afraid to play with modified cars either. If there are cars sitting in the parking lot waiting to come in, your not making money. So you can have one mechanic, but I forsee a little more work showing up in the beginning.

I have had a shop before, and I have always been fair with my pricing.

 

I am far from being a 17 yr old kid...

And, with an ASE certified shop, all you have to do is complain to ASE with the members number and name and they can have their credentials revoked. Not looking to lose out on over 5 yrs of work getting my ASE Master to lose it joyriding somebodies Neon...

 

This thread was meant for a business demographic. Meaning if there are shops in Tampa that cater to everything you may need. Such as a speed shop where you can get your fittings, or special parts from. Or just a general automotive shop not afraid to install your Ebay parts your afraid to install on your own car.

Any shop opening the doors for the first time would try to undercut every shop out there to sway the business. But at the same time most of you do not realize the difference between Johnny's backyard prices, and shop required fees.

Another thing, you get what you pay for. How many shops on here get bashed because a kid drops his car off at a shop, and they do the work asked for, but do not wipe a fingerprint off a fender... Next thing you know the kid is on TR posting about the worst experience they received at that shop.

 

Too much of a liability on the shop's end and not much money to be made, I know this from first hand experience. With today's economy it is not a wise idea to open up another "speed shop" in the already saturated Tampa market.

 

+1
go look and see how many shops are in the shop forum

and thats just shops on TR

 

toyota chaser parts.

 

Explain to me where the profit for a shop is in that?

It would require a minimum of 20 Chasers in the area, and all of them coming to that shop only to even justify carrying basic items. I know the VIP scene is starting to transfer into the US, but there is not enough of a market in Tampa right now to even justify something like that. Not to mention that the Chaser covers way to many years of production.

 

Well you're asking the wrong demographic. I also had the same idea to open up a shop in this area before, and I lurked around long enough to learn the "demographic". I also been to numerous shops in the Tampa area just to see the trend of their business, and I did learn that I'm just setting up myself for failure if I go on with it.

 

tampa needs a shop that has a mandrel tube bender

 

I think better examination of a cost and time estimate would be nice. I would rather sit down with a shop foreman for a half hour and really crank out numbers and consider possible speed bumps and different routes for a project, rather than get a ballpark time and cost estimate off the top of their head. I have never heard of a project taking up just the estimated time and cost, and it's rarely anywhere near. I think if more time were spent really evaluating the scope of the project and getting a better idea of what the customer wants and what the shop can do, it would really help bring things back down to Earth in terms of realistic estimates. It doesn't help that shops take on more work than they have time for, either.