What will we do when all the old shops, close up shop?

[64\/54Cadillacking]

Something that has taken me by surprise lately, and is happening all across the urban fabric of our nation in the last 10 years, is urban renewal.

The rebuilding of our cities that for decades has been neglected and blighted are now starting to turn around, as more young people move back into the urban cores of cities, they are getting nicer as redevelopment as taken hold, and businesses move back in.

The fight for space, and new dwellings in commercial areas is eventually going to wipe out many old school mechanic shops that work on classic cars. I've seen entire city blocks in my city razed that used to house auto shops, and other small businesses make way for condo towers. As this new wave of development is occurring in many cities in this country where land is scarce, I see it being extremely difficult in the coming years for shops to survive if you live in a heavily dense neighborhood that is attractive to developers.

The threat is real in certain cities that are highly popular, unless you live in a more rural environment, away from all the new construction and change, or live in a city that is small and off the map, then you are safe for years to come. But city people or even the ones that live in the burbs, will probably find it harder in the future to have their old Cadillac's worked on.

Living in California doesn't make it any easier, many cities in CA are experiencing rapid changes in the urban cores and will continue to do so until the next economic crash.

Has anyone ever thought about this? I just hope to the shops that own their business, also own the land and building around it so they can't be forced out once the lease is expired and can say NO to a big developer that is looking to take their land.

[59-in-pieces]

Gentrification - but that is a topic for another place and time.

But if the focus of the post is the gathering gloom over the dying out of the neighborhood mechanic - I can relate.
My wife and I, along with our three sons, have grown up with our neighborhood mechanic (Greg) and his family over the last 30 years - Burbank, CA. = "Mayberry".
Both families involved in the City, every manner of sports activities, and oh yes the occasional car diagnosis and repair.

We have watched him go from naturally aspirated carbs to fuel injected systems, through points to electronic ignitions - diagnosing based on education, training, experience and using regular hand tools, to electronic code readers as big as battery chargers on wheels, to palm held devices.
And what has become of his service, unless it is electronic, he doesn't work on the cars.

We may all become victims of a dying bread, who have moved on to meet the disposable society and culture, diagnose by plug-in to no plug WIFI , eliminating the idea of repair - to no just replace (the plug-and-play result of planned obsolescence).
IMHO...
Have fun,
Steve B.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

The main problem is that there are not sufficient numbers of older vehicles requiring repairs to maintain a business in repairing these old vehicles.

As newer vehicles take over, they require far less maintenance and servicing than in the past, and therefore as the quantity of services deminish, because of the less need, the number of service centres will also deminish.

Remember when a car required an oil change every 1,000 miles, and a filter change every 5,000 miles, plus a tune-up which required a de-coke and valve grind, and the Sump required periodical cleaning out of the sludge?

Well, now it is like Oil Change every 10,000 miles, and a Filter change at the same time, and when was the last time that anyone had a de-coke and valve grind, or the sump removed.

I am not sure what the solution is, but people with older vehicles, that want to keep them, had better start learning how to do their own maintenance and repairs, and have the room to do it, or they will have to take a day off work to drive out to the suburbs to locate a mechanic that is either still able to work on these old cars, or a young fellow still willing to learn, because us oldies will soon die off, leaving a huge void.

Remember when there was a Garage on virtually every corner selling petrol, changing tyres, and doing everything else?   Now these Garages are coffee shops, mini-markets and one has to do everything themselves.   Boy, can't even stay at the bowser stand to check the tyres.

BUT, we will adapt.   We have to.

Bruce.

[D.Smith]

Try finding a good old fashioned Automotive upholstery shop! 

Those guys are dying off.  25-30 years ago I had 4 or 5 trim shops nearby that did seat work, vinyl tops, headliners etc.

They are all gone now.

[James Landi]

 One very important PLUS is that most systems on "pre computerized" Cadillacs are relatively simple to diagnose and fix.  With newer models sporting dozens of computerized circuits and wiring bundles providing multiple tasks, diagnostics and repairs are now well beyond the traditional DIY/ shade tree mechanic.  Frankly, I enjoy working on my old cars because I can usually fix the problems.

