FF2Skip

Yeah, you're right. Guess I'll stay at Quantico a little longer.

freq

I thought about a business venture like this awhile back. Had a name for it and everything.

Didn't realize that military personnel were spoiled like that.

MitsukillinS2K

i like the one on NAS Oceana but the people there can be a little ignorant but hey it saves money

AlwaysBoosted

I work at the hobby shop on quantico, and it defintely is awesome to have to access to everything you could possibly need at your finger tips. but to just let you know our shop cost over 3 million dollars. so opening your own hobby shop might sound easier then it really is. but either way, i'd defintely use one if i didnt already have access to the one i work at for free.

Aze85

the problem with reservations is that when you are installing parts complications can arise that can take hours to remedy. you cant just kick a car off the jack when his reserved time is off if his car is not drivable. you should have bays available for appointments for simple things like oil, intakes, exhauts, etc. then you can have walk in bays for other things that may take an unexpected amount of time.

FF2Skip

Get that bead blaster fixed!

Rprsntng757

Where are you looking at setting up shop? As far as theft is concerned, Check the tools out, and hold a credit card. Tools come back, they get their credit card back. Its really impractical though. Just going off of the $3,000,000 quoted above, at $20 an hour, thats 150,000 hours that you would have to 'sell'. Making math easy, if you were open 10 hours a day (9am-7pm) 5 days a week (Mon-Fri) and you had 10 bays, and you had your bays constantly filled from open to close, It would take you 300 weeks, or about 5 years and 9 months to make back your initial investment. Having your bays constantly filled, getting paid for 500 hrs of bay time a week, doesn't seem to probable. I doubt you would even get half of that, or 250 hrs of bay usage, which would make that time frame double, 600 weeks, or 11 years, 6 months. But it all depends on location.

That doesn't include, maintenance of the lifts, building or tools, upkeep of the grounds, insurance, wages, utilities, supplies, replacement equipment, etc.

So now you might be thinking, "Maybe I could charge more then $20 an hour." Then you start to get into cost:savings ratio; how much cheaper is it going to be for people to do the work themselves? is the savings going to out weigh the effort?

You also really don't have any idea of how many people in any area are going to want to, or be willing to pay for a bay, or the rate at which they are willing to pay. I know in my area, if you start talking about a few hours of work, most people would find a way to get on one of the many bases (friends) over paying for a bay.

I also going to go out on a limb here and say you don't have $3,000,000 to drop to open a shop, other wise you wouldn't be asking the advice of random people on the internet. So lets pretend that you can get a $3,000,000 loan, for 15 years, at a the going rate. First to do this, I believe you yourself need 20% of the loan to put down, I'm not very sure of that though, but that would be $600,000, do you have an extra $600,000? It might just me 20% in total assets...even then, do you have $600,000 in total assets? So you are talking about monthly payments of $30,000. Lots of money right? Well if you go by the "model" I setup above, and keep your bays full, 500 hrs of bay time a week, you will be making $40,000, keep them half full, 250 hrs of bay time a week, and uhh-ohh, you have a $30,000 loan payment due, and you only pulled in $20,000.

Bottom-line, It doesn't seem to profitable, and thats why you only see them on the bases. If it worked out, I'm sure there would be a few around.

If you can get anywhere close to $3,000,000. Go open a few franchises. The big name franchises (Subway, Domino's, Mc Donald's etc.) set you up for success. Here is an example. With $3,000,000, you could open anywhere from an average of 19 Subways, your profits should be $80,000, 20% of the $400,000 net, per year, per store. So with all your other costs accounted for, if you put that profit straight into paying off your $3,000,000, it would take you less than 2 years. After that, you would be making a cool 1.5 Million a year. Lets say, you aren't as successful, and you made closer to $50,000 profit, per year, per store. Thats paying your loan off in 3 years, and making a million every year after that.

/long ramble. I cant sleep, its 6am.

FF2Skip

Joe, I know you didn't mean it.

FF2Skip

757, since your business model was for a self-service automotive hobby shop, I'm guessing you'd want to adjust your hours to include Saturday-Sunday... when most people do their own work.

The Quantico shop is very nice. 16 bays I believe. They built the new one after Hurricane Isabel flooded the heck out of the old one. It was located right off the Potomac. And yes, I do appreciate being able to use it. I still do work in my garage, but the shop is a very convenient Plan B.

Rprsntng757

I still don't think it would work out. You would have to be a huge corporation or a government trying to provide something for your employees, and not trying to make profit off of it