LOOKING for DIY garage.

[corcovado]

Aw, too bad this didn't happen. I imagine it's not easy to make money from something like this though.

[HarryN]

yeah I did think about VA... and VA is definitely more business friendly than MD is in terms of Mechanic shops or "clubs". The only issue is if I want to stay around the beltway, it's beau coup bucks for rent. The problem is still with insurance. :-( It's definitely a little cheaper in VA versus MD, but the rent is still averaging out to 11,000 a year. MD was close to 12 - 13,000 a year. Even if I make this place a weekend ordeal, Thurs - Sunday, I still need to pull in at least 8K just to pay rent, utilities, insurance, and maintenance. If I pull in 10 - 12K, I can afford to make money to buy new equipment and tools and keep updating every 5 - 7 years as needed. If I pull in 13K+ a month, I can make this a sole function for business and keep it open every day, including holidays (yes, even Xmas (day time only) and New Years (day time only), plus afford to pay rent, utilities, insurance, buy new tools and equipment, pay back business loans, property tax, etc. But my personal income will be just less than 35K a year. I won't be able to afford to hire new people to come work for me.

Further, again thanks to logistics, I'd have to make a consistent 13K a month, with maybe 3 - 4 months of about 4K to stay afloat. Unless I go into this thing with plenty of money to begin with, it isn't going to work. I've tried 5 or 6 scenarios already and nothing is working out unless I already have cash (as in a well paying job), sell my house and go back to apartment life, or have a gracious investor. I was hoping to make this a BMW CCA, Audi CCA, Porsche CCA, MB CCA, VW USA shop (read: German car enthusiast DIY shop), but it isn't going to work. Even if I bring in the rice burner crowd. I'd like to avoid the rice burner crowd namely because there are WAY more cheap skates and thieves in that crowd (again, tools would usually start disappearing when the Honda or Toyota guys showed up at the Sterling DIY garages (not all, but a lot), not profiling just stating what I've learned from the owners).

Unless someone is willing to go 50 - 50 (we split everything down the middle, including profits and losses) or even 25 x 4, the insurance may still dip in quite a bit into our pockets. But then again, you split a business multiple ways you will have a higher chance in-fighting. This needs to be looked as a "weekend, for fun, hobby".

I am open for ideas as I want to do this myself. I've already helped start another business with a friend so I am familiar with the BS to get a business going. In MD, it is a nightmare and expensive to start up a business (thanks O'Malley/Brown assholes). Doing a recent head gasket job on my M-Tech's S50B30 was a pain in such a POS and tiny garage where I tripped over nearly everything because of the cramped garage space in my town home.

[extremebimmer]

Did this DIY shop ever get off the ground? I would love it if there was a place like this to work on my bmw.

[pseto]

Did this DIY shop ever get off the ground? I would love it if there was a place like this to work on my bmw.

unfortunately not. there were several local area attempts at this concept, but it never became profitable enough.

not sure if you're a CCA member, but we have monthly DIY events where dealers/shops open themselves to us to work on our cars.

[extremebimmer]

pseto,
thanks for letting me know. That is what I figured based on what I read on other places online. Seems there was a place or two in Sterling but they shut down. There is the Automotive Skills Center at Ft. Belvoir but you need an active DoD ID to use it. I am a veteran but don't currently have that kind of ID unfortunately.
I am interested in joining CCA and becoming an active member. I know it is unlikely but any chance one of those dealer shops would potentially let me do a full engine swap at one of these events? ;-) I have a 98' 318i and an m52b28 that I want to swap into it to replace the original m44 engine.

[pseto]

pseto,
thanks for letting me know. That is what I figured based on what I read on other places online. Seems there was a place or two in Sterling but they shut down. There is the Automotive Skills Center at Ft. Belvoir but you need an active DoD ID to use it. I am a veteran but don't currently have that kind of ID unfortunately.
I am interested in joining CCA and becoming an active member. I know it is unlikely but any chance one of those dealer shops would potentially let me do a full engine swap at one of these events? ;-) I have a 98' 318i and an m52b28 that I want to swap into it to replace the original m44 engine.

we've had some pretty interesting jobs throughout the years at our DIY events, but never an engine swap lol. we've done suspension, exhausts, trans/diff swaps, but nothing as complicated as an engine

we try to limit the jobs to something 4 hours or less. as one of our most popular events, we typically have to cycle through quite a bit of people throughout the day.

[Quincy P]

Did this DIY shop ever get off the ground? I would love it if there was a place like this to work on my bmw.

I did find a place in Chantilly and took my car there. Buddy of mine took his boxter and we are regular customers now. Their actual thing is being a body shop so the business is not on DIY mechanic only, hopefully they last longer than the one in Sterling.

The place called NKZ Auto Body / DIY Mechanic Shop. You need to call before to schedule your lift hours so it's free for you.

Here is their address http://www.nkzautobody.com/ 44218 Wade Dr. Unit i Chantilly, Virginia 20152

[HarryN]

I'm making a final update here, given a PM I got, plus I saw that I never provided closure to this thread...

Suffice to say, this business idea is not going to work in the Beltway area of MD, unless I have supplemental business set up to keep the lights on to pay for the insurance alone. If I go further out to the Frederick, MD area, this idea may work. I found a bunch of places with relatively affordable rent but we're talking about the Buckeystown, Ijamsville, New Market area. And I know for most, it will be a no go. I have looked into Leesburg, VA and Winchester, VA as well, but that is going to be a hike for most. I looked into some shop space at Summit Point, W.VA as well, and rent is amazingly awesome, but insurance, killer.

I'm not putting much time into this venture anymore, since insurance is going to be a nightmare, even with affordable rent. And Lawyers can make the waiver only so much bulletproof, but negligence is a hard thing to disprove. I've even sought out to make the facility an education center, since people are indeed learning to work on their vehicles or applying their knowledge, but starting one of those up is pretty expensive.

In closing, I'm not pursuing this venture anymore. Before you say "But you can apply for some business loans because interest is so cheap right now!" True, but the main killer in all of this is Insurance. Sorry folks.

And apologies in advance for resurrecting this thread, but needed to provide closure.

[MichTeps90]

This is my office. And I'm glad it came out the way we came up with it at planner5d.com. The interior design of any room starts with a blueprint. And thanks to this software, my team and I brought our ideas to life. Even though it wasn't intricate, we wanted everyone to talk to each other to get a little distraction from work. Besides, no one will slack off when the work is in full swing. Wouldn't that be great? images.jpeg