[bcroe]

When there are no more old car shops, the old car hobby will reduce to owners
who do their own work.  I see a different problem. 

The salvage yards are nearly gone.  In school I remember seeing model T parts
out there.  Now cars come in, get picked over for a short time, and get crushed. 
Pre war cars are non existent, anything over a couple decades old is unusual
and short timed out.  I learned to standardize on stuff built for decades for
large numbers of vehicles, like a TH400, small block V8, HEI.  Parts are
still widely available.   

Besides the really old cars, there are the 1980 and later using a digital
computer (or several).  These components deteriorate with age, even on
the shelf.  When they finally reach unobtainium status, all those cars will
be forced off the road.  I see an eventual situation of very few really old
cars, lots of pre fuel injected cars, and a huge hole until you get to the
lastest generation still getting OEM support.  The hole will just get bigger. 
Bruce Roe

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Bruce, you hit the nail on the head regarding parts.

All the wrecking yards that I used to scavenge through have all gone, and now everything is "front of counter stuff" and if you don't know the exact name of the part you are after, bad luck.

Down here, the Bush Fires got rid of a lot of the outlying parts source, and if it isn't a common part, then it is not available.

Plus, the removal of Lead from the petrol, and the increasing use of Ethanol, is wearing out all the original fuel related components and no replacements are being made to replenish the void.

Bruce.

[64\/54Cadillacking]

Very good points have been made here. It is absolutely critical that one learns as much as possible when it comes to diagnosing and repairing your classics, due to the unavoidable circumstances of what will happen in the future with increased closures of these shops.

I don't like taking my cars into shops anyways, but they're some jobs I simply don't have the tools for, nor the time. At least shops can fix things rather quickly so that is one advantage, and they can also inspect for any unusual problems or recommend a repair that maybe you never thought about.

Once you find that trustworthy mechanic, and he is great at what he does, it is priceless.

[Scot Minesinger]

Over the years on this forum, I have professed doing anything you can yourself.  Equipped my shop with tire removal/mounting machine, high quality Hunter "Road Force" rim/tire balancer, air conditioning machine to recover and charge by weight, hydraulic press, engine crane, and etc.  I feel like there is not too much that I cannot do mechanically.  Plus I keep a decent stock of parts, especially for a 1970 Cadillac.  All the good places that I rely on to do work I cannot (or have not learned yet) are operated by people my age or older - so I'm getting everything in top condition now to enjoy and hopefully not need service later.

[cadillac ken]

I own a small legit full service (upholstery, paint, metal working, trim repair, etc.) restoration and custom car shop.  I've been in it for about 26 years now.  I have seen how folks have not grown out of the "idea" of how much the work we do "should cost".  And therein, in my opinion, is the problem.  I make a meager living at it.  I do not plan on retiring "well".  And yet the costs are always met with disbelief and most times causing potential customers to put off the work, or the project; sometimes indefinitely.  I figure this is the case since most customers haven't had a seat reupholstered or a "paint job" done in some time (often times not for a decade) and they suffer the old "sticker shock" of the cost to do it now in 2017. Just look at the "cost of chrome work" thread that was recently posted.

My insurance costs go up yearly (and astronomically, I might add) as well as parts, body working supplies, and almost anything I put my hands on to do my job. I recently had to pay $1200 to repair my Miller Sync welder.  I have to pay my help well to get top notch guys.  Many weeks while they get paid, I do not.

I realize this hobby is expensive.  But lately I'm not sure if I want to continue on this path.  I own my building and property and I can say that if the right price were offered, I might consider it.

Nobodys fault.  Just the facts.  As I see it most feel this hobby is getting too expensive and therefore making it very tough for a shop to keep busy and make money.

[bcroe]

I see KCs shop costs as largely getting astronomical, because of the GREED in the
support structure: insurance, paint, spare parts.  Just one example, the price of an
alt for her 2001 Honda was $500 at 200,000 miles (not including installation).  As
it approaches 400,000 the price is $1500, who are they kidding?  They would rather
sell you a new car than keep yours running.  My cars have $25 yard alternators I
rebuilt; 5 in service, 6 on the shelf.  This is ONE of the reasons I feel insurance
should NOT be the problem of the individual. 

