Oil Changes??? What are you DOING?

[cliffsautoandtire]

OIL CHANGE HELP
Right now we are selling
4QT & 5Qt 36.95
6 QT 38.95
7 QT 40.95
Synthetics are priced labor 17.95 + oil and filter same with Diesel Oil Changes

* Problem that we are having that right now with our (Shop Management LOF Packages) The profit is coming up at like a -14.5%.

We would like to streamline this process, hoping to get an Idea of what everyone else is doing and if there is and easier way of doing this. We use about 30-40 different oil filters on vehicles on a regular basis.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Brian

[brianp87]

I set a cannend job for the labor and charge different for each application on oil and filter. And ours vary but do almost always come in higher then what you have set.

[Pauls Automotive]

I do the same as Brian

[Rich]

I have two canned jobs built. LOF4 and LOF5. Once clicking on one of them the Oil option comes up. I only have 4 oils listed 10/30, 15/40, Dexos 5/30 and dexos 5/20. Which are the oils we have in bulk and cover about 90% of the oil we use. If a customer wants Amsoil or Mobile1, we call and get a price. The prices on some of those oils seem to change often. We look up the oil filter.

Remember, copy the info and paste it into Revision 9

[cliffsautoandtire]

I have two canned jobs built. LOF4 and LOF5. Once clicking on one of them the Oil option comes up. I only have 4 oils listed 10/30, 15/40, Dexos 5/30 and dexos 5/20. Which are the oils we have in bulk and cover about 90% of the oil we use. If a customer wants Amsoil or Mobile1, we call and get a price. The prices on some of those oils seem to change often. We look up the oil filter.

Remember, copy the info and paste it into Revision 9

Rich, with the Canned jobs how do you get your oil filters in price??
we use on avg about 20-30 diff oil filters with a wide range of prices. Im trying to figure out the best way to set it up to be user friendly as well as have it read correctly for accounting and management purposes.

[Rich]

I do the canned job, then look up the filter in CarQuest. If we stock the filter it is generally $6.95. If i see we don't stock it, i do my best to keep the price at $6.95. But if its a Benz or some freekie car then I do the best I can on price. But we don't advertise "Oil changes $34.79" We only do about 3 oil changes a day as an average. So its not a huge deal on my end to handle

[brianp87]

With so many options for oil and filters and capacities I do not see a way to have it set as a canned job. I set a canned job for the labor and look up the others accordingly and as others have said leave them on a revision for easy copy and paste when appointments are set. I gave up trying to price compete on lof's 20 years ago. I charge what we need to and have never had a problem. We only do 3-8 a day.

[nickscarcare]

I have 2 canned jobs set up, 1 for up to 5 quarts, 1 for up to 6 quarts, anything over gets billed for what it is called for. These are for non synthetic only. If the vehicle gets an oddball filter, then we just put that filter in and the price is adjusted.

[dnnstory]

We have several canned jobs. I have one for "regular oil", one for synthetic oil, one for Mobile1, one for 0W20. The ones for synthetic oil have a placeholder oil filter that is higher priced than the regular oil one, and starts at 5 quarts. We try to look up oils, oil amounts and filter before the customer arrives, so we have the best estimate. We also adjust for filters as needed. It works.

[GUTHTIRE]

We have canned jobs for 4, 5, 6 & 7 qts oil changes for both conventional and synthetic with set pricing. Any filter in our inventory that costs less than $5.00 is set to $0 (essentially no cost to the customer. If the filter is over $5.00 the customer is charged accordingly.

[sbcauto]

We Use Quick Can jobs For Oil Changes. For The Filters I Set Up A Part KIt With All My filters . So When I Pick 5w30 oil Change, The Filter Lists Come Up . You Pick The Filter you Need And Your Done.

[ricmorin]

We Use Quick Can jobs For Oil Changes. For The Filters I Set Up A Part KIt With All My filters . So When I Pick 5w30 oil Change, The Filter Lists Come Up . You Pick The Filter you Need And Your Done.

How do you know which filter you need?

[sbcauto]

I Look It Up First Or Check history On Last Oil Change.

[GUTHTIRE]

I still don't know why Mitchell couldn't dictate a generic format for LOF's, then when a new vehicle comes in you set how many qts., syn or conventional, and the oil filter p/n. When the vehicle comes back for an oil change you just press a button for LOF and information is pulled from the database using the last time the vehicle was in for an oil change. One button, done. If the vehicle never had an oil change then pressing the LOF button would present a msg ex. "This vehicle has never been here for an oil change". In this case you would use the generic template, change as required. Next go-round the data would be pulled from the database. BTW, I've tried the cut/paste from a revision. Seems just as easy to manually lookup in History.

[ricmorin]

BTW, I've tried the cut/paste from a revision. Seems just as easy to manually lookup in History

I respectfully disagree. You KNOW the oil change will be in Rev9. You DON'T KNOW which history record the oil change would be in, which would require clicking on search and typing something or manually clicking on each. Those are extra steps.

By not locking users into one way of doing this, M1 allows more flexibility to differing user preferences. I like that.

[GUTHTIRE]

BTW, I've tried the cut/paste from a revision. Seems just as easy to manually lookup in History

I respectfully disagree. You KNOW the oil change will be in Rev9. You DON'T KNOW which history record the oil change would be in, which would require clicking on search and typing something or manually clicking on each. Those are extra steps.

By not locking users into one way of doing this, M1 allows more flexibility to differing user preferences. I like that.

The way we have our LOF jobs set-up they have a "Lube Oil Filter" category assigned. If you click the History tab you can just glance at the list and see all of the categories...one click after that. But if you factor in for each new vehicle you have to create the Revision then what if you change filter suppliers, which was our case recently, now all of the Revisions are outdated due to the filter p/n change. If it can be automated why not automate it?

[ricmorin]

Essentially copying/pasting from History or Rev9 is the same thing. I think Rev9 is more efficient. With one click I have what I need. We also build all needed maintenance items like air, cabin filters, trans service and any other maintenance requiring a part lookup. You can automate oil changes, but cars need much more than that. For Honda's that have condition based maintenance requirements, we build those in Rev9 as well. When Suzy Q. calls and says her car displays B-1-2, we have EXACTLY what that car needs with one click. For customers that follow the mileage intervals, we have all the maintenance parts pre-looked up and ready on Rev9. In those cases, it's simply a matter of transferring the appropriate service and moving the parts from Rev9.

I've changed filter brands three times in 21 years. When scheduling a job, we simply lookup the parts again. We wouldn't change them all, just as needed on the fly. You'd do that anyway, whether it was automated or not. You can also use supersede in your parts lookup to automatically do the job, but that's more setup work.

I don't think you'll ever see an automated version of this in Manager. Besides, I do everything in my power to avoid just doing an oil change. I want the OE maintenance schedule. Manager HAS automated this by giving us a Maintenance button right on the order screen. It's better for the car and it's better for the shop. But that's for another thread.