Raise your profits with the right lift or compressor

There’s a whole gamut of shop equipment that are must-haves in order to run a profitable shop — from diagnostic equipment to computerized wheel aligners. Two basic, not-so-sophisticated essentials are a reliable lift, and an air compressor you can count on. They’re integral to being able to do much of the work that generates bay profits.

Depending on your purchase strategy and decisions, you could find your shop’s profitability going up or down when you invest in a lift and an air compressor. There are some important things to consider when you’re in the market for these pieces of equipment.

Choose The Right Lift

There’s a myriad of lifts available today: Two-post asymmetric and symmetric lifts; four-post runway lifts; in-ground, scissor, parallelogram lifts. Capacities from 9,000 to 15,000 pounds. Choosing the right one starts with determining what kinds of vehicles you need to lift.

“The first thing you care about is the versatility of the lift to do all the customers’ jobs that come in…if you can’t lift it, you can’t make money,” says Dennis Moise, Canadian Sales Manager for Mohawk Lifts.

“We really suggest to people that they go with the larger lift if they can do it because it opens up more customers. You don’t have to turn people away.”

If you only service import cars your lift capacity needs are probably different from a shop that services “everything from a Ford Festiva to an F-350 Crew Cab,” says Keith Taylor, Private Brand Manager for Snap-on Equipment at Wheeltronic Ltd., in Mississauga, Ontario.

“When you get to a typical general repair shop…he’s going to have to look at a lift that’s going to accomplish being able to get from A to Z in the market place no matter what comes into that bay.”

“Capacity and versatility is probably going to be a very important thing,” adds John Van Loenen, Canadian National Sales and Marketing Manager for Hofmann Balancing Techniques Ltd., in Mississauga. “I would want a lift that was going to hoist a foreign, a domestic and a light truck. But then you have to distinguish between a foreign and a domestic because of the wheel bases.”

Opting for a two-post asymmetric lift over a symmetric one, for example, can give you more profitability opportunities because it will more readily handle vehicles with different wheel bases.

Your shop configuration and space may dictate what kind of lift you buy. “A lot of shops are old-style, two-bay shops that were designed for an old-style, single-post, in-ground lift and you can’t put a two-post lift in there and have any profitability,” points out Ian Pogmore, Operations Manager at Markham, Ont.-based Hydra-Lift Industries.

“The two-post market really grew out of the demise of the old in-ground business,” says John Rylee, Director of Marketing at Madison, Ind.-based Rotary Lift, “And now it’s kind of moving back the other way. Because of the issue of productivity and longevity with independent shops, we’re beginning to see an interest back in in-ground. The issue is in education, and presenting the option.”

Modern in-ground lifts take up less shop floor space, and notes Rylee, they are also much more enivronmentally friendly now because the mechanism –of Rotary lifts, at least — is installed in a self-contained polymer cassette.

Pogmore says to maximize your shop profitability, your lifts should equal the number of technicians and bays. “If you’re a two-bay shop you have two lifts if you’ve got two mechanics. Your bay should be generating eight hours worth of mechanical profit.”

Buy Smart, Maintain it Right

Buying a lift on price could end up costing you more in the long run.

Says Moise, “There’s a very, very false economy when people are buying lifts based on price alone…you may have saved $1,000 over a better-quality lift but you don’t need any down-time at all to chew up that savings.”

Paying more up front will get you a better return on your investment down the road. Be concerned about quality and where the lift is made, says Van Loenen. A cheaper, offshore-made lift may leave you high and dry when you your lift is down and you need parts and service locally — now.

Preventative maintenance is a key factor. A quality lift installed and maintained properly will probably last 10 to 25 years in your bay, so there’s a lot of profit potential. Generally there are daily, weekly and monthly checks that need to be done. When components wear out, make sure they’re replaced properly. A yearly inspection is also a necessity — in Ontario, it’s required by law.

“If you want your lift to last, you’ve got to look after it. It’s like changing the oil in your car,” says Pogmore.

Make sure your lift is up to standards — one that isn’t could fail, cause an accident, be shut down by a government inspector, or all of the above. If you can’t operate your lift, you can’t make money — and that could cost you your livelihood.

The major lift manufacturers are all members of the Cortland, N.Y.-based Automotive Lift Institute (ALI). Their lifts meet ANSI Standard ANSI/ALI ALCTV-1998 (safety requirements for construction, testing and validation of of automotive lifts), and ANSI/ALI ALOIM-2000, the standard covering operation, inspection and maintenance. At least 70 per cent of the lifts sold by ALI member companies have to be ALI/ETL certified. ETL is the third-party testing laboratory partnered with ALI.

“Certification of the product is important, because it gives him (the shop owner) the extra level of confidence that the product has been rigorously tested to meet certain standards,” says Rotary Lift’s John Rylee.