I finally dumped my 60s cars (even my beloved "yellow car") because of
the fuel situation.  My late 70s cars run, and run, and run just fine on crap
87 unleaded.  They have hardened valve seats, valve rotators, HEI,
internally regulated alternator, front discs, and a host of safety features
not in my early 60s.  Probably a low in heavy types of maintenance; cars
just get more complex from that point on.  The public sees them as wonderful
features; this engineer sees them as fluff and a maintenance nightmare.  The
Honda has done well and demonstrated extended maintenance intervals, but
the same parts still eventually fail with ASTRONOMICAL parts and labor costs. 
I got a new "yellow car".  Bruce Roe

[cadillac ken]

Well greed is certainly a large part of it.  But to be honest, I can hardly charge enough per hour to keep the bills paid and the lights on.  Most folks just can't seem to justify $85 per hour to work on their old car-- and to add, most don't realize how labor intensive this type of work is.

[cadillac ken]

All good points, Steven.  I have on many occasions "capped" pricing on a particular phase of a job to keep it in an affordable range. And I can assure you, I do not backtrack or do the same job over and charge the customer.  That comes with 26 years of being in the business.  But it does beg the question, should I have to "cap" my labor?  I'm very experienced and good at what I do. If the time I log on a job is legit, why should I have to "cap" my labor?  Simple fact is it takes what it takes and I'm not making mistakes or backtracking.  But the reality is what it is.  Every job will reach a tipping point for any particular customer.

But with that said, this old car business is problematic and unlike working on new cars.  I often say many times while trying to fix the designated problem two others crop up.  Perhaps an old brace cracks taking it off or a trim clip is discovered missing or broken so while these issues are not my fault they are now my problem. Most folks cannot imagine what it takes to put a suspended headliner into an old car-- 10 hours usually.  I once had a 1964 Ford Fairlane headliner install that required that the windshield and rear backlight glass be removed since the headliner wrapped around the pinch weld.  How do you bill the time to remedy these types of issues?  Does $850 to put in a headliner sound expensive?  To most folks that sounds crazy expensive.  But the truth is I probably have more time in it futzing with it to get it perfect, replacing tack strips, and repairing deteriorated clips and fasteners. 

What most folks don't think about is that we do not use a "Flat Rate" book.  A mechanic friend of mine tells me he logs and bills 60 to 70 hours a week but only works 40.  How?  Well if he gets good at replacing a relay on a Ford and can complete the job in .5 hours and the book says he gets 1.5 hours then that's what he gets paid (at $120 per hour I might add).  Restoration work = work and hour get paid an hour.   

And yes, I agree, too many businesses are stocked with guys who only want to see the money and then send the job on it's away-- not only with our cars but with all service oriented businesses.  Trust me I too have been victimized, haven't we all.  But the point I think is important to note is that there is almost nobody who comes to my shop that has not heard great things about my business.  But still, once we begin to talk about costs, most loose their enthusiasm quickly.

Again, not anyone to blame here.  The costs to do this type of work as a legit shop is just not cheap, believe me I get that.  But the outcome is the same if folks just won't or can't justify the expense.  Businesses close.  Even the good ones. 

[Jay Friedman]

I retired from a day job 14 years ago, and for the next 1½ years helped out gratis in a restoration shop owned by a friend that worked mostly on pre-war, high end cars.  While I was not privy to all the details of the shop's financial situation, I was aware of the following:

1. We'd frequently spend lots of time on procedures that would take much less time on a modern car, which would sound crazy when described to the owner.  As Ken described, the shop owner sometimes "capped" the hours spent.  I specifically remember once spending 2 hours removing a large rusted bolt in a corner in a car's suspension that couldn't be reached with any cutting tool except a small hack saw.  ("You charged me how much to remove that bolt??")  We worked on cars from the 1920s and newer, and time was also spent chasing down parts, both on the phone and in person, and how much can you charge for that?  For the older cars we sometimes had to make "unobtanium" parts in our machine shop, the number of hours for which could sound nutty to an owner too;

2. The cash flow was iffy.  The shop's fixed costs were high.  One cost was enormous electric bills caused by all the machinery we had, including a lathe, milling machine etc., besides the air compressor and other shop machinery, much of which required 3-phase current.  Owners were wealthy business owners or professionals for whom their car's restoration was a sideshow.  Since most owners were in distant places, when we needed a further advance the shop owner would sometimes have to spend time on the phone persuading a secretary to put him through to the owner, and payments were frequently delayed.  Not because they didn't want to pay, but because they had lots of "more important" things grabbing their attention.

