A DIY Garage in Dublin...

Darragh29

Ok, for all my hot air on here about "let the garage supply your parts", I'm suppose I'm going to show myself up for the yellow/shallow c*nt that I really am!

I'm working with a colleague at the moment with a view to launching a DIY garage in Ballymount in Dublin. What this means is that if we proceed with this idea, we'll be providing a modern fully equipped garage facility just off the M50, for anyone who wants to avail of this facility at a charge.

On the equipment front, here's what we'll be providing:

6 bay facility with each bay fitted with a scissors vehicle lift, handtools, airline, air tools, oil line, oil drain, inspection lamp.

A test lane bay fitted out with a Sun Diagnostics Test Lane, just like you'd see in the NCT centre, also fitted out with 4 gas analyser, diesel smokemeter & headlamp alignment system.

One fully fitted out valeting bay.

A diagnostics bay, complete with computer diagnostics system and display on a wide screen plasma monitor and oscilloscope for the more advanced diagnostics.

A tyre changing & wheel balancing bay.

On the people front, we'll have a mechanic on duty to specifically advise, but not physically "assist" folks, mainly relating to the useage of equipment and to manage the day to day operation. All payments into the business will be by laser/credit card on a prepay basis through our website, so no cash will be involved. :

SO, we are looking at how this will work operationally and I think the best appraoch to have is to insist on a day or a half day of training or induction for anyone signing up to use the facility. The equipment here if not used correctly can kill or seriously injure someone, so obviously there would have to be some sort of a "sign up" fee and training involved.

It is easy to see this model getting very messy if it is not managed right, and I'm not even satisfied at the moment that there would be a sufficient demand for this facility that would make it a profitable business operation.

I'm looking for opinions from any folks who might think that this is a stupid idea or an excellent idea. It's just that at the moment, an idea. I'm just brainstorming on here at the minute...

Drummerboy08

One thing i could see happening is people bothering the mechanic on duty - i.e. every joe soap who knows nothing about cars will go down to chance his arm and ask the mechanic about everything that has to be done.

Other than that, i think its a good idea, different. I would suppose there are enough people out there who know how to service their car but have no space/facilities to do it?

Maybe you could have a parts service running too then for the basics, filters, wipers etc?

kazul

6 bays plus the rest sounds like a lot. I would imagine that insurance will cost a fortune. How does liability work out if somebody leaves a wheel loose on their car after being "supervised" by your mechanic?
If your looking to start a business I'd sooner go with a mobile servicing set-up i.e. set up a van and visit industrial estates to service cars as people work, much bigger market too. I think you'd have trouble making the necessary turnover to pay for what you've proposed above.
Good luck though and I'd actually love to be able to use such a facility but how many of "us" are there?

Darragh29

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

One thing i could see happening is people bothering the mechanic on duty - i.e. every joe soap who knows nothing about cars will go down to chance his arm and ask the mechanic about everything that has to be done.

Other than that, i think its a good idea, different. I would suppose there are enough people out there who know how to service their car but have no space/facilities to do it?

Maybe you could have a parts service running too then for the basics, filters, wipers etc?

Well that's the plan on the parts front but obviously this will cater for those people who want to buy their own parts for whatever reason. Bulbs, wipers, etc, will all be available...

That's one problem we've identified, is timewasters. This system would have to be based on very clear rules and one of those would have to be that if you can't do a particular task yourself, you'll need to get a mechanic to come down to help you because the mechanic we will have available will only be assisting with equipment issues and maintaining a high standard of heath & safety with regard to the usage of equipment, such as checking that cars are properly supported on lifts prior to work commencing, etc.

Again, this model is not set in stone, in fact it might not even go ahead, it depends on whether or not the model can be matched to the users.

It might be best to just restrict the facilities to mechanics for nixers, or folks who clearly know what they are doing, I don't know...

The Real B-man

Sounds like a good idea id say insurance would be a issue thow potientally unskilled/trained people using garage equiptment etc.

Darragh29

kazul wrote: »

6 bays plus the rest sounds like a lot. I would imagine that insurance will cost a fortune. How does liability work out if somebody leaves a wheel loose on their car after being "supervised" by your mechanic?
If your looking to start a business I'd sooner go with a mobile servicing set-up i.e. set up a van and visit industrial estates to service cars as people work, much bigger market too. I think you'd have trouble making the necessary turnover to pay for what you've proposed above.
Good luck though and I'd actually love to be able to use such a facility but how many of "us" are there?

