For the last few months, Snap-on has been running a prize draw, with the main prize being an original Model T Ford that has been reconstructed as a Snap-on Salesman car as seen in the 1920s. The winners were announced at an event at the company’s diagnostics base in King’s Lynn in July.
    
The car had been shipped from the USA, so it was appropriate that the aforementioned event was itself an American import, albeit a more modern example. Having been inspired during a recent trip to America, Managing Director of Snap-on Diagnostics UK Mark Ost decided to run a British version of the Rapid Continuous Improvement (RCI) Day.
    
With marquees set up outside the branded building, departments from Snap-on Diagnostics and Garage Equipment were showcasing what they have been doing over the last year. Each of the departments spent time putting together their offering, with the presentations on the day given a movie or TV theme. Each department voted for who they thought was the best offering, with management also picking a winner.

Focus
Making our way around the colourful stands, we stopped to talk to Harry Barrett, European Product Manager for Diagnostic Software and Hardware. He said: “Our focus today is to show the progress we have made since 2009 when we started to put our handheld products into Europe under the PDL Sun brand. We also want to show that we don't stand still and we're always looking to the value proposition, which is more than just selling the tool at day one; It's been there for the customer if they need support.”
    
Commenting on the experience of the RCI day, Harry added: “It’s great to have everyone come in, including our field service team and the sales guys, to have a bit of fun, see what other teams are doing, learn something from it and hopefully go away and start thinking differently.”
    
We next grabbed Matt Boyce from the company’s marketing department: “Our focus is around marketing automation. We've implemented an automated process for all of our diagnostic customers. From the moment they purchase a product from Snap-on, they receive regular content via email with information resources to get the most out of their diagnostic products.”
E-missions Impossible

Next up was Nick, Test Lane Product Manager, who was largely responsible for the rapid creation of a new particulate emissions analyser, the DSS PN, which is destined for the German market, but likely to end up in the UK at a later date: “We were tasked with trying to develop something in fairly short order. It's designed specifically to measure particulates coming out of diesel engines. The existing technology doesn't really work with modern vehicles, which emit virtually no visible particulates. The trouble is, they're still emitting harmful particles that you can't see. In Germany and Europe as a whole, they implemented legislation to try and find a way to measure those harmful particles that can't be seen. We did this in nine months, to get into the German market.”
    
Their offering, E-Missions Impossible came complete with a miniature Tom Cruise dangling from a wire. At this point, all 15 groups had seen each other’s presentation. Every group’s team leader collated the votes for their team, which would next be reviewed by the management team.

Influences
Speaking of the management team, we used the natural break in proceedings as an opportunity to grab some time with the top guys at Snap-on who were on hand on the day. Mark Ost said: “I wanted every department to understand their influences on other parts of the business. It took six months to get here, but the engagement has been phenomenal.”
    
On what outcomes might result, Mark said: “Just seeing some of the activity, we'll get wins out of it, there's no doubt. Two-and-a-half years ago we identified what would be an emissions opportunity in Germany, and I was trying to convince my bosses we needed to do this. Last month alone, we did €1 million in Germany in emissions.
    
“Pre COVID-19, I thought the emissions business was dying. We now know this is actually going to grow significantly. Legislation being driven around the world is going to give us growth. We believe particulate testing will come into the UK as well.“

Support
One of the messages that was coming out from the day was how Snap-on looks to support its customers. Explaining how this is the case, Mark observed: “We have spent a lot of time talking about how we continue to better enable technicians to fix the vehicles faster first time. That's what we have to be about. What do they need? What does the aftermarket look like today? What is it going to look like in 2030? What is the pattern of evolution for the independent to keep in touch with the technology?
    
“I spend more time in garages than most General Managers. I will visit one or two garages a week, every week. I can just drop in because I've been here so long. They all know me,” he added with a smile, “and they know I like free coffee.”
    
He continued: “When I talk to them, they all tell me they don't have access or the time or the money to invest in keeping themselves up to date with that technology. As a company we've got to make sure that we're giving them the products as best as we can to enable them to continue to do those first-time fixes. We've got to continue to give more support to our customers.”

Information
Snap-on Diagnostics President Jeff Zuehls, who was over from the USA, observed: “We're producing new hand tools to address new technologies. We're producing new equipment as well.”
    
Then there is the shift to EVs: “Initially when EVs came out, they were seen as a singularity that was going to completely change the world. I think we've backed off of that. We've gotten a clearer view.
“With service information, you think of an EV as much more technical, but that's not entirely right. It's more electrical and the challenge is taking techs from being mechanics to being technicians, to being electrical engineers. That's where the education and training come in.
    
We also know that EV have a different maintenance schedule, so getting that touch point that EV owners have with dealerships is also something that we can share in.”