I have more stories about the shop, but the above are enough for the moment.  I do know working on old cars professionally is not for the faint hearted, as other posters in this thread have brought out very well.

[jdemerson]

Thanks, Ken, for posting a good topic and some excellent analysis and background information. It is true (and sad) that the generation of people who can work on, say, a 1950s Cadillac is dwindling. It gets harder to find people who can do the work at ANY price. And the hobby does get more expensive because so much of the cost is in time and labor. But there may be solutions in the long run.

Reputation and reliability are everything to customers who care about their old cars and the workmanship they can get on them. At least in smaller communities, reputation is often by word of mouth. I  suspect that a lot of us are apprehensive about being taken advantage of or treated unfairly by repair shops. Transparency and openness go a long way toward making a customer accept services and charges as being legitimate. Having a printed document (even if homemade on a computer) outlining the history and the missions and philosophy of a shop can be reassuring to a customer up front, before the work is begun. Another positive step that a shop like yours can take is to make sure the customer knows in some detail just what was involved in a repair and why it took as long as it did. So the owner or manager might say to a customer, "I know this job took longer than expected and the charges are higher. Here is what we needed to do and this is why the costs may seem high to you." That sort of directness is always reassuring to me, and I suspect to many customers.

In a different vein, I think that there will be good opportunities for motivated mechanically-oriented young people with developing skills. Here in Vermont, the Vermont Auto Enthusiasts (to which I've belonged for many years) have a scholarship program where they make awards to the most promising young people in the technical programs attached to various high schools around the states. It is good publicity for the organization, serves a real need, and helps supply needed talent for the future. Having a quality repair service is something that can be supported in many types of communities, and it doesn't need to be located in high-rent areas that are undergoing urban development. There are many communities, including in rural areas, that need more small businesses and employment opportunities. Customers with older cars that need repair and care will find the good ones.

John Emerson
1952 Cadillac 6219X

[z3skybolt]

I have used the same shop in our small community for 35 years.  It is a local tire shop that also does brakes,mufflers, alignment, a huge general auto repair business.  The owners are committed to the community and among their dozen employee are four men who have worked there basically since high school. One for 38 years, another 35 years another 30 years. and one for 23 years.  I've known them since they were kids.

The chief mechanic of 35 years is a mechanical genius.  I've often wished that there was some kind of contest where a prize could be awarded for the most talented mechanic.  Danny would be hard to beat.  He has knowledge and skills that predate modern vehicles. Carburetors are no great mystery to him. He has kept my 1974 VW Beetle,84 Mercury, 85 Lincoln,87 Dakota, 99 Jeep as well as our four modern vehicles, running smoothly for decades.

So last year when I bought our 1940 LaSalle....it was with confidence in knowing that I had a long term relationship with a 56 year old mechanic that could and would fix anything the car might need for most, if not the rest of my life. Was I astonished when Danny refused to ever work on the car! He admired it's beauty and marveled at the antiquity. Still..he told me that the wide fenders made it hard to reach the engine compartment on these old cars, resulting in scratches despite every effort to be careful.  Danny added that parts were hard to find and time consuming....adding much to the cost of repair.  He further stated that he had his head handed to him more than once when working on "perfect" classic cars and therefore, some time ago, resolved avoiding such customers in the future.  Despite our long standing relationship and the many $10s of thousands of dollars spent at the shop over the decades.....he kindly but firmly refused my pleadings. 

