Car repair franchise

crunchy62

Hi,

I've been looking to start a new business and as I have a thing for cars I was thinking about a Smart repair business.

Two franchises available:

Chipsaway www.chipsaway.ie and Car Medic http://carmedic.ie

I read some horror stories about both with people losing their shirts.

Has anyone here any experience or recommendations on either from a customer or franchisee point of view?

Thanks

Pottler

crunchy62 wrote: »

Hi,

I've been looking to start a new business and as I have a thing for cars I was thinking about a Smart repair business.

Two franchises available:

Chipsaway www.chipsaway.ie and Car Medic http://carmedic.ie

I read some horror stories about both with people losing their shirts.

Has anyone here any experience or recommendations on either from a customer or franchisee point of view?

Thanks

Apparently the main issue here is the weather - it's either wet, cold or wet and cold. Neither is conducive to painting. Getting shelter and heat to work in is a problem if you don't have a premises and are mobile. If you have a premises, it's hard to justify the overheads... I've had two panel-beaters(traditional ones and good ones at that) approach me last week looking for work doing "anything that's going" as trade is so bad, so maybe be careful... People are living with small dints where once it would have had to be fixed asap.. Also be aware that re-painting stuff has slipped down peoples list of priorities massively. Where we once did 50% of our business re-painting Industrial machinery on-site for big companies(think forklifts etc) that now constitutes...0% of our work and it literally died overnight about 2 years ago - we went from re-painting 10-12 machines a day, every day, to repainting none at all. I know it's not the same, but the "cosmetic" side of things has just slipped down the charts a great deal..

oregano

crunchy62 wrote: »

Hi,

I've been looking to start a new business and as I have a thing for cars I was thinking about a Smart repair business.

Two franchises available:

Chipsaway www.chipsaway.ie and Car Medic http://carmedic.ie

I read some horror stories about both with people losing their shirts.

Has anyone here any experience or recommendations on either from a customer or franchisee point of view?

Thanks

Where do you plan on being based? The best dent and scratch guys are mobile, and generally contract for dealers. Private work is the icing. You will indeed lose your shirt if you cannot get in with dealers.

mickdw

There was a regular poster on here who had a smart repair business. He was very good by all accounts and was set up in cork I believe so good catchment area. He was well set up but packed it in so I believe it would be a hard business to make money in at the minute specially starting from scratch right now.
The weather really is a serious issue here.

Eoin

mickdw wrote: »

There was a regular poster on here who had a smart repair business.

That was Owen, right? I'd say he wouldn't have a problem if you were to PM him.

Edit: Yep, that's him - here's his thread with a bit more info:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=78940472

belcampprisoner

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=41332

crunchy62

Jeeeez! It's so bloody hard to get anything going in this god forsaken hell hole
at the moment! I really need to do something soon. I can't get a job and my missus can't get a job. My eldest has just started college and I'm draining any savings I had. Aaaaargh!

I really would like this to work. If the weather is the main issue, maybe it might be possible to come up with some kind of strong folding trailer enclosure.