Who does a road test in a shop?

Figuring out who should be doing road tests shouldn’t be a complicated exercise in your automotive repair shop, according to a shop coach

At the Midwest Auto Care Alliance Hi-Tech Training & Expo in Kansas City, Drive instructor and trainer Jim Saeli emphasized the importance of letting customers drive their vehicles during road tests.

“Letting the customer drive the vehicle allows them to drive it the way they normally do. We may drive it differently and not be able to make that problem happen,” he explained.

He told a story where a customer complained about a knocking noise in the front end. Despite replacing the struts, the noise persisted. After investigating further, they discovered the noise occurred when the customer pulled into their garage too quickly, causing the suspension to hit the rubber stopper. It’s an issue no one in the shop would have been able to replicate otherwise.

“There was nothing wrong with the car,” Saeli explained.

When technicians conduct road tests, Saeli joked that their mouths should be duct-taped shut.

“Technicians, they’re going out there and they’re diagnosing the problem when they’re driving with the customer, not just verifying the noise. They’re also thinking about the diagnosis,” he said.

This can lead to misunderstandings when the technician casually mentions a solution, and the customer later balks at the cost when talking to the service advisor.

“You go to sell that job and tell them it’s $700 for a wheel bearing, and they freak out,” Saeli explained, because they thought it was an ‘easy job’ and that to them means inexpensive.

Saeli also touched on handling minor services with customers and urged a balanced approach to ensure customers don’t feel nickel-and-dimed.

He advised undercharging or not charging at all for simple tasks that customers could do themselves, such as adding fluids, replacing a licence plate or changing wiper blades.

“If a customer can do the repair themselves, we want to undercharge them or don’t charge them at all for the labour aspect of it,” he said.

For minor tasks performed by technicians, Saeli recommended creating a shop repair order to credit the technician’s time without charging the customer.

“What we did is we just had this and then if somebody came in and I had a tech run out and do it, I credited him the time for it. I wouldn’t charge a customer,” he explained as a strategy at his shop.

At the end of the month, these repair orders can be closed out and considered a marketing expense.

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