Culmination
Once the management team had taken their vote, the next step was to announce the winners. The presentation that won the popular vote was ‘The Repair Shop’ as presented by the Service Department, while ‘A Brick’ as presented by the Operations Team won the backing of management. Finally, the overall award went to E-Missions Impossible from Product Management.
    
Lastly, the culmination of the day came with the prize draw to determine who would win the Model T Ford, which was won by David Parr who came via franchisee Martin Squires. Runners up Michael Kirkman and Simon Gates both received a scale model of the Model T.
    
Summing up the day, Byron Miltz, M.D at Snap-on Tools added: “The relationship that the franchisees have with the customers means we can continue to provide technicians with the ability to solve problems in a timely manner, doing it right first time. As they are developing their skills, they're able to grow personally and professionally, and our franchisees are a big part of that.”

Sometimes, motorsport is a multi-billion-pound international spectacle taking in high-stakes, high-risk endeavour at ludicrous speeds. At other times though, it is a bloke in his car trying to beat the clock to get to the top of a hill in the fastest time possible.
    
Indeed, this is what one does when one visits Shelsley Walsh, the oldest purpose-built motor racing track in the world. The one-kilometre course enables drivers to test their skills on its winding route up the hill first opened in 1905 in rural Worcestershire, and is still being used today. Supported by major sponsors including lubricant specialists Motul, the course runs a number of events through the year, enabling both beginners and experienced drivers to try and beat the clock
    
One of the regular sessions that runs through the year is the Hill Climbing School, where drivers can learn the art of hill climbing via the able assistance of experienced instructors.
    
Up until this point, I had no motorsport experience whatsoever, so of course immediately said yes to attending. What could possibly go wrong?
    
The day began with a briefing from the instructors, explaining the course, and how the day was going to run. All 28 cars would get four runs up the hill, with fluorescent yellow bollards to help with maximising the use of the road most effectively. At a number of points you would be stopped to have feedback provided on your progress. Then, after lunch everyone got another four runs, but this time without the visual aids.
    
Before we got into our cars, we were walked up the course, taking in the various turns. It was surprisingly steep when you walk it – as if the gravity had been turned up a bit higher. Imagine the effect that has on your car. We then got back down to the start, picked up helmets and started our initial runs. Things got off to a not-particularly encouraging start when just a few cars in, word came down the hill that a Ferrari 348 had experienced some unpleasantness by way of ploughing into one of the banks, and it soon arrived back down at the bottom, with the offside wing and half the bumper piled up in the passenger seat. Thank goodness it wasn’t rare or expensive…
    
That being said, later in the day it was back in action, so perhaps something can be said for Italian engineering. This prang did result in the drivers being given a stern talking-to about not driving recklessly.
    
After two runs, we got our first round of feedback, and I was surprised to be told by the first instructor; “That was very good – keep doing that.” The next three rounds were not as good. Oddly I was better on the tight turns than the straights. The third run was reasonably straightforward, but then on the final run of the first round we had another accident; This time it was a Porsche 944 that came off worse, hitting both banks on as it came out of the final turn before the short, straight run to the finish line. After this, we had lunch, followed by our proper four attempts to conquer the hill.
    
During the next two sets of feedback I got the full gamut. “You’re doing better than ever,” followed immediately at the next stop by “that was your worst run yet,” which was then rounded off with a “that wasn’t your best, but it wasn’t your worst either.” I think that sums up my at-best so-so driving. I was never fast.
    
When it all came to an end, there were awards for the highest score, and driver of the day and so forth. I passed with 71%, which if it was a degree would be a first. However, others were getting 91% and 92%, so I have some way to go yet. When it was all wound up, some of those in attendance looked at me curiously and observed “you liked that, didn’t you,” to which I gave a non-committal answer. “You’ve got the bug” they replied, to which I did note that 71% is okay, but I really want to try and do better, so maybe they were right.

Subhead
Despite being in this industry for decades, apart from an afternoon in go-karts, I had never done anything like this before. It was certainly interesting. I did the day in my Volkswagen CC R-Line, which does have sport settings, but I should have brought something faster. That being said, there was every kind of car there. Apart from the aforementioned wounded supercars, you had everything from my Repmobile familywagon, to a father and son sporting a 1969 Porsche 911 and its early 00s descendent, to a Saab 95 estate, and a Maclaren 720S. There was even a Shelby Cobra that had appeared in the Elvis Presley film Viva Las Vegas (yes I bet you can hear the song playing in your head right now), but  that’s another story. You even had the first-ever go at the track on a motorbike.

