Have any of you ever opened a car shop or resto shop from scratch?

[Cranky]

I’ve had quite the opposite with my business. Nearly 50 years total between three employees, which really goes to show what a truly awesome guy I was to work for. In fact, if you look up ‘awesome boss’ in the 2021 Webster’s dictionary, you’ll see my face.

Well, my wife was Boss #1 and I was more of the silent partner in the furniture store. One of the employees was her sister which was pretty much a slacker all her life. Whenever I was around was to pick up something that needed to be delivered or was bringing something back. Another part timer wouldn't get up off his butt to wait on walk in customers. It was easy to see into the store and sat out in the parking lot in my truck to watch. Did that 3 times and all 3 times he did that. He was the first one to speak up about losing his job and my reply to him was he could have waited on walkins instead of sitting on his *** in the office and that might have made a difference.....the look on his face was priceless. I told the wife what he was doing but she never said anything to him.

 

[chargervert]

Don't make your hobby into a job, you will never want to work on your own cars after dealing with everyone else's projects all day,every day.

 

[AR67GTX]

While it sounds like fun to be surrounded by the old cars we love and to bring them back to life I think in reality it must be a huge headache. Finding employees who do more good work than bad - taking in cars for a quick make over and finding they are nothing but bondo refugees and require twice as much work as you quoted - environmental regulations to contend with - employees who show up and take off when they want to - investment cost in equipment, paint booths - parts backordered or out of production - customers who don’t know crap about old cars but insist on telling you how to work on them. Not that I’m a fan of medical or rec marijuana, but I think it would be better to go in that direction.

 

[Ron H]

Started my biz after having gone through two career jobs where the business was tanked by foreign competition and the other was sold. Longer story, but the last job provided a 6-month severance giving me the chance to start a biz. Having many employees reporting to me was a constant bee-itch so I didn’t hire any. Contracted work out when necessary and was contracted by others. Worked out pretty well for my last 20 working years; but it was an engineering consulting business, not a shop with huge overhead and equipment. Worked out of my house and spent many nights in a hotel.

I got to know a body shop owner and his son. Those guys do insurance work to pay the common bills, and usually have half-dozen old rides they are working on. This work is the priority. They work their asses off non-stop and can’t find employees other than those who are worth **** and have to can them. To fully restore a car comes with a long-term completion, a year at least, or even can’t take it in for a year. Just the father who is approaching 70 and his son.

Finding shops that will restore cars has dwindled a lot, some won’t touch it given the unpredictability of what’s going to be involved with labor and parts. If starting a biz, I’d think it best to know the work inside and out and all of the issues with necessary equipment, insurance, and regulations...there are a ton of them.

 

[eldubb440]

For what it's worth, the worst time of my adult working career was when I was a self-employed business owner. I wouldn't do it again for anything. Sleepless nights, stress out the wazoo and ungrateful, thieving employees. NEVER again.

THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I couldn't run away fast enough!

 

[eldubb440]

get a TV show


and good luck!

 

[azblackhemi]

I had my own Body/paint resto shop for almost 15 years. I had been doing side work for years while working a full time job. When my company offered an attractive buy out package I jumped at it and since I already had plenty of work lined up I hit the ground running. All in all it was a good move as long as I kept it small, as in just me working. The couple of times I hired some extra help it just brought headaches. That's the problem I see with your plan. If you have to depend on hired help you will have issues. First of all even finding qualified help is next to impossible. Then they have to be honest and reliable. Good luck with that! And I will ad I have a large well equipped shop at my house so my overhead was minimal. Whatever you decide I hope it works out for you.

 

[eldubb440]

I had my own Body/paint resto shop for almost 15 years. I had been doing side work for years while working a full time job. When my company offered an attractive buy out package I jumped at it and since I already had plenty of work lined up I hit the ground running. All in all it was a good move as long as I kept it small, as in just me working. The couple of times I hired some extra help it just brought headaches. That's the problem I see with your plan. If you have to depend on hired help you will have issues. First of all even finding qualified help is next to impossible. Then they have to be honest and reliable. Good luck with that! Whatever you decide I hope it works out for you.

agree, exactly this......... you either have to be really big (as in HUGE) or very small (as in ALONE)....... a good skilled employee will cost you at least 70K/year after payroll tax and workman's comp, the math is a killer

 

[azblackhemi]

I had my own Body/paint resto shop for almost 15 years. I had been doing side work for years while working a full time job. When my company offered an attractive buy out package I jumped at it and since I already had plenty of work lined up I hit the ground running. All in all it was a good move as long as I kept it small, as in just me working. The couple of times I hired some extra help it just brought headaches. That's the problem I see with your plan. If you have to depend on hired help you will have issues. First of all even finding qualified help is next to impossible. Then they have to be honest and reliable. Good luck with that! And I will ad I have a large well equipped shop at my house so my overhead was minimal. Whatever you decide I hope it works out for you.

And another major issue is health insurance! I was covered under my wife's employer so I did not have that major expense!

 

[eldubb440]

And another major issue is health insurance! I was covered under my wife's employer so I did not have that major expense!

it all piles up........ how much $ does the shop actually make on a restoration after all the expenses? how many "restorations" can the shop put out in a year? does the "restoration" include driveline?, interior?........ you hiring guys who specialize in that?, are you warrantying any of it? did a lazy employee miss a rust hole and fill it with bondo? will you fix it when the bubble pops out?.......I could write a book

 

[Ron H]

Started working for a two-owner machine shop in HS and worked there about 4 years. Hitch was one owner’s wife held ONE share giving one a priority. You couldn’t meet two guys more opposite. One, Ray, a slob, moody, and the other, Gene (Geno) neat, even-tempered, and couldn’t find a better guy to work for. Geno, sadly had the 49% ownership. Shop had gotten to about 35 employees at one time. Randy developed a drinking problem only getting worse. Too many screw-ups caused Geno to want out to start his own biz. Deal he arranged was some machinery instead of cash. He had one employee he knew for decades, close friends and he took him along.

