Opening a bmw shop?

[Julien]

Here is my idea,
I would like to open a BMW shop in my town. I think I would fall in a good niche market as there is only a BMW dealer in my area and no one else apart from multibrand shops/hacks.

Specifically I would like to do work on older BMWs as i do not have any specialty equipment at the moment to tinker with the newer ones.

-I would do Race/Street prep for e30s/e36s/e46s (i've owned and worked on many of each and have had great success with that)
-I would do parts sourcing and carry a small stock of parts (maybe 2-3 parts cars)
-I would also light body work (Painting extra parts, buffing etc)
-I would probably ask half price of the dealer per hour and do half hour pricing on easy tasks
-I would help with car importation as I know and have done that process as well
-I would also try to fund parts for the US e30 community

Here in france you can get parts three ways
1. dealer: expensive, 24 delay
2. junk yard: cheap but, hard to find correct part
3. parts house (BMA style): mid price but sometimes a very long delay for parts (10 days for an exhaust)
4. local retailers: parts are quick to get but are often 80% the price of dealer pricing

To get a car fixed:
1. You have to go the cookie cutter route, rarely will someone weld up an exhaust for instance, or replace a windsheild for less than 5-600$.
2. They will rarely deal with complex problems on older cars
3. They will rarely go out of their way to help you

What I have to accomplish this:
1. Garage close to downtown, with the possibility of getting more cheap/free as they belong to family
2. Experience
3. Market potential
4. Several junk yards in the area that could probably refer me in case they don't have the part

What I don't have
1. Clients
2. Specialty equipment (I would probably get air tools and a welder)
3. Capital

My questions to you guys
1. Shop owners: what kind of work keeps the shop alive (routine maintenance, car prep, parts?)
2. How do you establish yourself in this market?
3. How often do you need/use specialty equipment (code readers etc)
4. How do you deal with situations (customer presents small problem, turns out to get worse and worse) You damage a car (strip a bolt, scratch the paint, order the wrong part, fix the car imporperly)
5. What else do you recommend?


Thanks
Julien

[PiercedE30]

Ok, I can, hopefully, help out.
I work at an independent BMW/Volvo shop that also does salvage/recycling with older Mercs, BMW's (few new and lots of old), and Volvos. We make the majority of our money via maintenance and repairs. Some, probably about a quarter, of the money we make is from selling salvaged parts (ie motors, body panels, misc parts) and about the same amount from new parts, many of which go towards a repair. We have two lifts, a tire mounting machine, a tire balancer, and a fairly nice compressed air system. We also have a paint booth, that unfortunately we don't use. Me and the other two mechanics supply our own tools (anything from simple hand tools to diagnostic readers). About once a year we will crush the cars that we have bought from auctions or people that don't want the cars anymore. We will sell the cats, aluminum, and oil that we recover doing repairs/part outs. We make a LOT of money from cats and aluminum scrap (ie radiators, bent/mangled rims, batteries, etc). We do sell the occasional car that we pick up from auctions and do simple repairs to keep our costs down. We order parts via WorldPac for repairs, maintenance, etc. I think our shop might do about 15 - 20 thousand a month, not much for 3 mechanics, a service writer, and an owner. But, most of the money we make comes from repairs and maintenance.
One thing that I, and the other mechanics, wish that we had was an alignment machine. That would definitely help when we do suspension work, and would help us with our cars.
It is very expensive to start a business, especially when you don't have a list of clients that you can start out with. The hardest thing is getting repeat customers, and that is where most of your money will come from.

Jon

[T.Dot_E30]

What I don't have
1. Clients
2. Specialty equipment (I would probably get air tools and a welder)
3. Capital

1. Not a problem since the business hasn't started yet.
2. You are going to need tools, a hoist, decent air compressor, floor jacks, engine hoists, tire machines (optional), balancer(optional), alignment machine(optional). Dianostic scanners,....and yea and more tools.
3. You need captial to achieve the above.


Once you have the tools you can start fixing cars.

[logger]

Step 1 Get Capital ( try the bank you will need help )
step 2 get shop/equipment
step 3 if you build it they will come