Starting a Business

[GTHachiRoku]

I'm in the Atlanta area and have been laying the ground work to open a shop within the next couple years.

Currently I'm a computer programmer, but utterly hate it.
I'd much rather be wrenching on a car.

I'm starting by doing work out of my garage. This way I can build up business gradually and only open shop once it's absolutely necessary. I have many years experience with various cars. While growing up my father and I restored classic cars and maintained our family's fleet.

As for modern cars, I have extensive experience with primarily Subaru, but others as well. During college I had a 2002 WRX that was pretty epic and since have owned and worked on many others.

My question is, do many people (notably enthusiasts like on this forum) still pay to have parts installed? I always wonder why anyone would pay a shop to install something as easy as an air intake or exhaust system.

[Anthony]

I can only speak for myself, but I'm riding the fence about whether or not I want to do my future final drive swap myself. That is pretty much the exact point of difficulty where: any easier, and I will definitely do it myself. Any more specialized, and I will take it to a shop.

But yeah, it always blows my mind when I see people creating threads asking where to have an exhaust installed. It's one thing if you don't have the means, but it seems like people don't even try most of the time. Which is great news for you.

[King Tut]

You will find that there are still people that will pay a reasonable price to have parts installed, but the real money is in tuning. Tuning is still something that the majority of people are not willing to do themselves.

[bestwheelbase]

Yes plenty of enthusiasts pay for parts to be installed, despite this ever-growing idea that if you haven't built your car from the ground up then you're somehow less of an enthusiast. Rubbish!

@Anthony they won't learn if they don't ask. What blows my mind is the people who never even pose the question.

[ToyoburuBRZ]

I worked for a shop as a summer job while in University that did exactly this mostly for the Ford market.
Another thing that helped was that the shop owner was either a supplier for the aftermarket parts or he would buy them from somewhere. This saves the customer from having to deal with purchasing the part and shipping and everything that could go wrong there. Also, in a car like ours sometimes transporting it to the shop could be difficult as well.
So if you are willing to become a supplier or at least willing to take care of ordering the parts and getting them in that could help your business out a lot.

[GTHachiRoku]

Yes, that's definitely a big part of my business plan. I intend to become a supplier for several of the big performance brands.

Tuning would be great to get into. I am looking more and more into the open source tuning options. Of course that's the biggest financial leap since it will require having a shop with a dyno.

[bestwheelbase]

There is something to be said for a small install shop that caters to enthusiasts with simple services like upgrade installs, wheel/tire mounting, corner balancing. I really like the fee based model. Though I have no idea of the viability of such a thing.

[ZionsWrath]

I like to DIY but I often contemplate whether laying on my back is worth it lol.

When I get my turbo I will probably pay for someone to install it. I know I can do it but I rather drink some beers and watch a movie instead of laying on my back under my car on jack stands :\

If I could have some kind of lift I don't think I would ever pay for any service.

If there was a tuner friendly type shop with reasonable rates I'd probably take my car there for maintenance. There is a mechanic 10 minutes walk from me, I'd go there for everything besides oil changes if they were tuner friendly. But it is run by older guys and when I went there to cut off some seized bolts on my honda they treated me like a ricer... (only had a mild drop and some conservative wheels)

I think your success or failure will depend on your customer service.

[GTHachiRoku]

Exactly. We used to have a few places like what you are describing but not anymore.
Prices need to be reasonable. Honestly $150 an hour is just ridiculous, either work faster or charge less.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by GTHachiRoku

Of course that's the biggest financial leap since it will require having a shop with a dyno.

Yes, but it doesn't seem like it would be too risky of an investment, so long as there aren't many dynos around already. I don't know of any in my area, so I'd love for a shop to have one close by. If you were opening up by me, I'd even be willing to invest in just the dyno itself. Maybe something like going halvsies on the cost of the dyno, then I get 30% of the profit generated by the dyno for forever, or something like that. Just having one would get people into your shop, like how Wal-Mart barely profits off of their food sales, but it gets people in the store to buy plastic shit which they do profit off of.

[Firestorm_86]

There are places that rent their lifts out too. Which is a great supplement for people that want to DIY, but need the workspace that a lift provides.

[GTHachiRoku]

Who in the Atlanta area rents out their lifts? That would indeed be extremely useful.

[Firestorm_86]

Originally Posted by GTHachiRoku

Who in the Atlanta area rents out their lifts? That would indeed be extremely useful.

Oh, not one does yet. So it'd be good to offer. I've only seen it in LA.

[GTHachiRoku]

I thought so, I looked quite extensively for a place like this. Surely there's enough demand to support a shop of this type in the area