What city and state are you in? Tony S. Ft. Lauderdale, FL _____
From: Shawn Price [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 8:53 AM To: The Chevelle Mailing List Subject: [Chevelle-list] OT: Seeking out Shop Owners Since the list has been a bit slow lately I thought I would query the shop owners on the list regarding a few things about your businesses. I'm about to be 'downsized' in the next few months and would love to get out of the IT industry. For years now I've been wanting to open up a restoration/repair shop for American classic and muscle cars. I want to specialize in late '60's and early '70's Chevy's but will work on just about anything that DOESN'T HAVE A COMPUTER! (I'm sick to death of these damn things). Having been a white collar mechanic (Network architect and engineer) for several years, and wrenching on the evenings and weekends all my life, I think I'm ready to make the jump to business ownership. I'm currently working on my business plan and am having problems with the marketing and projected revenue parts. My questions are: 1) What are some standard shop rates for repair work? And is there some kind of guide for how long a particular job should take, such as replacing a clutch or other worn part. 2) I know that some folks will want certain things done to their cars and trucks that will be considered a project, such as installing aftermarket disc brakes, or an updated transmission. How do you go about estimating time and materials, and do you use your standard hourly rate or do you lower it a bit to hit a certain price-point. 3) What kinds of things do you do to protect yourself against liability problems, such as an engine you installed shows up 'blown' after a couple weeks, and the customer is trying to blame you, even though you know by the Jiffy Lube sticker on the windshield that the drain plug fell out from the oil change. 4) Are there any kinds of Shop Owners Associations where you can exchange ideas, similar to this mailing list? These are just sort of general questions to get me started thinking about more specific questions later on. And I do appreciate any input, comments, warnings, stories you may have. Also if this is deemed off-topic feel free to send any responses to shawn at zekesgarage dot com. Thanks for reading the long post! -- Shawn '69 Corvette 427 4-Speed '69 Chevelle SS 396 4-Speed '69 Charger R/T 383 4-Speed '67 Chevy C-10 3-On The Tree '00 Suzuki GSX-R 750 1-Down, 5-Up