Thanks for this Kazul. The mobile servicing will be offered with a mobile pre-purchase inspection service and used car warranty service at the end of this month. What we are looking at is, if we are servicing/inspecting cars that need further work, such as an exhaust repalcement or brake pads or a timing belt replacement, can we capture these transactions and bring them to our outlet in Ballymount to attend to these issues at a competive rate. If we can, can we also offer a DIY service from this same location...

It's about trying to get economies of scale out of the same assets, and try out a new business model that there may be a market for...

Insurance will be by way of a very tight legal disclaimer before you can sign up, not unlike one used for go-kart racing or bungee jumping! there is no insurance product on the market that would cover this type of business model, as you dealing with unqualified staff, which insurance companies will run a mile from...

alias no.9

I think it sounds like an excellent idea and I would definitely be interested in using it. Your timing may also be impecable as people try to trim costs, they'll start to look at things they can do themselves rather than paying €100/hour labour costs, particularly as they start keeping cars for longer and outside the warranty period.

Do you have an idea of what kind of hourly rates you would need to charge to make this work?

skibum

I would be interested in something like this. What sort of costs would be involved? Would you also run a night class on basic servicing etc?

Darragh29

alias no.9 wrote: »

I think it sounds like an excellent idea and I would definitely be interested in using it. Your timing may also be impecable as people try to trim costs, they'll start to look at things they can do themselves rather than paying €100/hour labour costs, particularly as they start keeping cars for longer and outside the warranty period.

Do you have an idea of what kind of hourly rates you would need to charge to make this work?

I'm thinking something around 20 Euro/Hr. But open to discussion obviouslly... There has to be a balance with price as if it is too high, then there is no value in the idea. I think it has to allow people people a substantial saving on the nearest alternative, which is an indy garage service or also someone doing a nixer.

skibum wrote: »

I would be interested in something like this. What sort of costs would be involved? Would you also run a night class on basic servicing etc?

Yeah, we'd be very open to that type of an approach as it would clearly complement the business model. The only problem here I see is folks who want to save money and cannot actually take a wheel off a car, thinking that because there is a mechanic in the builidng, that this individual will take them through the task by the hand. This is the main problem, it has to be strictly on the basis of "you" doing the work and knowing how to do the work.

I'd be very interested in holding classes for folks who wanted to start off with servicing their car but also wanted to progress past that and do their brakes, shocks, learn how to diagnose their car with diagnostic equipment, then on further to timing belt, clutch replacement and head gasket type work.

I just am not satisfied that there is the demand for this. On the face of it, it looks attractive, but it is easy to see how it can get very messy.

alias no.9

Most demand from joe public for this would be at the weekend. To make it more viable during the week, you might be able to find a few semi-retired mechanics who still do nixers or start-up independents who don't have the capital to buy their own premesis would prefer to use your service bays on an hourly basis rather than renting a garage full time or pissing about with axel stands on a driveway. It could be the stepping stone they need to get from being an employee to running their own business. It would also be worth having a chat with some classic car clubs about their needs.

Avns1s

Darragh, given that we locked horns a bit on the parts thread, I felt I better give you my 2c on this in as constructive a way as possible.

First, I think you'd be better starting small say with 2 car lifts and basic equipment, maybe the tyre stuff. Diagnostic and other specialised equipment is generally outside the scope of the ordinary Joe soap as not only do they need to know how to use it but they also need to be able to interpret the informatio given and the solution to a problem as a result.

Secondly, I think insurance will be a big issue if not impossible. I wonder if you would be better pitching your service not at the "diy mechanic" but rather at the trained or semi trained mechanic doing a nixer. Some way or other, I'd be looking at the people using it being covered by insurance other than your own and maybe signing a disclaimer to state they have the required ability to use the equipment and that in the event of an accident, they waive their rights to pursue you other than if equipment is faulty. I don't know if this will even be possible but this is the biggest area of difficulty.

Thirdly, I'd love to know, just how many people will go further than changing their oil these days. Talk about computers etc in modern cars has the shiite scared outa the ordinary fella to much more than lift the bonnet. The people who are pushing themselves to change oil won't be willing to pay to put their car on a lift to do it. What is the market besides?

Fourthly and finally for now at least, the biggest overhead a main dealer has is the premises and the top class equipment and they reflect this in their charges and justify their charges on this. Your problem will be that you will have these overheads and yet be charging way less than an indy as you mentioned. Is it viable at all? Hvae you crunched figures on it?

Anyway, I wish you all the best if you go ahead. I do think it's a good idea generally but I can see how our "claim mentality" and regulations will possibly strangle it before it comes to reality at all.

