What do you consider when buying specialty tools?
Are you mainly concerned with the brand reputation? Or are you looking specifically to the ROI of a tool that can save you time on one or two particular fixes? What else?
Let me know. I will pick comments from one writer to send a yet-to-be-named tool from the PTEN toolbox.
- Brendan
Everyone’s talking about the down economy and the Big Three, but when it comes to independent repair, many are saying times won’t be as bad. How’s your shop been lately? Are you buying any more, or different tools than normal? Are you as busy as the newspapers say you should be? Are you seeing more routine maintenance as consumers hold onto their cars longer?
Share with us how your shop is doing, how it’s affecting your tool-buying decisions lately, and what you see coming for the first half of 2009. I will select someone’s comments to win some new tools from PTEN!
- Brendan, PTEN editor
I just returned this week from the annual aftermarket week in Las Vegas for the AAPEX and SEMA shows. I think there are a lot of great new tools headed your way, so be sure to watch issues of PTEN for coverage.
Also, I talked to a lot of businesses while I was out there, and nearly all felt like the coming year will be strong. While most noticed a smaller contingent of attendees at SEMA and AAPEX, the traffic they got was strong with optimistic buyers.
Let me know how your shop is doing, and how you feel the next year will go. Have you changed your approach with customers at all? Have they changed their approach to you?
… sunglasses, etc., all that personal gear you keep in your bay, where do you buy it? Do you look to your mobile tool distributor for new boots and gloves, or do you just make a purchase on the weekend at the shoe store or hardware store? What about knives and sunglasses? If you wait for the tool guy when you need to replace your work shoes, why?
For those of you willing to share an opinion, be aware: I will single out the best response I get and send the writer a gift:
The Ullman Devices’ HTC2LT telescoping lighted inspection mirror with all-angle ball joint to hold the lighted mirror head firmly at any angle. Share your thoughts on buying personal gear, and you could win this tool!
Let me know -
*** Congratulations to Michael Gould. His comments were selected as the winner for this post. PTEN will be sending Michael the Ullman Devices’ HTC2LT telescoping lighted inspection mirror.***
What do you look for when you’re buying a new toolbox? Special graphics packages, amount of storage, quality of construction, brand?
Or are your storage purchases more impulse buys based on what the tool guy has on special? Do you research a new toolbox like you would a new car, or just buy what’s available?
I will single out the best response I get and send the writer a gift:
The CatsPaw CatPack from Mayhew Tools. The CatPack includes the original lighted pick-up tool, lighted pen pick-up tool, pouch with heavy-duty metal belt clip, battery replacements for both pick-up tools and pen refills.
Thanks!
- Brendan, PTEN editor
** Congratulations to Chris Hanrahan, whose comment was picked for recognition. Chris will receive the Mayhew Tools CatsPaw set.**
I’m curious about your business. Not in the general meaning of the car repair profession, but your particular shop. The reson I’m curious is that recent news reports and studies point to factors that seem to indicate repair shops will be seeing an increase in business in the near-term. Reports show gas will likely be at $4/gallon by Spring, that Americans are holding onto their cars longer and more.
The gas price news stories always have a line that says something like, “With prices so high, most drivers are making sure they are up-to-date on maintenance to keep their cars at maximum mpg.” But are they? Or are the gas prices getting so high they are deciding on a full tank and putting off the oil change for an extra two weeks? What have you seen in your shop as far as increased maintenance service?
The fact that cars on the road are older also indicates Americans will be spending more time with regular maintenance. But again, are they? Or with the rising prices of everything and the constant news we are either in recession or about to be in recession, are car owners not buying new cars and driving their older cars with white knuckles hoping nothing breaks?
As I said, I’m curious about the specifics of your shop. How’s business been, really? What are you expecting over the next few months? This year?
I wrote a few months ago about some perceptions that make it tough to keep your head when dealing with some customers here: http://www.pten.com/interactive/2007/10/12/fixing-cars-is-a-tough-business/
Perceptions keep hurting the business. A wonderful piece on maintaining a positive image and fighting stereotypes, one customer at a time, is here:
http://amialumni.blogspot.com/2007/12/professionals-enhance-industrys-image.html
In addition to all his examples from the media and corporate ad campaigns falling back on ‘greasemonkey’ stereotypes, I’ve noticed another campaign from Chicago-area new car dealers trying to increase repair/maintenance business. The commercial features a mother berating her son when he asks why she takes her car to the dealer when he also has a repair shop. She replies that a weekend correspondance course on quick oil changes doesn’t make him a mechanic. Nowhere in the commercial does it say he’s a quicklube owner vs. an independent repair shop owner, leaving that part of his qualification ambiguous.
What have you got going on in your shop to help benefit local charities or generate other good will? Aside from generating a warm, fuzzy feeling in your shop about helping others, it can help draw in more customers as positive word of mouth spreads. And, occasionally, the local newspaper will want to do a feature on what you’re doing that will be good PR.
Two recent examples I read about online included one shop owner who is teaching at the local vo-tech to teach incoming techs about “doing good in the community” when they enter the repair business full-time. Click here for more.
The other story followed a shop that is exchanging an oil change service for donations to the USMC “Toys for Tots” program. Read about it here.
For those of you who weren’t able to come to auto aftermarket week this year, let me just say there are plenty of new tools and equipment out here at AAPEX you.
My feet are killing me (not that you care) — and I can’t believe how much new stuff is here, whether in power tools, specialty tools, fluid exchange equipment and more. Watch pten.com for updates in the news section, and always watch for more in the coming print issues of PTEN, including the Dec. issue for my picks of show standouts.
- Brendan
Enjoy this spooky tale of a college art studio apparently haunted by a mechanic crushed under a lift 50 years ago (maybe).
“Before the union hall was built, 65 Lodge Street was the address of an auto service garage. Stories vary, but a recurring story tells of an auto mechanic — possibly named Hanson — whose legs were crushed by a car on a faulty hydraulic press. …
“It was near the sink in the windowless sculpture studio where several of my students have reported seeing a fleeting but distinctly human shape of a man with no legs.”
Read the rest here, if you dare!
Happy Halloween –
- Brendan