I was thinking about me and my dad going in on a business.
he’s been up in the air on what he wants to do… invest in buying houses and renting them out, or franciseing another business type deal.
I thought of this:
Buy or rent a place with like 2 or so bays with lifts
sell wheels and tires ( if you buy them there then free installation)
offer installs of bolt on exhaust’s or bolt on performance items.
offer something like “rent a bay” where we assist you with putting your car on a lift and provide you with the tools to do your own work for an hourly rate. but charge a little more if you would like to be supervised by a ASE certified mechanic. (Because I know theres alot of people like me that like to do their own work)
offer State Inspections and emmissions ( might as well since my dad has his license )
Offer a service where you bring us the parts that you need installed, and we’ll install them for a much cheaper price then a firestone or other automotive place would charge.
we’ve owned an automotive repair shop in the past but sold it due to not being able to find any good help employee wise and he was getting tired of fixing cars for 33 or so years all by himself.
letting ppl do work in YOUR shop is a huge liability should somone get hurt…and im not talking about the car falling on them off the lift…im syaing someone slips a screwdriver and cuts their finger thats all ppl need these days to create a huge lawsuite…i wouldnt do that …
if at all possible dont let ppl bring you theyre own equipment to install … unless its likean exhaust or something stupid… when i worked at circuit shitty installing people would go to the monroeville expo mart and buy these shit ass headunits and amps and shit and bring them to us to install and when they broke a week later or didnt sound as good as the shmuck they bought it from told them it would it was automatically OUR fault at circuit city adn they would be back there looking for free shit! so i would def try and sell whatever products you plan on installing that way if theres a problem you know where it came from and can take proper steps on your end to find a solution.
if i were you id stay away from opening a shop entirely… for one reason it seems like theyre popping up all over the place these days and probably 1/8th of them are actually quality shops…if i were you id look to franchise something or modify a franchise type business and start your own idea so you dont have ot pay all kidns of franchise fees. if your dad owned a business for that many years he shouldnt need a franchisee to help him start up his books and get his ducks in a row. he should know how to do that so paying someone else money to do that for you would be kinda pointless.
I’ve been kicking some ideas around as well… but don’t think I’m ready to make the jump, I’m looking to pick up a few rental properties myself, I’m currently managing 30+ properties for other owners and about ready to own one… but here is a gas station I keep looking at, I manage a few rental properties for the owner and know the listing agent…
of course there would be a waiver to sign before you performed your own work.
but you are right about shops popping up everywhere.
hell, maybe we’ll start thinkin about a jet ski rental on the mon like we were thinkin on the first place… but thats even a bigger liability
not a bad idea, but you will need to set yourself apart from other shops that offer similar services. Also, the liability insurance that you would need to carry to let other people do work in your bays on their cars would be a ton and most likely would not be worth it.
What are you going to do when a kid shows up and says he needs 4 hours in the shop to put an exhaust on, then it turns out a bunch of shit is broken/not working out, the car is there for days, said kid flakes out/doesn’t have the money, etc. You can say you’ll hold the car, but it’s going to be harder for you in general to do so, even if you want to claim a mechanic’s lien because essentially you will be a landlord and/or the proprietor of a “car hotel.”
Also, if the contract/waiver for DIY work is very one-sided and the customer has no real ability to negotiate terms and no choice but to sign the waiver if they want to use the garage you risk a contract of adhesion which could be partially or entirely invalidated should you end up in court.
In any case, you’re going to have to pay a good lawyer if something comes back at you because what you are doing is not going to have much of a history of litigation and you will have to sell whatever interpretation is in your favor. Nothing about that proposal looks straightforward to me.
Lastly, it basically sounds like you’re opening a repair shop with added liability. From the sounds of it you aren’t going to charge all that much for the rental/installation, so where is the main income stream?
P.S. On a personal level I think it’s a cool idea, it would be of great use to people who don’t have access to a lift, and I’d consider you pretty cool for offering it, but the legal and financial liability associated with such an operation seems significantly greater than the considerable level of liability you would have just by running a repair shop.