u/yungtr1p

I’m new to having my own mobile mechanic business going and I see how people talking about up charging parts left and right but I don’t know how to do that. I’m probably overthinking way too much and can’t help myself.
Obviously researching parts takes time and you should get compensated for that. So I have and example , guy with BMW wants to do all the drivetrain flushes, spark plugs and etc. He wants OEM everything. So I need to research and find out what fluid for what model & year and etc. let’s say all the parts come to $450 total. Do I just put my percentage on it and say it’s $600? Surely you can look it up yourself and see that it does not cost 600 and I may come off looking like I’m trying to screw people over. On the other hand it does not look right saying parts cost 450 but you paying 150 extra for my research cause it may be offending to someone. So do you just slap the price on it and worry about the questions later or what?

My 330 runs at around 107-110 at all times. There is no leaks and a lot of stuff was done over the years but it was always running like this. Is this normal for you or no? The only thing I haven’t touch recently is the thermostat and never touched any of the temperature sensors (temperature climbs up and changing gradually so I assumed sensors are good. But the thing is when I google it tells me that thermostat is set for 103-1110 which makes sense in my case. But when I look for real people experience on forums and Reddit people report car running at 95-99. Mine sits at 107. Could it be that I have a “hot” thermostat or the sensor in the thermostat is not working correctly?

I randomly found this subreddit while scrolling some redditors history and I just love what I see. This is my cup of tee but what kind of game it is? How do you play this game? How do I search it up on YouTube so I can see the gameplay and rules? Reminds me of dota

Had my first return recently and used eBay to issue the label. I have the tracking information and it says that label was issued in return details but no label can be found anywhere. Buyer claims that they don’t see return label and I can not find it either. Where do I find it so I can send it to buyer? Thanks

Sold my car few days ago to a nice Cuban gentleman. He asked me very nice to not fill out the title and I know it is the wrong thing to do but I’ve been on the other side of the deal multiple times and sellers were always able to help me out so despite the law, I felt obligated to pass it forward. Plus the car was a junker anyway, so whatever the price they will fill out on the title won’t be that far off from market value 😂
I did, however, had a handwritten bill of sale that they signed with mileage, price of sale and “sold as is and the car described to the best of my knowledge” just so I can at least have something in case if the question ever comes up. Now the reason I’m asking because online it says that you have to return the tag to kind of “finalize” the sale process. The thing is that I already de-registered the car, returned plate and canceled insurance over 2 month ago and the car was sitting in my garage ready to go to a new home. Do I need to do anything now or I should be fine?

Client wanted quote for 2 things. One was $250 and another is to just few minor things around the house since my truck already there I charged them $50. They called back saying they only want to go ahead with $50 service. I’m not getting in work truck for $50. So do I tell them “I have minimum charge which is this xxx” ? Will I sound like a con artist if I say “hey, this is minimum, anything else that you want done in the house so we can meet minimum charge?” . Thanks

I’m in the service industry and only been online for 2 weeks. Haven’t paid for any ads just yet. I offer vehicle repair service. So far I had 3 potential customers (actually 6 but 3 of them knew me before my business became official). And those 3 customers are just a waste of time.

#1 bought a clunker of Facebook market with last money she had and the engine went kaput on her 3 hours after and she’s stranded on the side of the road and expect this thing to somehow be fixed

#2 older lady wanted to know if I work on scooter to which I replied no but she pulled out sobbing story how she called around and no one can help her and she just needs this carburetor replaced and she already has a part. Dumb me wanted to get a good review so I said I can help but it’s not my specialty so she needs to knowledge that I will come, swap it out and at that point there is nothing I can do if that doesn’t work. And have her a bottom of the market price range for labor. She agreed. As soon as we scheduled the time to come out she started with “I have some other issues going on with this bike as well so I really need to make sure that you are experienced working on them “ …. I wanted to cuss her so bad but I just politely told her that for her own sake it’s better she finds another guy.

#3 the guy calls and his car has multiple faults on the car that are all separate issues. Overheating issue, battery drain issue, car runs rough issue…I knew I just need to kick him but my dumbass wants to get the first ever
customer so bad that he’s ready to take this on. Told him diag price per hour and that issues he’s having are separate but I will look into the most important part and if he want to continue we go from there. He agreed, scheduled the time and few hours later he starts with “by the way I already replaced this part, that part, those 2 parts. I think X thing is bad now”… so you can clearly tell the guy does his own work so no fckn way he will approve the repairs even if I give him the cheapest quote in the country. And that’s on top of the car being a turd having multiple unrelated issues and half of them were probably caused by him trying to fix previous issues. So I’m going to come out to snake nest, try to diagnose something, he will stop at one hour and then going to mess up the car again doing the work himself and leave me a bad review for misdiagnosis

Common thing between all 3 of them is you can clearly tell that they’ve been calling around and guys who are in business longer immediately picked up that’s it’s a trouble customer and just refused service so they kept calling around until they found my dumbass on the bottom of google search with only 3 reviews.