Bandara

darragh,

A scenario for you, someone one pays online and comes in to (for example) change their brake pads. While doing this they have a look at that problematic gearbox they have, they make a balls of it and they end up completely unable to put the car back together. They had booked in and paid for 2 hours, they are now on their 6th hour, your other customers that were booked in to use that bay after this guy have gone mental and went home swearing never to use your service again.

Its now 6pm and your closing soon but Mr Gearboxs car is still not drivable, do you leave it there overnight? how does he get home? does your mechanic eventually step in and rectify the screwups (if so does he charge), what if the customer has/won;t pay any more money?

I think its a messy one mainly because the public being the way they are they will take advantage of the service and abuse it as muich as possible.

I'd imagine equipment theft would be a HUGE problem as well, your never going to be able to supervise peope enough to stop them steal everything that they can.

Rovi

Darragh29 wrote: »

Insurance will be by way of a very tight legal disclaimer before you can sign up, not unlike one used for go-kart racing or bungee jumping! there is no insurance product on the market that would cover this type of business model, as you dealing with unqualified staff, which insurance companies will run a mile from...

This is where this venture will stand or fall.
I'm involved in a sideline business in which the paying public are exposed to a degree of risk, and we have what has been complimented on as a very comprehensive disclaimer, but we've been warned to be under no illusions that it removes all risk/responsibility from us.

While not quite as bad as 'not worth the paper it's written on', it's pretty well established by now that a person cannot sign away their rights, so no matter whose 'fault' an incident may be, the premises owner/manager, event organiser, etc, are all still open to be pursued for compensation.
What a disclaimer will do, is mitigate (to a degree) the distribution of responsibility and the extent of any compensation.
However, even if someone manages to kill themselves or ends up paralysed entirely through their own fault, a young widow with small children or a person unable to look after themselves for the rest of their life cuts a very sympathetic figure before the courts; someone, somewhere, will be paying.


I think this would be a terrific enterprise and I can see plenty of people wanting to make use of it, but given the litigious nature of our society, I'd want to be very sure of the insurance/litigation situation before going ahead with it.

Neilw

Great idea and I hope you get it up and running.

I would happily pay by the hour to work on my own car, I try to do as much work as I can myself but a limiting factor is not having a car lift at home.

dp639

All a lot of people seem to need a roof over their heads, so the whole thing could be simplified. I've a friend from Dublin who comes down to use my garage which is fifty miles away.

HashSlinging

You could limit the amount of work someone does on the car, say oil changes, brake pads etc no problem, Any other problems (gearboxes etc) they need to book in with a mechanic. I'm sure theres loads of mechanics out there that would love to use this facility for nixers etc, I would say if you could open 24hrs you would be onto a winner.

KTRIC

I know for a fact there are setups like this in Munich where I live. I'll have a look and see if I can find their website, might be of some help to you.


Edit - found this Swiss one http://www.do-it-yourself-garage.ch/ , you could run it through a translator site and see what the offer.

Edit #2 - found the German one , http://www.auto-hobby.de/. A couple of colleagues have used it because they don't have garages

robbie99

Great idea and I really hope it gets off the ground. If this was available now I'd one of your first customers.

roo_photo

They have a similar sort of thing in most garages in Sweden too. Though its just the lift bays with drainage & recycling facilities for hire - anything else, such as tools, the punter has to organise themselves. Basically you rented out the 'unit' on an hourly basis, what you did to your car was your own responsibility.

blackbox

This sounds like a good initiative.

I like Hash's idea of limiting the type of tasks that people may undertake, at least until you get to know their capabilities.

I can certainly see it being used by people with classic/performance cars who want to get small jobs done but want to be certain of the standard of materials used, such as oils and brake pads.

For me, the scissors/pillar jack would be the main attraction.

I'd agree with previous suggestions not to spend too much on diagnostic equipment and to hire it separately.

You would want to think of some way of flexing your capacity/costs as demand during weekdays will be lower.

If you can achieve your target price of €20 per hour I can see it being a success.

(PS: I definitely would not supply hand-tools - just a money pit either replacing them or providing security to mind them.)

turbodiesel

I reckon this sounds like a great idea. I think opening 24hrs or al least until 10pm would suit people that want to do a bit of servicing work after they finish their day job.

Turbulent Bill

It's a nice idea in principle, but I just can't see it working when the general public are involved, trained or not. The insurance and general management of the place could be crippling and the cost may not cover the rental income.

Would it be worth setting up a well-respected standard indy service instead? People are always on here looking for mechanic recommendations, so with good advertising and word-of-mouth (service quality is a given) it might do well. Without main stealer expenses and considering that people will keep cars longer in the recession, would your prices be competitive? You could set up a sideline of car maintenance classes in the evenings if you wanted (fully supervised), or invite car clubs to use the facilities as mentioned above.

itarumaa

roo_photo wrote: »

They have a similar sort of thing in most garages in Sweden too. Though its just the lift bays with drainage & recycling facilities for hire - anything else, such as tools, the punter has to organise themselves. Basically you rented out the 'unit' on an hourly basis, what you did to your car was your own responsibility.

