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The problem with specializing in these issues is that most customers will be dissatisfied when you charge them thousands of dollars to reset a minor module on t

by nickff 4y ago

The problem with specializing in these issues is that most customers will be dissatisfied when you charge them thousands of dollars to reset a minor module on their car. How many hours of shop time are you willing to pay for with no guarantee of a solution, and very few (if any) parts replaced?

peteradio 4y ago
Dude's been tending his issue for a decade, I bet he'd have at least those like him as a customer. In a metro he might have a pretty lucrative business. On the other hand in the metro there is probably someone who already does this work, but they are very hard to find!
- jopsen 4y ago
  How do potential customers find your specialized shop? Most people will give up, stop researching and buy a new car when the dealer tells them it can't be fixed.
  - yurishimo 4y ago
    Word of mouth w/ cars is hugely important. Anybody with a good mechanic will tell you about them. Shoutout to "The Hondew Shop" in Dallas. He does great work on all Honda/Acura products!
  - newjersey 4y ago
    Ford lied to its own dealership when my coworker went to them about a transmission slip with his 2012 Ford Fiesta. He had the people at the dealership drive the car. They acknowledged the problem and got on a call together with Ford. Ford refused to even entertain the idea there was a flaw but less than a year later they came up with a "software patch". Pete would bring it up with anyone he met. Do not buy a Ford Focus / Ford Fiesta with automatic transmission.
jopsen 4y ago
> How many hours of shop time are you willing to pay for with no guarantee of a solution, and very few (if any) parts replaced? Imagine opening a computer software support business where you bring in your old proprietary binary programs that you got from who knows where, and the business is to fix bugs you've found. Maybe some really big enterprises would pay for that sort of thing. But I doubt it would be feasible for consumer stuff. It would be a crazy/fun kind of business to run. I'm sure it probably exists.
- acapybara 4y ago
  That actually sounds like a great business idea. Bug Hunters Extremely valuable service. I bet there'd be a lot of demand.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- qiqitori 4y ago
  I've toyed with that kind of thought. The technical part seems fun, finding customers (especially the first customers) seems difficult :p I'd really like to work at such a company though.
- smackeyacky 4y ago
  There are companies around that offer VIN re-coding by mail order if you need to swap one of the computers, but you'd have to be in a fairly big metro area to profitably run a company just doing electronic trouble shooting. It's easier just to "fire the parts cannon" after the usual suspects (dead sensors, shorted wiring) have been accounted for. Having had a 2006 model car in my workshop forever rebuilding the engine, I have though it might be worthwhile starting a business doing that kind of trouble shooting but nobody will want to pay, because the vehicles involved are inevitably old and worthless. It's fun to do it for yourself, but as a business your typical customer who needs you won't be able to justify paying you. My other thought was to possibly set up the tools and whatnot to support local businesses in doing that kind of troubleshooting on older cars but building the knowledge and tools to distribute would be a very expensive exercise.
Sakos 4y ago
Actually had this problem in PC repair. A lot of times I'd spend hours/days diagnosing an issue just so I could understand it inside and out and have a quick solution for the future. I could almost never bill customers for it since it would've cost hundreds of Euros (easily going into 1000+) for what ended up being a fairly simple fix (the $10.000 to hit a pipe with a hammer phenomenon). I'm just lucky I had enough slack to be able to do in-depth diagnoses, because it saved me fuckloads of time later on. Then there were the cases with arbitrary random bluescreens that were impossible to diagnose where I'd upfront tell them I could only do the bare minimum because otherwise they might have to pay 500 Euros for a solution that probably wouldn't work.

by nickff 4y ago

peteradio 4y ago

Dude's been tending his issue for a decade, I bet he'd have at least those like him as a customer. In a metro he might have a pretty lucrative business. On the other hand in the metro there is probably someone who already does this work, but they are very hard to find!

jopsen 4y ago
How do potential customers find your specialized shop? Most people will give up, stop researching and buy a new car when the dealer tells them it can't be fixed.
- yurishimo 4y ago
  Word of mouth w/ cars is hugely important. Anybody with a good mechanic will tell you about them. Shoutout to "The Hondew Shop" in Dallas. He does great work on all Honda/Acura products!
- newjersey 4y ago
  Ford lied to its own dealership when my coworker went to them about a transmission slip with his 2012 Ford Fiesta. He had the people at the dealership drive the car. They acknowledged the problem and got on a call together with Ford. Ford refused to even entertain the idea there was a flaw but less than a year later they came up with a "software patch". Pete would bring it up with anyone he met. Do not buy a Ford Focus / Ford Fiesta with automatic transmission.

jopsen 4y ago

> How many hours of shop time are you willing to pay for with no guarantee of a solution, and very few (if any) parts replaced? Imagine opening a computer software support business where you bring in your old proprietary binary programs that you got from who knows where, and the business is to fix bugs you've found. Maybe some really big enterprises would pay for that sort of thing. But I doubt it would be feasible for consumer stuff. It would be a crazy/fun kind of business to run. I'm sure it probably exists.

acapybara 4y ago
That actually sounds like a great business idea. Bug Hunters Extremely valuable service. I bet there'd be a lot of demand.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
qiqitori 4y ago
I've toyed with that kind of thought. The technical part seems fun, finding customers (especially the first customers) seems difficult :p I'd really like to work at such a company though.
smackeyacky 4y ago
There are companies around that offer VIN re-coding by mail order if you need to swap one of the computers, but you'd have to be in a fairly big metro area to profitably run a company just doing electronic trouble shooting. It's easier just to "fire the parts cannon" after the usual suspects (dead sensors, shorted wiring) have been accounted for. Having had a 2006 model car in my workshop forever rebuilding the engine, I have though it might be worthwhile starting a business doing that kind of trouble shooting but nobody will want to pay, because the vehicles involved are inevitably old and worthless. It's fun to do it for yourself, but as a business your typical customer who needs you won't be able to justify paying you. My other thought was to possibly set up the tools and whatnot to support local businesses in doing that kind of troubleshooting on older cars but building the knowledge and tools to distribute would be a very expensive exercise.

Sakos 4y ago

Actually had this problem in PC repair. A lot of times I'd spend hours/days diagnosing an issue just so I could understand it inside and out and have a quick solution for the future. I could almost never bill customers for it since it would've cost hundreds of Euros (easily going into 1000+) for what ended up being a fairly simple fix (the $10.000 to hit a pipe with a hammer phenomenon). I'm just lucky I had enough slack to be able to do in-depth diagnoses, because it saved me fuckloads of time later on. Then there were the cases with arbitrary random bluescreens that were impossible to diagnose where I'd upfront tell them I could only do the bare minimum because otherwise they might have to pay 500 Euros for a solution that probably wouldn't work.