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View Poll Results: What's your familiarity with DIY garages | |||
I love them and I'm a repeat customer | 4 | 18.18% | |
Used one once, haven't been back. | 2 | 9.09% | |
Never used one, love the idea, wish there was one near me! | 11 | 50.00% | |
Bad idea or I would never use one. | 5 | 22.73% | |
Voters: 22. You may not vote on this poll |
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10-26-2015, 10:46 AM | #15 | |
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It's ok to focus on that group if you're able to sell them more expensive services as they move up. If you open this in a low-income area, those people are going to move away the first chance they get. -Justin
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10-26-2015, 11:01 AM | #16 |
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With your tools and supplies.
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10-26-2015, 12:17 PM | #17 |
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I didn't want to be the one to say it, but that is true. This is also the crowd most likely to shrink your inventory. Also, the most likely demographic to stage a slip and fall or other injury to bring a lawsuit. After a couple of those, the income from letting customers on the shop floor won't even offset the liability insurance.
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10-28-2015, 12:16 AM | #18 |
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"If it was easy, everyone would be doing it."
But I found the solution.. No seriously, I really did! The answer is... LIVE THERE, because it's your house! Just change the business model.. Don't open it to strangers, instead rent the bays out to friends and fellow enthusiasts. Make it a "club". OMG I want this house! 26 Garage bay house: https://olympic.craigslist.org/reb/5255042312.html
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10-28-2015, 01:40 PM | #19 |
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I'd had a similar idea a while back. My thought was to have a full service shop with about 8 bays and to have 1 always available for DIY, use the rest for regular service stuff. Then later in the day (noon-ish to around 10) on weekends have a couple more reserved for DIY (and I'm thinking labor scheduling here). Add a service that allows customers to order parts and ship to us instead of having $1000 worth of parts waiting on their porch where anyone can take them. Also have a couple meets a week, maybe the occasional model-specific one. I have an advertising idea as well that would be incredibly helpful where I am (Auto-X is 30 mins north, and some of the biggest car shows in the country are 30 mins south (Carlisle). Put the business right in the middle, and you'd have immense market exposure through simple, cheap advertising instead of having commercials.
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10-28-2015, 07:12 PM | #20 |
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The insurance would cost a fortune to run a place like this. The risk of all the unlicensed people working on cars and trucks hoisted over their head. Who knows if they smoked or drank before they showed up. Sounds like a liability nightmare.
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10-28-2015, 08:34 PM | #21 | |
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Having said that, I've helped a buddy with his car at a fab shop that does do this on the side. It's good, although I have better tools so having to bring my tools to work on his car at some random shop kinda blows. Normally I use a buddy's lift (free in exchange for all the car work I've helped him with over the past 15 years) but that's gone currently (selling the house it was at and building a new garage on his new property) so I'm back to jackstands and crap. For any work that would require a lift I would do the lift rental thing but only if I knew I could be done with it quickly so I wouldn't do a full car rebuild, engine rebuild, etc in a situation where I have to rent a lift. Minor work it's not worth my time vs jackstands, etc. So for me, if it's free rock on, but for a fee it has to be just the right job that's far easier with a lift but won't take more than a night.
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10-28-2015, 09:10 PM | #22 |
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OK some rough numbers (very rough I didn't get quotes):
A 10 bay facility fully equipped, with ample parking in a neighbourhood that people will come to = $10K a month lease/payment ($120K year) Liability insurance of $20 million a year (may not be enough in the sue happy U.S.) = $10K a month ($120K a year) Building maintenance, tool replacement and equipment repair $20K a year Four staff (may need more) wages, benefits, comp insurance costs, employment costs = $200K a year (If using skilled techs this could double) Utilities, grounds upkeep = $10k a year Business fees and taxes = $20 a year Total expenses $490K a year (This is conservative with rough numbers provided by my plant Comptroller) Rental at $20 an hour if all booths filled for 8 hours a day for 300 days = $480K Soooo, unless you can cut some costs you are going to lose your shirt.
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10-29-2015, 11:19 AM | #23 |
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Damn I wish they had one of these near me. I work at a dealership but it's annoyingly hard to find time to work on my car while the shop is open and I live in a 26 story building with a shared garage (so no work allowed).
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10-30-2015, 11:13 PM | #24 | |
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Well I think $10k/mo is a non-starter for this type of enterprise period. I'm looking at a facility where I could get 5 bays for ~2k/mo. Liability and other various business insurances for adequate coverage would probably be the same amount/mo as per commented on by the owner of a shop like this "Insurance is almost as much as the rent, if not the same" and his shop isn't exactly on Rodeo Drive. Rent + insurances = $4k/mo 48k/year Tool replacement and repair most likely $10k, maybe even less depending on what get's stolen. Rental @ 20/hr is way to low. For market rates in this area it's be $40/hr.. maybe $35 but since this would not be a "bring your own tool" type of shop it starts at $40. Special tools, welder, tire machine, assistance form a Pro... all extra. Estimated Average Revenue per billable hour would be ~$50. You take all profits and divide by hours billed. That way your ARPU incorporates upsell items like assisted service, special tool rental, vending machine sales, product sales, etc etc. ARPU may actually be higher than $50. Assume 5 bays at 25% occupancy with 10hrs open per day @ 7 days a week. 350 hrs/week -75% = 87.5hr * $50 = $4375/week = 227,500/year. 227,500 - rent/ins 48,000- loss/repair 10,000- 2 employees 90,000- Misc and Tax 15,000 Initial tax burden will be low due to initial capex and using a 10 year linear depreciation of the expensive bits. $64,500. Not rad, but that's at 25% operational efficiency and it doesn't take into account the money from the full-service bay at all which could be another $50k/year all on it's own.
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10-30-2015, 11:32 PM | #25 | |
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Also the costs I stated are Canadian so they tend to run higher anyway (and no you can not use the exchange rate to convert to U.S. prices since it would all be in CDN $s). I just don't see it as being a feasible business model even with some full service and sales involved as both of these also raise your overhead.
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10-30-2015, 11:59 PM | #26 |
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https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...78395465740603
http://www.loyalaustin.com/home.html I think these guys run the shop just as a sort of hobby. Lift charge is $25/hr, which is not unreasonable. The FR-S is mine.
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10-31-2015, 12:06 AM | #27 | |
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10-31-2015, 01:37 PM | #28 | |
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If I was in Texas or Utah then yes, $20-25/hr makes sense. Also if this was a "bring your own tools" type of shop then I would charge less (less overhead) and more $$ opportunity for tool rental. But one of the target demographics are folks that don't own a bunch of tools (apt dwellers) so I think it's better to be fully outfitted and build that into the cost. Compare these 2. One's in Kirkland (expensive city) and the other is in Kent (less expensive city). Both seems to be making it work. The one in Kent I believe is planning to open a second location too. http://stewsgarage.com/ (Kirkland) http://selfservegarage.com/ (kent)
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