ALI President and CEO Bob O’Gorman advises checking provincial requirements before you buy a lift. “The Ontario Ministry of Labour has declared that your lift should be ALI certified or they do give you a provision to have a licensed engineer evaluate the design,” he notes, cautioning, “Some engineering evaluations…could be as expensive as having purchased a certified lift.”

Following Ontario’s lead, B.C. has drafted an amendment to its Occupational Health and Safety Regulations stating that automotive lifts must meet the ANSI/ALI standards. New Brunswick enforces CSA Standard CAN/CSA-Z256-M87 – Safety Codes for Material Hoists.

Keith Taylor’s best advice is this: “Do some research. Don’t jump in and say ‘I need a lift, send it to me.”

Compressing Decisions

The profitability issues around compressors aren’t quite as complicated as they are when you’re shopping for a lift, but there are things you need to consider here, too. Once again, it starts with your uses and needs.

“You should probably take your worst-case scenario, calculate the demand of all those grinders and sanders and other air tools all running at the same time, and then calculate how much air you need to do that,” says Steve Bybee, the Reciprocating Products Manager for Gardner Denver Inc. in Quincy, Illinois.

You shouldn’t get hung up on buying horsepower in a compressor.

“Don’t be fooled by horsepower ratings. More horsepower doesn’t always mean a bigger and better air compressor. That’s because some compressors are rated at the peak horsepower of the electric motor, and others are rated at the running horsepower,” says Barry Flipping, National Sales and Marketing Manager for Calgary-based Eagle Pump and Compressor Limited.

Peak horsepower, he explains, is the highest horsepower the motor will achieve before the compressor locks up as opposed to its true, running horsepower.

Horsepower is a consideration because you’ve got to make sure you have enough electrical power to run the motor, but it’s really the air power that counts — the Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM) capability of the unit. “Air tools need a volume of compressed air at a specific pressure to operate, not a specific horsepower,” notes Flipping.

Flipping advises purchasing a compressor with at least one-and-a-half times the CFM required by an air tool. For exam
ple, if a 1/2″ impact wrench needs 4 CFM at 90 PSI, your compressor should deliver 6 CFM at 90 PSI.

Reciprocating vs. Rotary

What kind of compressor do you invest in?

“In most cases, a reciprocating compressor is the best way to go versus a small rotary,” says Bybee. “Pressure is the number-one reason. A reciprocating compressor will store air up at about 175 pounds, and will replenish the tank as it’s used. So the compressor runs start/stop in most cases. You don’t want to run a rotary screw compressor to start/stop. It’s designed to be more of a base load machine.”

Bybee cautions that you can actually oversize a compressor, and that can lead to downtime and lost profitability. “It will hurt your system because of the intermittent run times,” he says. “A reciprocating compressor needs to come to certain operating temperatures to control moisture condensation that develops through the compression cycle…if you don’t get it to the right temperature and boil that water off, it goes back into water and sits in the valves and intercooler, and you don’t want that to happen.”

Shop floor space is another consideration. A reciprocating compressor takes up less space than a rotary one, because the rotary needs support systems for the oil cooler, after cooler and the separator tank that reclaims compressor oil.

Blowing Profits With Air Leaks

Don’t blow your profitability by hooking up your new compressor to an air system full of leaks. “Leaks are probably the single biggest lack of efficiency in a system,” says Bybee. “When you get two or three tools running, pressure drops and you’re probably spending more energy in horsepower overcoming leaks than you are in actual use points.”

Poor configuration of your air distribution can also affect profitability, he says. “If you get just a straight run with a bunch of Ts, the first four or five use points might be fine, but the next two might be low on air pressure because the ones in front are sucking it dry. A loop system minimizes that.”

As with a lift, compressors need to be maintained properly for ROI and profitable use. Bybee says a reciprocating compressor can run for a long time with “minimal maintenance” if you keep oil in it, whereas rotary compressors need frequent filter changes, the coolers checked for clogs, and separator elements maintained bi-annually. “Shop owners don’t think of all the maintenance that needs to be done on a rotary compressor.”

And don’t buy a compressor based on price, either. Quality compressors meet performance testing standards developed by the Compressed Air and Gas Institute (CAGI). You may think you’re saving by purchasing a cheaper compressor, but you could be purchasing a compressor that may not live up to performance claims — and blowing your profitability.

“Deal with a compressor expert,” says Bybee. It’s their job to make sure that the right machines are sized so that you’ve got the right equipment on it…in the long haul it will really increase the payback because the system is going to work right.”

Whether you’re investing in a lift or compressor buy smart and right, read the instructions, heed the product warnings, follow the maintenance, use it right in the shop, and you’ll boost your profits in the bay.