Support
Commenting on Motul’s support of motorsports, from the grassroots to the highest levels, Motul UK Head of Sales and Marketing Andy Wait said: “Motul features in motorsport around the world – and at all different levels. We are partners with World Championship Winning teams and manufacturers and we are here at Shelsley Walsh which, at 108 years, is almost the birthplace of national motorsport in the UK. Certainly supporting this famous motorsport venue – and the non-professional sport of speed hill climbing is important to Motul. Firstly, we are very conscious of the history of the industries we are involved in and, self-evidently also, grass roots motorsport is the life blood of the sport and is where future champions are grown.
    
“Also, for Motul, motorsport has been a key part of the development process throughout the history of the brand. The track is an excellent proving ground for Lubricants, as if they are able to perform to the required standards in the heat of competition they should be more than capable of coping with the rigours of daily motoring. Much of our knowledge gained through motorsport has filtered down to everyday motoring – Motul 300V was the first fully synthetic car motor oil in the world in 1971. The name 300V in fact, celebrated 300 motorsport victories. That was more than half a century ago and now synthetic motor oils are part of everyday motoring.”

Final thoughts
While I will admit there was a large cohort of gentlemen of a certain vintage in exotic cars that were equally well-seasoned, this was a highly accessible event, and for some people could be a route into enjoying motorsport longer-term. Me? Where would I keep a track day car? I mean, it’s not like I’m ringing around looking for a lock-up or anything. Well, not yet…

Formed in 1977 as J.A Thomas Fuel Injection Engineers, a purely diesel orientated workshop, the Thomas group have now grown into a business stocking over 100,000 parts from diesel injection components, auto electrics, petrol injection, air conditioning and OE filtration and fuel additive.  
    
With over 250 years of combined workshop experience, Thomas Group sought a business management solution that could cope with all aspects of the business including an extensive e-commerce portfolio that includes Diesel Parts Direct (DPD), Delphi Parts store (DPS), Vehicle Parts Market (VPM); along with Amazon/Ebay integration and combine this knowledge and help unlock its full potential.
    
After trying other business management systems over many years, Thomas Group began discussions with MAM Software. Kevin O’Sullivan, Director of Thomas Group identified MAM Software to be synonymous with the automotive industry, buying groups and factoring. “We were down a blind alley with our current solution, we needed to have a technical discussion about what we wanted from our business management system, what could be achieved and where we want the company to be heading. That is where the discussion with Ben began.”
    
Ben Nicholls, Automotive Sales Manager met with Kevin and the other directors of Thomas Group to discuss the software available to them and the many benefits of being a customer of MAM Software. After exploring all options followed by a team visit to the MAM offices in Barnsley, Thomas Group decided that Autopart is the way forward for them.

Implementation
Autopart is the versatile business management software that seamlessly integrates sales, stock management, accounting and reporting processes in one easy-to-use package. Kevin added: “Autopart is what we needed, it was software that could do what other business management systems simply couldn’t. MAM’s workshop management tool QJI was also implemented, adding further capability to our diesel/garage workshops. We are now live on the system, absolutely everybody is very complimentary about the product, especially how quick and easy it is to use. Now we have become familiar with the essentials we have booked training to learn all the extra processes and reporting that can really help elevate our day-to-day activities.”
    
Kevin has put the success of the implementation down to a number of different factors: “I feel that things have gone so smoothly due to two great teams working together as a partnership to get the best out of our business and Autopart. Our team has really stepped up and performed and its great to see that if any of the team raised a query or potential issue, we have a single person from MAM who spoke to us and resolved the issue very quickly, supported by management in the background.”
    
Kevin commented that another huge positive was the Konnect customer conference held in Stratford-upon-Avon in early March. “This was a superb event with the opportunity to network with many MAM customers, attend technical seminars and book one-to-one technical sessions.”
    
Looking to the future, Kevin concluded: “We have a roadmap of where we need to go, and we need the right technology to do that. I’ve been speaking closely to Ben and Teccom ordering is something we will require. We are also interested in adding Autocat into our business to accommodate our parts cataloguing needs. Moving over to a new software is always going to have some problems, but the important part is having a team that can swiftly resolve these and that’s what MAM have achieved.”
    
Ben Nicholls added: “I was involved from the very beginning with Thomas Group so its great to see that they are now live and getting the most they can out of Autopart and MAM Software. It’s a great team down there who have some high aspirations of where they want to take the business. I’m confident that they can achieve this and Autopart has an essential role to play.”  

After what has been a tough few years for the independent aftermarket, there is cause for optimism as we move into the second half of 2023.  
  
More than two-fifths of consumers (43%) are now shopping around when choosing garages, with a quarter already switching from dealerships to a local, better value alternative. While this presents a huge opportunity for the aftermarket to tap into a new potential customer base, garage owners will only be able to take advantage if they are equipped to service the latest vehicles.
    
