CrossCheck Blog

Now that humanity (as financed by the United States) has visited every major planet in the solar system, it turns out that the endeavor teaches us a great deal about the future of the auto repair business.

Here’s a good reason to sit back and relax: Americans are still driving the oldest fleet of cars in history, with an average age of over a decade, so there’s plenty of good old-fashioned auto repair work to do.

We’ve come a long way since the Flintstones drove around in a stone-manufactured, foot mobile contraption. If Fred and Barney were racing around town today, they would undoubtedly be in favor of tire improvements to ensure a smoother, safer ride. That being said, here’s a look at the future of tires. Some are coming down the pipeline, and some that have already arrived. The shortlist below is not all-inclusive but highlights those items most likely to impact sales.

Changing seasons can create new opportunities to increase auto repair sales, and the fall-winter transition may create the most due to the onset of heavy rain and snow. Now that we’re one week into spring, though, auto repair shops still have reasons to expect weather-related repairs to flow in. While we might like to believe that, in the three months since holiday shopping, people saved for the car repair they’ve been putting off, we might be wrong since 62% of Americans cannot afford unexpected expenses.

Spring and summer are peak times for severe weather and storm damage to cars. The state of Florida experiences the most thunderstorms per year on average, and the southeastern US and southern plains also get a lot of storms in a given year.

Gratitude comes easily when business is abundant, but it’s difficult to generate when business is as scarce as it has been for the past several years. Of course you’ve been thankful for the business that did come your way. But, as any auto repair shop manager or owner knows, that can be lost to the fear that it won’t be enough.

The next few years look like they will be good ones for tire stores ready to handle a widening array of tire manufacturers, the ever-expanding variety of rims and tire sizes (over 500 and counting), and the significantly different buying patterns of the post-recession customer. There’s a pent-up demand for tires, and industry experts expect that 2014 will be the year it begins to turn into revenue.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is famous for its slogan: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. No matter what type of shop, all auto repair businesses must abide by state and federal regulations if they don’t want to get fined or shut down. And you don’t want that. Your customers bring their vehicle to you for maintenance and repairs. Auto body shops fix dents and replace windshields. Auto repair shops replace belts and spark plugs and flush the system of various chemicals. Oil stop locations not only change oil but also replace air filters and transmission fluid. All of this is meant to keep the customer’s vehicle in top condition and to extend its life -- but doing this can have a significant impact on the environment.

So you just got in a stock of that eco-friendly motor oil or the all-weather floor mats – great. But aside from hoping people come in asking for it, how are you going to let customers know? Sure, your counter people can drop it into conversation, but there’s a quick and easy way to do some parts advertising, right within your shop’s walls. We’re going to show you a simple way to make an aftermarket poster template. You can even do it with software you’ve already got – nothing fancy required. The beauty of the template is that once you create it, you can use it again and again each time you’ve got something new to advertise.

Auto dealers rejoiced over the October, 2013 industry sales reports that indicated a major uptick in new car sales. While this may not directly affect your own bottom line, the indirect line is an easy one to spot – more car buyers mean more potential customers for your auto repair shop. With more customers comes more revenue, which is a good thing. But with more payments comes the potential for problems, including bad checks, as well as a drain on your staff’s time to process those payments. With check guarantee for auto repair shops, you can “check” those problems off your list.