I've been kicking that idea around for a couple of years now but have never gotten past the thinkin stage. Keep us posted should you decide to do it. I personally think it would be a great business but would require a large initial outlay to get all the tools you would need.

 

i think you could start w/out the tools and such, or not much, a lot of people can come up w/ the tools they need, if they need to, the place to do the work is harder, and like i said in my earlier post, if you're budget conscious you could do more than one thing in the space, ensuring you can pay the bills...

then you could add the tools options as you went, or you could partner w/ a tool rental place, especially if they were real close by to your shop, and not deal w/ that overhead...

 

Did someone say beer and strippers?

Wrenches and Wenches (TM)

thank me later...

 

Roll with it, you never know until you try. I think its a great idea. Maybe you could set up an exchange for take off parts that you could sell on consinement to add to the pot.

 

I don't know. JB made very valid points about the insurance issue. By having a tech on staff to perform services for customers in the same work space as non-employees, you will increase your liability. I guess it all depends on how many bikers are in your area, what kind of housing they have (mostly apartments and small condos, or typical suburbia with garages and sheds), how many of those bikers would really want to work on their own scoots (typically people living in apartments and condos don't desire to DIY) and the basics like rent/mortgage for the land and building, salaries (yourself included), utilities, insurance, advertising, lawyers, accountants, tools, uniforms, employee benefits, the list is never ending.

My advise, if you decide to do this would be to keep it simple. Keep your focus on one specialty and you'll have a greater chance of success. Once you start diluting the focus of your business by adding extra services, you will take away from your business's identity and your customers won't know what your all about. How would you advertise your tech, space for DIY, tool rental, mentor tech, parts consignment, strippers, detail shop, etc...? You'd have to take out a full page ad and it would still look like a novella.

It is an excellent idea, one that I looked into myself not too long ago. However, for my area it is not such a good idea. I live in a relatively rural area of South Jersey and mostly every one here owns/rents a house with a large yard and at minimum a shed, add to that the rent for a commercial property (there were none for sale) and New Jersey's infamously high insurance rates, it would just not make enough money to be worth my time.

If you want to do it, then go for it. Look up the website for US Small Business Administration, they have excellent advise for the first time business owner, and are still an excellent resource even if you already have experience as an owner. Good Luck!

 

I never said he didn't need liability insurance. Come on now apples and oranges. You mentioned fire insurance and liability if a fire started in his building and burned the neighbors builing down. This is wrong. If he doesn't own the building he does not need to carry property insurance.

Hmmm renter's insurance to cover an entire apartment complex. I bet that is expensive....

I reiterate...if a fire in your building spreads to adjoining buildings, your insurance is not resposible for their buildings...

 

Thanks for the kind words, but how that increase my liability?

btw---lots of friends up in NJ, i used to live on LI

 

If your employee drops a motorcycle on a customer's leg, you have a bigger problem than if a customer drops one on himself or, probably, even on another customer.

 

As our insurance agent told me when I was thinking of doing this in Dave's existing car repair shop, it increases the chances that a customer would get hurt by one of our techs, one of our techs getting hurt by a customer, and if a customer attempts to do something because he saw one of techs doing it or talking about it, it can be considered our fault, especially if one of the mentor techs said to go ahead and do such and such this way but it then had a mechnical failure (part installed wrong or actual failure, or it wasn't the proper diagnosis) or the customer got hurt in the process of doing it.

Lets face it accidents happen in the shop all the time. Sparks fly when welding or cutting, machining parts. hammers and pry bars fly out of techs hands when trying to remove a b!tch that's rusted on. By having customers in the vicinity of all this, you are increasing your chances that one of them will get caught up in it. Not to mention a bunch of guys with not a whole lot of experience/training working with tools, which in the wrong hands, can be deadly. What if one of them messes up and another customer gets hurt or your certified tech gets hurt? Workers' comp is expensive enough.

I don't mean to sound like a naysayer, this is just how the insurance company is going to look at it. And they will charge you accordingly. If you can find an insurance company willing to work with you on this, and you feel you can still make a decent living doing something that you love to do: By all means, Go For It!

I just saw that your down in Lakeland. My mother lives in Winterhaven. I do know that if you were to open something like that down there with a bay for cars, my stepfather would most definitely be a regular customer. He has a beat up 70 Nova that's his pride and joy, and is always working on it in the driveway. He's constantly complaining it would be easier if he had a real lift.

 

Think that this is an awesome idea. Thinking like this is what will really set you apart and can start something totally new. Hope it works out for ya.