Meanwhile, Ray spent more of his time at a bar having a trustworthy-smart employee running most of the biz. He should have let him run it totally. His screwups led to losing his credit. I was long gone by then; but had a couple friends working there who would tell me the latest. The major customer they had since starting, paid for the steel to run a job for them. What did Ray do with the materials? He used half of it to do jobs for others, thereby unable to complete the job. Customer was pissed of course, saying bye with a lawsuit to obtain the cash they forked out for the steel they bought.

Not long after, employees came to work as usual one morning to find the doors padlocked with a notice “Closed Do Not Enter”. A posting from the IRS. Geno likely saw the future if staying with Ray getting out when he did.

So it’s not only employees to be concerned about – may include anyone, partners having bad intentions or inept. A shame as that was a nice-thriving operation at one time. Go figure, this is just one of two similar stories I have involving a dumbass CEO ruining a nice biz..

 

[Ron H]

And another major issue is health insurance! I was covered under my wife's employer so I did not have that major expense!

Yes - If it wasn't for my wife's health insurance from her employer, NO way I could have started my biz. Checking out options, if I would call them that, the premiums were just insane. As it was, my biz insurance and other costs of operation consumed damn near three-months of 'revenue'. On a cal-year basis, figured I started 'making' money once March came around.

 

[68BabyBlue]

Yes - If it wasn't for my wife's health insurance from her employer, NO way I could have started my biz. Checking out options, if I would call them that, the premiums were just insane. As it was, my biz insurance and other costs of operation consumed damn near three-months of 'revenue'. On a cal-year basis, figured I started 'making' money once March came around.

I've been around the block on this, working my way up from a company truck driver to a corporate trucking general counsel, and back to a one truck owner operator for the last 16 years of my career. When I was an executive, the operating guys would send prospective owner/operators to me for screening. My first question was always, "does your wife have health insurance?" Otherwise, they would have been better off driving a company unit. Back in 1984, I had quit my private law practice to get the company health plan.

During my final tour with self employment, I also figured I worked the first three months for nothing. Liability insurance, registration and regulatory fees, and double FICA tax all took their toll.

 

[Ron H]

been around the block on this, working my way up from a company truck driver to a corporate trucking general counsel

And then paying the quarterly taxes, not knowing how much I’d make from one quarter to the next. Varied widely, feast and famine; but uncle sammy wanted their ‘consistency’. Quoting projects was never a fun thing, especially when more wanted a – not to exceed cost, at times losing my butt.

Did work for a national captive, consuming about a 3rd of my business at one point. Then they started getting picky with their contractors on allowed hours of service for their clients. Used to be if you encountered more than allotted, you could usually obtain approval. That ended and it was if you go over, it’s on you. Aha, here’s a client five hours away and you only get 15 hours of annual service. Lol, so one round trip is ten hours and the client wants service encompassing 25 hours on-site alone?

What irritated me was they had tons of money collected from their thousands of captive members for service. Each having their hours of service a good amount would never use, so it went untapped back to the captive. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to suck up any overage with clients assigned to me? Ok, refused to accept that work they often had a hell of time finding anyone else to travel to tim-buck cuz the travel hours were ‘counted’ as service hours. As I was gearing down for retirement, they were the first client I said bye to.

 

[RiverRaider]

I would not have any traditional business associated will the drug trade. You will immediately lose potential customers because of that. Restorations take time so after you open the doors you will need one to two years cash reserves for paying payroll, taxes, and all other expenses. You will need one or two key employees lined up before you start. Starting out you will need a hook of some sort. The reason why someone should take their car to your shop, as you will not have projects or customers to refer to. One of your key employees may provide this if they are the known go to guy in paint/body, engine, upholstery, or restoration details. You should also look to have weekly cash flow services in your business, things like powder coating, media blasting, vinyl graphics, etc. Your success or failure will depend on being able to bring in the right staff. Rather than a restoration shop I would suggest a classic car service shop with secure car storage. The cash flow from storage is constant and there are far more cars that need service than restoration. You could offer spring startup and fall storage prep services along with the storage. Rather than buying a paint booth, offer paintless dent removal. Services like FAST fuel injection installation, disc brake conversions, tires/wheels alignments, tune ups and even oil changes all come with a nice parts mark up. Buying a roll back to go and pick up cars for service also has value add. There are a lot of classic cars sitting because they need a little TLC to be back on the road. Flippers may become one of your biggest customers needing cars stored short term or a little TLC before the next sale.

 

[Kern Dog]

I'm a hack mechanic

Uhhh...

 

[1967coronet]

Just for fun Steve see if you can locate the state of Colorado Dept of Natual Resources regs and permits on Body shops and auto repair facility's.
Then just for kicks make a call or two trying find someone who will come pickup 100 plus gallons of hazmat waste and their price.
To be honest you would benifit from enrolling in a auto body / collision tech class at a local community College.
Get some class room time and hands on experience.
If for nothing more than working on your own mopars. You will get some of the basics and a feel for it.

 

[super-bee_ski]

Put down the bong and quit wasting bandwidth here on this crack pipe dream.

 

[chargervert]

RC needs to stop sugar coating how he really feels just to protect other people's feelings! Lol People wear their feelings on their sleeves these days, RC is very aware of this!

 

[Cranky]

RC needs to stop sugar coating how he really feels just to protect other people's feelings! Lol People wear their feelings on their sleeves these days, RC is very aware of this!

YUP!