I am a small auto shop owner;  I am trying to see if we are competitive or low in our prices for mounting, balancing etc.

Mounting 9.99

Balancing 9.99

Disposal 2.00

Vlave stems 2.99

tire rotation 10.00

We are in central New Jersey

Thanks 

Denise

We got snow Saturday, had pretty much no customers Friday, Sat (closed) Monday and today and tomorrow doesn't look good either (no appointments).

Techs are getting frustrated with no work (they are flat rate and usually stay busy) and obviously not good for me or the business. Do you guys go to auction and buy cars to sell? I usually have 1 car that I work on at all times for myself to sell but I haven't bought a car off of a customer in a while.

It's a bit of a pain to get a dealer license here so wondering if you guys do it

After two years, Our shop would like to start servicing TPMS services lights preset on most vehicles we encounter at our facility. I can't even imagine how much income we lost from not thinking about this earlier.

What scanners do you use to scan\flash TPMS sensors and how much do you charge?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and opinions.

Nick

Thoughts?

I've heard many things like flat 30% over cost, $20 over cost to $0.00 if road hazard warranties purchased on top of etc.

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The problem I am having with this program ( TechNet has a great program) is having my Advisors selling a Road Hazard warranty and seeing that 80% of the vehicles we service are AWD or 4WD, I don't feel comfortable selling the warranty when 9 times out of 10 , the other 3 tires will have to be replaced ( depending on tread depth ).

I researched this great site and the web in general and I don't see anyone discussing this.

Of course honesty and integrity comes into play here and I don't feel comfortable selling something that looks deceitful from the customers point of view if they ever have an issue with a tire that is covered by the Road Hazard warranty and then telling them that we will cover the one tire but because they are driving a Subie ( we service ALOT of Subies ) we will have to charge them for the other 3 tires because there is more than 2/32 difference in tread depth between the new tire and the other 3 tires.

We could inform the customer of this when selling the Road Hazard warranty, but would you buy a Road Hazard warranty when it only covers the one tire that is damaged, knowing you will probably have pay to replace the other 3 tires ?

Also, after my Advisors take the time to explain the whole tire circumference thing and how it could cause drivetrain damage, etc., chances are customers will just be confused and that wont help trying to upsell the Road Hazard warranty or for that matter the whole customer experience when purchasing tires.

Tire shaving is not available any where in Colorado that I have found after extensive research.

Its a lost art except for competitive racers at dirt or asphalt tracks, which Colorado has maybe a total of 5 tracks that I can think of.

Tire rack does it but they don't sell Cooper tires ( which is what we sell the most of ).

A little Quagmire going on here ?

Purchasing a new tire shaving machine ( $10k for a quality one ) would resolve this quagmire and could be a profit center all by itself if marketed correctly, seeing as no one in Denver ( we are 45 minutes from downtown, 20 minutes from the western suburbs ) is offering this service.

Any input from you great folks would be appreciated.

Thank you , Mike.

I'm a shop that does not work with customer supplied parts. What about customer supplied tires?

Thanks for your responses!

AJ

Right now my biggest questions are how much to mark up and how can i offer road hazard. Right now I am using US Auto Force as a supplier for my tires. The prices seem very good, but they do not offer a tire protection program that I am aware of. For pricing I would like to be at or a little above the dicount big boys like Big O and dicount tires. I dont want to get slammed with non stop tire work, but I also dont want to appear to be price gouging and start pissing off customers.

Also are there any special laws to folow. Do I need to log the serials in the computer? Does anyone use Alldata and is there a special set up in it for tires?

Thanks in advance guys, let me know if I am failing to ask the important questions.

The reasoning for this is that you have the weight of the engine on the front 2 tires for traction, and hardly any weight on the rear therefore you want the tires with the best traction in the rear. The way I sell this to the customer is by telling them when you see a car in the ditch what way normally goes in first the rear. This is because of the lack of traction in the rear and the rear end is trying to pass you up in slippery or wet conditions. After I explain it that way. The customer normally gives up on insisting the new tires go on the front. And most of the time they will go with 4 new tires instead of 2.

I do remember a video Michelin had on this. I think if you searched best tires on rear you could find it. In fact I remember Michelin and a tire dealership getting sued after a accident after the dealership put 2 new tires on the front.

How are you guys competing with this? Is it just my inexperience with making sales? Should I press on and mention 'you wont have to wait in line' or 'we already have it on lift, are you sure?' I don't want to come across as a pushy salesman, but it's really starting to get under my skin.

UPDATE: I just phone shopped one of these chain stores locally and they told me they offer free lifetime tire rotation AND spin balance! Is there this much profit in tire sales?

My webmaster finished uploading the training video I promised you on "Selling Road Hazard Warranties".

Let me know if you have any questions.

Here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzE5eJf07QtPVxjZ4r6zL0Q

not very profitable... am i missing something

check out this article, I have no personal experience with this shop but it demonstrates what happens when you cater to a certain clientele. The comments say it all.

Do any owners sell used tires and what are your sources for obtaining them (recyclers, resellers).

As you know, President Obama signed a three-year tariff on China-made consumer tires back in 2009. The duties were in addition to the base 4% tariff which has been in place for years. The three-year tariff went into effect on September 26, 2009 and has now expired.

As of September 27th of this year, any products not already processed by customs are no longer subject to the tariffs imposed by the Obama administration. This change will undoubtedly cause some disruption in the market prices for Chinese import tires over the coming weeks. In addition, this event could have an impact on pricing other product lines and price tiers.

In light of the tariff expiration, distributors like ourselves have been forced to review and make modifications to our return policies. As a result, effective today, new returns on all Chinese imported tires will be credited at the lesser of price paid or current selling price.

If you have any questions, please contact your *** representative in your local distribution center. On behalf of everyone at ****, thank you for your understanding of this policy change, in the face of this unusual industry situation, and thank you for your business.

Soooo today I was quoting tires and on top of a NTF (New Tire Fee) that I have to charge customers, a FET fee came up on a certain types of tires, that I had never seen before, so I asked and it meant a Federal Excise Tax, which is understandable as tires come from out of the states but how did I never come across that before? Can someone explain all of this to me in laymans terms?? I know there are a lot of pros and cons to obamas tire tariff, but how does this affect us in our industry? So many fees and taxes, and how do I cover myself with all these fees?

Anyone else know about this whole Obama ordeal, I had never heard of it until I got the email from my tire distributor....