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DON'T MISS THE TRAIN

Motor, Jun 2005 by Nash, Tom

It's a nonstop effort to keep up with the fast-paced advances in the automotive service and repair industry. If you fall too far behind in your training, you could lose your meal ticket.

It's extremely difficult to keep up-to-date on all the technical advances in the latest automotive technology. Just look at what technicians are faced with today: wireless technologies, pass-through reprogramming, advanced diagnostics, hybrids, modern diesels, etc. Thankfully, however, there are experts in each field who can train you to be functionally knowledgeable on these and other technological advances.

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Simply put, the more skills you can offer to your customers, the more valuable you become. If you fall behind on the ability to service the newest vehicles with the latest technologies, you become less valuable. Therefore, training-keeping up with industry advances-must be a continuing effort.

You may ask yourself, Why should I train? The answer is simple: Because your competition will. Dealership technicians are continually being trained for repairing and maintaining the newest issues. Other independent service facilities in your area will continue to train and learn, whether you do or not. They may become even more successful by repairing vehicles that you are unable-or unwilling-to learn to repair.

Some shops and technicians prefer to specialize in certain areas-American-made cars and trucks, imports or just certain brands. If that describes you, the question becomes: Do you think you're being successful by limiting your service, or are you merely limiting your income? If the latter is the answer, training in other types and brands of vehicles may quickly accelerate your earning power.

Multibrand Families Are Dwindling

In recent years, sociologists, politicians and governmental agencies have struggled to define the term family. Similarly, todays families cannot be defined by ownership of one automotive brand. The days of referring to a family as a "Ford family" or a "GM family" are gone.

Families dedicated to owning one brand of vehicle do exist, of course, but are the exception rather than the norm. More often now we see a mix of vehicles parked in front of any given home. The vehicles in the average American household reflect the tastes and styles of the individual drivers. The quest for individuality includes our rides.

Does this sound familiar: Mr. Douglas drives a Dodge Ram diesel for his job as a carpenter, Mrs. Douglas runs errands in a Honda Odyssey, son Bob zips around the college campus in his Subaru WRX while young Judy drives to high school in a Chevy Cavalier.

If your shop is a general repair shop, you probably have several "Douglas families" in your customer base. You must be prepared to work on all the vehicles these families own. If you're not, you may be driving them to another shop that is prepared to handle all their work.

Dan Marinucci, well-known trainer and author of the popular Foreign Service column in this magazine, teaches driveability and electrical troubleshooting seminars on Asian vehicles. During the past couple of decades, Marinucci has seen the numbers of Hondas, Toyotas and Nissans skyrocket. He doesn't believe that repair faeilities can ignore the presence of these imports and their profit potential.

"Over the last 15 years, domestic-vehicle techs have definitely become more interested in imports," he says. "Its a numbers game. As more imports arrive in independent shops, the marketplace is forcing more techs to work on more imports more often."

A dilemma consumers often face is whether to continue taking their vehicles to the new-car dealer for maintenance and repair after the warranty has expired. Your ability to repair their vehicles can draw them into your shop and make them part of your customer base. The first step is being able to access service information for those vehicles. However, all the best service information in the world won't be helpful to the average tech unless he s properly trained to apply it correctly and efficiently. Information and training go hand-in-hand.

Bill Haas, Vice President of Education and Training for the Automotive Service Association (ASA), puts it this way: "ASA has identified training and education as a priority. It has become apparent that shops will receive little benefit from the enormous amount of service information available if there is not sufficient technical training in place to support the constant technological advancements integrated into the vehicles being produced today."

What Should You LearnP

Its up to you to decide what areas of automotive technology you need to become proficient at-and when to do it-to become more knowledgeable and therefore more valuable to your customers. Finding the training to bring you up to speed on those subjects is not difficult.

You may wish to comer a segment of the business that's not being catered to by your competition. T know one shop owner who had been moderately successful in his community repairing gasoline-engine cars and light trucks-mostly domestic brands, but also some imports. The mostly niral community where his shop is located contains a lot of farms. A few years ago he started noticing a number of Volkswagen TDT diesel cars in town and on the local roads. A few times, drivers of these vehicles phoned to ask if he could work on their engines. He always replied that he was sorry but he couldn't.

Automotive Industry

DON'T MISS THE TRAIN

Motor, Jun 2005 by Nash, Tom

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