Yep, but the difference is that if you have an accident in the garage, you cannot make a huge claim, basically it is your fault and not the diy place. In Ireland things are a bit different. In nordic countries you don´t get awared 30k for your own stupidy:)

Darragh29

Thanks to everyone for the posts. I'm starting to think that the whole thing might be too much of a headache. I can advise on equipment issues and an operational plan but I'm not sure I'd want any of the day to day headaches to be honest, I already had my own indy garage and I got out of it because I thought that it was just too much hassle & stress. I know I'm probably contradicting myself here but I'm just talking out loud I suppose you could say!

KTRIC

Darragh29 wrote: »

Thanks to everyone for the posts. I'm starting to think that the whole thing might be too much of a headache. I can advise on equipment issues and an operational plan but I'm not sure I'd want any of the day to day headaches to be honest, I already had my own indy garage and I got out of it because I thought that it was just too much hassle & stress. I know I'm probably contradicting myself here but I'm just talking out loud I suppose you could say!

Did you have a look at the links I posted ? Don't sign this off as a bad idea yet.

What about visiting a similar setup and maybe getting some advice on it.

mickdw

Probably as a starter it would be better to add a diy bay to a garage thats already in operation. Id certainly use it.

draycottgirlz

good idea...hopefully it works out

Ferris

Darragh29 wrote: »

Thanks to everyone for the posts. I'm starting to think that the whole thing might be too much of a headache. I can advise on equipment issues and an operational plan but I'm not sure I'd want any of the day to day headaches to be honest, I already had my own indy garage and I got out of it because I thought that it was just too much hassle & stress. I know I'm probably contradicting myself here but I'm just talking out loud I suppose you could say!

Maybe you could set it up as a car maintenance club with a nominal yearly fee and then charge for time spent in using the facilities. I am in a sailing club where members maintain, clean and use their own boats and they can get insurance cover - surely your idea is similar.

The club idea might reduce the muppet factor. Also insisting on a qualification (mechanic, engineer, fitter etc) would help but might restrict your customer base.

Either way i am sure that you will get good support from this forum as you have helped a lot of people here in the past. Best of luck if you go for it.

DublinDilbert

I personally think its a good idea....

For example a lot of the NCT fail Items are simply bolt off one part and bolt on another.... Although a lot of people have good mechanical knowledge, and could easily swap a part, they would need some assistance on the diagnostic side of things... This is particularly true with emissions... I'm not sure how this could be charged...

It would also be good if you had an auto data PC & maybe a library of manuals available / on hand.

If you could locate near a motor factors, maybe set up an arrangement, where your customers would get a 10% discount...

Tyre balancing equipment we be a good thing to have.

Also a stock of blubs / fuses would be very handy to have in stock for people to purchase.

I wouldn't be going out and kitting out a commercial property from scratch... surely with all of the closures, there's bound to be suitable possibly even with lifts & some equipment, going for a fraction of the price.

Also could you have an area with mini "pits" which could be used at a lower rate.. say half the price/hour of using a ramp... but would still have access to various pieces of equipment.

Why not even offer car maintenance courses? The reason lots of people don't change the oil, is cause they've never done it, not cause it'd difficult! Not everyone was like lots of people here, out in the garage at the age of 6 looking at their father servicing the family car.

L-M

Hammertime wrote: »

darragh,

A scenario for you, someone one pays online and comes in to (for example) change their brake pads. While doing this they have a look at that problematic gearbox they have, they make a balls of it and they end up completely unable to put the car back together. They had booked in and paid for 2 hours, they are now on their 6th hour, your other customers that were booked in to use that bay after this guy have gone mental and went home swearing never to use your service again.

Its now 6pm and your closing soon but Mr Gearboxs car is still not drivable, do you leave it there overnight? how does he get home? does your mechanic eventually step in and rectify the screwups (if so does he charge), what if the customer has/won;t pay any more money?

I think its a messy one mainly because the public being the way they are they will take advantage of the service and abuse it as muich as possible.

I'd imagine equipment theft would be a HUGE problem as well, your never going to be able to supervise peope enough to stop them steal everything that they can.

You got in there before me. It is one big concern i'd have.

As said above, the thing that would worry me is getting people to come in during the week days where people would normally be working. You could easily find very quiet during normal operating hours, and busy at evenings and weekends.