So I set about looking for someone in the area to diagnose my engine knocking and potentially overhaul the flathead.  I went from shop to shop, including one who builds custom cars and a machine shop which has a history of overhauling a few engines from the 30s and 40s.  None of the shops would touch it. The machine/overhaul shop kept promising to "look at it".  Month after month he put me off. Finally I gave up and found someone on the internet who claimed to have vast experience.

That turned into a scam about which I could write many pages.   I will simply say that it cost me $1,700.00 to have my engine "looked at" and rescued from this individual.  I damned near lost the vehicle to this scam artist. Gratefully an honest individual, who had past experience with the crook was able to intervene and get my car back before total disaster.

Finally, at the recommendation of a member here I was able to find a shop in Ohio, with experience in overhauling Cadillac Flatheads.  Now I began to search the community for someone to remove the engine and ship it to Ohio. I am located in rural Missouri. I went from garage to garage trying to find someone to remove the engine. Everyone was afraid of damaging the car or not being familiar enough to accept the job. After a couple of frustrating weeks of effort a garage 10 miles away was found. They agreed to remove and ship the engine.

They were very careful in the removal: tagged and capped off all lines, wire, hoses etc, built a heavy shipping crate and sent the engine to Ohio.  $1,252.00 to remove the engine and build the crate.  $420.00 to ship the engine and insure it. A promise to reinstall the engine for $1,000.00 when the overhaul is complete.

That is where the project has remained since mid December of 2016.  The engine is machined, the parts purchased and awaiting assembly.  I have invested $7,000.00 with the overhaul shop already in parts and labor. Another $3 or $4,000.00 in cost is anticipated.

So what is the moral of this long tale?  Despite living for 44 years, in a rural community, near a small town that still has several traditional auto repair shops and having spent well in excess of $150,000.00 with these shops over the decades...... and being considered a valued customer in our community, who isn't price sensitive, .....it was still essentially impossible to get anyone to work on my car.

In my next life.... in addition to flying commercial airliners for a living....I will learn mechanical skills and work on my own older vehicles as have many of you.  For...if I live another 10 or 15 years....I doubt that it will be possible to find any commercial enterprise within 500 miles who could "tune up" a 1940 vehicle.

Good luck gents.

[bcroe]

The shop owners are NOT the problem.  Its the expenditures they must make to
operate.  When I first installed and air conditioner, the refrigerant was $1 a lb. 
After a while I noticed the cans didn't seem to contain a whole pound anymore. 
Same thing is going on at the grocery store, an outright attempt to deceive. 
Then the refrigerant price escalated a couple orders of magnitude, and laws got
passed to force you to spend big time. 

Another is health insurance.  I don't think we even had that when I was a kid. 
The actual care is expensive enough, but at least a third of the money paid is
lost in ins co administration.  This SHOULD NOT be the problem of a shop owner. 

The hybrid seed cos have used their pull to FORCE the farmers to use their
product.  Only big companies can negotiate reasonable insurance rates.  On
and on.  The little guy (what ever business you are in) just doesn't have a
chance any more.  Bruce Roe

[59-in-pieces]

I saw an episode of Wheeler Dealers - a couple of Brits who buy old classics and sell them threw for a couple of hundred quid - and they play like they have just made a ton - you do the math.

I digress - the episode was about converting an old prototype electric car into a modern electric car.
They found a firm in San Diego that converts standard gasoline cars into electric cars.
They had converted a VW bus, and it supposedly dusted some pretty quick Porches - at least that is what they say.
And why this firm was focusing on classics was that they - the trunks - are large enough for the batteries and electric motor(s).

But I got to thinking about doing a 59 Eldo - now calm down i'M JUST THINKING ABOUT IT - THAT'S ALL.
Sorry, I'm usually ready with the facts, but not this time - forgot the Company's name.

On a going forward basis, with the loss of classic car mechanics with engine experience - and the like - electric is definitely on the upturn, and possibly our out.

Our classics remain looking the same but their power plants could be managed by current technologies and technicians.

Just one man's noodling - I love scotch.
Have fun,
Steve B.

[chrisntam]

Take our cars to Scot's place?

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Or bring them down here, and have a vacation whilst it is being worked on.

Bruce.