I think I got the lesson now and will be better going forward with customers like that. But the question is how do you even get a legit customer ? Not a single person called with an actual normal complaint diagnosis or service they need to get done. I feel like a catfish that’s rubbing my belly on the bottom of the sea feeding on some junk

This is more of a question for mobile techs but it could also apply to regular shops . I just started getting calls recently and found myself not prepared. I’ve got my first “roadside service” call yesterday. I don’t plan doing much of this and did not think this part thru. Anyway, customer calls in, they are stuck at the gas station, car was running and then it’s not. Based on information my brain collected during the call, my gut told me that they either have no money for service or do not have a plan on how they will pay for service. So I had to refer them to a different guy I found in my quick 5 second google map search ( sorry Jim from Naples, FL. Nothing personal, you are truly the best in the area with your 5 start reviews so I had to recommend you). NOW TO THE QUESTION. If I were to go to that call, at what point you say how much your services cost. I can’t just pickup the phone and “Shady Motors LLC, service call is $100, anything over 1hr is extra” but at the same time I can not not discuss the price before I invest my time and drive there. So do you just hear them out and hit it with “damn that’s crazy. Ok, it will cost you xxx for me to come out. “
Can you give me example of your call please? Thanks

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I’m making a business card for my mechanic business and originally I put in “Professional. Reliable. Honest” under my company name but the longer I look at it the more it looks tacky to me. I do see that it’s a very common thing in this industry to have “honest” or “reliable” somewhere in your business description but I’m not sure if it makes it looks less tacky if everyone does it. What is your advice on this? Should I leave it out? Basically I’m trying to say “ honest and progressional mechanic who you can trust” but word it in the way that it has a punch to it. Thanks for any advice

Plan to start doing mechanic work. I’ve been doing it for over 10 years and finally want to be my own boss. I plan to have my own garage space and hopefully just work off the online ad/ word of mouth clientele. So no big store front or anything like that. Just small garage with 2 lifts (for start) and front room for customers in case if they decide to wait. I have full time job so I want to have at least some momentum going before i get a garage space ( have some reviews on google, google ads set up and people reaching out here and there) and in general I want to get the ball rolling. I know that you can never be prepared for this jump but I will feel better having at least 1 customer that I know might come in this month for something. Now the problem I have on my mind is the business name, as I mentioned my goal is physical location (hopefully within 3-6 months) but I want to start mobile . Let’s say the name is going to be “Apex car care”. I don’t want my business to be associated with shade tree mechanics as to be honest even being mechanic myself that’s what comes up on my mind when I hear mobile mechanic. So I was thinking to call it “apex car care” but mentioned mobile work everywhere else like description of a business, photo of a business card attached on google, Facebook profile … you get the idea. While I know it’s not going to be 100% as good as just putting in straight into business name , could it be sufficient enough to still find clients who can read the description? Or should I just bite the bullet and then deal with the name change once I move into the shop? I just want to hear your thought on this, whatever you need to say

So I’m in process of setting up my business profile to get things rolling and I’m stuck on the “ name your business” part. Context: the goal for the next year is to have a one man show with small garage and 2 lifts. First step for me will be doing mobile work to build up some momentum before getting a garage space. At this time I’m working full time job and only have 2 days a week I can work on my business. I want to at least have some reviews, ads set up and all other processes going already when I will get the shop. My problem now is that I don’t plan to stay mobile for long time and I’m not sure if I should have a “mobile mechanic” in my business name. I was thinking to name it something like “ insert business name here car service” and then have a description or a photo or something that will mention mobile work. Or do you think it’s a must to have it as part of business name? I don’t want to come off rude but at this time I don’t need opinion on whether I should be opening a shop or not. I just want to hear your opinion if I should call it mobile mechanic business name and then remove mobile when I move into the shop or just go without mobile and put it in description? Thanks
So many thoughts going thru my head that I don’t even know if you guys understand what I meant

I had small carpentry business for few years and it was showing up at my home address on google maps. Now I started new business in different category and want to add it to my home address so it shows up on maps and all that. The problem is that my old business is still showing there. I did go to setting and changed the location to “not show location to customers” but it still shows up on the maps if you just looking on the map. It don’t like it because it doesn’t look good when you searching for someone to come fix some stuff for you and you see a guy who has multiple one-man show businesses registered at his home address. I just want the current business to show up, I don’t want my current customers to know what I did before, but the main problem that you can even tell that I did that “before” because it still shows up as active. So basically someone who hired me to fix his security cameras seeing me as the guy who does deck building on the side as well. What do I do?

I’m a mechanic at the dealer and want to finally start working on my own so I can build my brand and actually get paid for what I’m worth. I have almost all the aspects figured out but one thing is bothering me and I’m not sure how to go about it. I want to promote on social media but as you all know as soon as you post something the very next day all the people who have my phone number will be recommended my video and they will see what I’m doing. I generally don’t have any problem with that but because I’m just starting I don’t have any clients or anything to show for myself. So I just worried that i will look weird and be laughed at behind my back. How do you approach this?

Long story short. Getting at least 25% more hours every paycheck compared to the second best performer. Constantly getting 120-30+ hours and the pay is at $30. The closest guys to me making maybe a 100 if that. I can’t squeeze more hours out of myself and already working 6 days. The only thing that can be j proved as a pay but it will take years for me to go thru all the levels as you have to stay X amount of years at certain level before you can move up. But paycheck still sucks and I can not do it anymore. I hate to see how good I can sell stuff, how little comebacks I have (if any) knock on wood. How customers constantly complimenting on my video inspection and I how I make them feel comfortable spending money. And all this for the paycheck to be just enough to cover the bills. Whatever work I do on the side rarely I always get come back customers and always sell something on top of original concern. I don’t want to brag or anything but I feel like wolf of Wall Street that was out on the chain to work in the post office. I know I can do more but my financial situation does not let me work less than 6 days a week. Enough talking…I need someone to hype me up or brake my worries and tell me that I’m worrying for nothing. I want to start my socials so I can have my face as a face of the company and do videos and promote mobile work for now and once I get some customers than I can figure out getting myself a little place and be 1 man shop with 2 lifts at least for the time being. I’m just worried that my videos will immediately get recommended to my contact book or whoever has my number and everyone at work will now that I do side work. How do you approach this? Do I hold off on showing my face till I can afford to quit on the spot it question comes up or what?