Son

I dunno,i've seen this idea mentioned before,thought about it.....and i think its verrry messy.I am a qualified mechanic,i would probably use it.You will get every tom dick and harry bringing there rust bucket in :pac: and not even know how to safely put a car on a ramp,not being able to drive,reversing off a ramp into someone elses car etc.
They wouldn't know how to use most if not all the equipment so the mechanic on duty will have his ears bleeding and before long he will be forced into carrying out the job just to get their car off the ramp and outta the shop.And theres no worse job putting something back together that someone else took apart.


I think it might work but you would have to be very specific about what work can be done.Maybe joe public is limited to the amount of work (general maintanance) and trade users can carry on with whatever.
I wouldn't kit it out too much to start,just ramps and very basic stuff to see how it goes.

Eric Cartman

HashSlinging wrote: »

You could limit the amount of work someone does on the car, say oil changes, brake pads etc no problem, Any other problems (gearboxes etc) they need to book in with a mechanic. I'm sure theres loads of mechanics out there that would love to use this facility for nixers etc, I would say if you could open 24hrs you would be onto a winner.

if anyone can give me a place i can go work on my car at 3am with all tools available and a lift available i will pay severley

Eric Cartman

blackbox wrote: »

(PS: I definitely would not supply hand-tools - just a money pit either replacing them or providing security to mind them.)

tools can all be rfid tagged quite cheaply, say limit each bay to 5 tools out at a time or something, until 1 is scanned back in, no more tools out,

skyhighflyer

I think it's a good idea but I would limit it to the use of bays (the ones you walk under) and an indoor heated / lighted workshop only. Even in many franchised workshops the mechanics have their own tools beacause theft would bne so high. If someone is compentent enough to change the oil, pads, whatever on their car then they should have no problem getting the basic tools. You're not there to tell people how to fix their cars and anyone looking to perform serious maintenance like T Belts, engine rebuilds, etc will probably be mechanically qualified anyway.

With regards to the point of what happens if somone's car breaks on the ramp and can't be driven off - a "Get the fook off my ramp another customer's waiting" should do it.

Thoie

Someone's already used my scenario of "what if I mess up fixing my car and make it undriveable". A few other ideas to throw into the mix. I love the original idea, and am just playing devil's advocate on a lot of these

Have the mechanic on duty wear a shirt and tie instead of overalls - that way he's less likely to get called on to help with something, and more likely to be asked "how do you use this".

Have a tea/coffee/water vending machine in there (keep it stocked) and see if you can get some of the profits from that.

A common complaint I hear from apartment livers is that there's nowhere to really clean your car. The vacuums in most service stations are awful. If you could offer a few spots with metered electricity (feed 50p's into the box) where you could plug in your own vacuum cleaner, I'd imagine a few people would go for that. The spaces would need to be wide enough to have all the doors open, and it wouldn't be a great money spinner, but it might attract people in there to start with, and they might spend money on other things as well - it's fairly space intensive though. If you had enough space you could also rent out a spot to a valeter as well.

If you're going to be open 24hours, think about security - what do you do if 15 lads turn up in a Punto at 3am and start getting in the way of other people?

What will your costs for waste/recyling be? If I turn up to change my battery, where will I leave the old one? Will I pay for you to dispose of it? How will you get rid of it then?

How will you be covered if I use your emmissions equipment, determine I "pass", but then fail the NCT? While I might have signed a waiver, there could be an argument that if your machine is just wrong, that I'm entitled to a refund or something.

Have you checked out how you're going to take payment on the website? To limit your exposure to credit card fraud, and the things like PCI compliance, would you use a hosted payments page (something like what Realex, for example) offer?

Will you have a policy on volumes of music playing? If I'm in Bay 1 blaring out the best of Chris deBurgh through my car stereo, and the 15 boys in the Punto are blaring out something with a good bass line, do we just end up seeing whose stereo can get loudest?

Are you limiting it to just cars? How about large vans? Small trucks?

Have you considered setting up a wifi connection (for a small fee), so that I can refer to online instructions while working out which end has the engine in it?

vinnie13

just wondering if you started it up after?could do with a place near dublin to do few bits at cars insted of having to drive back to wicklow

Gary ITR

vinnie13 wrote: »

just wondering if you started it up after?could do with a place near dublin to do few bits at cars insted of having to drive back to wicklow

A place opened but it closed down shortly after. I'm not sure if it was the op that opened it mind

eringobragh

Gary ITR wrote: »

A place opened but it closed down shortly after. I'm not sure if it was the op that opened it mind

Shame that - wanted to use them for some sealing underneath and they were gone .Small market in this country I'm afraid