This is why it was concerning to see the UK’s chronic shortage of ADAS-certified technicians laid bare by the IMI’s latest training report.

The ADAS issue
Despite 5% of the UK car parc featuring level 2 autonomy – a number that is only set to increase – there is already an estimated shortfall of 6,000 technicians qualified to deal with ADAS technologies. The IMI estimates that if current training trends continue, this shortfall will increase to 51,000 qualified technicians by 2030, when 44% of cars on UK roads will feature ADAS.
    
A failure to address this skills gap will leave large numbers of workshops unequipped and unable to benefit from what can be a huge revenue driver – not to mention the implications for road safety, with even the slightest misalignment in a vehicle’s autonomous capability increasing the risk of a potential crash. Of course, conversations are also ongoing about if and when ADAS calibrations become part of the MOT.

Learn to earn
The appetite to learn is certainly there – and we saw it for ourselves at Automechanika Birmingham recently, where it was great to see so many garage and bodyshop owners get stuck into the seminars, stands and events with a focus on how the sector adapts and evolves in the coming months and years.
    
It is important that we all play our part in harnessing this enthusiasm. At LKQ Euro Car Parts we are supporting ADAS training by offering our ADAS Technology and Theory Course for free through our LKQ Academy in 2023. It is a practical course, designed to help garage owners and technicians understand the impact of ADAS on the workshop before they invest in upskilling.
    
Of course, we are of the view that technicians should upskill, which is why we offer a selection of ADAS courses through the LKQ Academy, as well as the chance for technicians to gain their AOM230 accreditation for ADAS calibration.
    
This is a pivotal moment for the sector. With the right training, guidance and technology, independent workshops can position themselves to win new customers from competitors who don't embrace change as quickly. By completing ADAS recalibrations as standard on every job, garage owners can also make sure customers leave satisfied and likely to come back next time.  

Part one

These days, you have to keep moving. When they won Top Garage 2022 in the 1-3 staff members group, A&J Fleetcare were based in the arches under Leeds Station in the centre of the city. However, this was just a short halt on their way from an earlier long-term base to their new home, on a small trading estate on the way into the centre.
    
The business is made up of Alan Landale (A.K.A ‘A’) on the tools in the workshop and his wife Jeanette (I.E ‘J’), handling the office and reception side upstairs.  
    
When we visited, it was only two weeks after they had moved in. In fact, some of the paint was still wet. Once we had unsticked ourselves from a wall, we asked Alan how it was going: “It’s absolutely brilliant. I wish we had stumbled across the place before. We had been signed up on it for a while, but I didn't think it would come up. Then suddenly they rang and said it was ready. It's all under one roof, with two bays and parking in a brilliant location just off the main road.”

Improvement
As far as Alan was concerned, it was an improvement on what they had in the centre: “It was a nice set up but we were getting the noise pollution from the trains going over, which affected the customers as well as communication between the office and the workshop. Some customers were finding it awkward to get to as well.” They only stayed there for 16 months. For the first 19 years of its existence, the business was based a short drive away in the Harehills district of the city.
    
Many of their existing customers have travelled with them to their new site, as you would expect, but geography is not an issue for them. Alan explained: “We have been part of the DPF Doctor Network since 2020. We have built a reputation on this side, but with the diagnostic work and the electrical testing we do as well, we find customers are coming from a lot further afield. They have come from Manchester and even Newcastle.”
    
The business has been evolving over the years: “I always kept up with training, always tried to do better. I've moved away from mechanical. We still do it, we still look after genuine customers, doing MOTs, repairs and servicing, but that's not the focus. We do a lot of trade work as well. We are problem solvers.”
    
There is a downside though: “You also get a lot of the jobs where they've been everywhere, tried everything, spent a fortune and then you are the last stop because they're totally fed up. It's good in a sense, but sometimes it makes it hard if there's a lot of different things that have been messed about with. They’ve been to other garages and they had a lot of parts just chucked at the problem. End result; The customer has already paid out a fortune, so you need to be accurate with your diagnosis. I just want it right in the end, so I can hand it back and say ‘there you go, it’s fixed’.”

Top Garage
Beyond the technical accomplishments, A&J Fleetcare were recognised as an overall achiever as a business by being a winner in the smallest business class in Top Garage 2022. They entered first in the previous year, before going on to win. It was an experience, as Jeanette explained: “When Alan first entered us into Top Garage, it was quite daunting. I said ‘what have you done that for?’ We then made it to the semi-final, and so we entered for 2022. At the Awards Evening, when we won I told him ‘nothing will ever beat this’. We advertise that we won Top Garage 2022, and we told our regular customers and they are really proud of coming to us now, knowing that we know what we're talking about and we're winners and we're up there with the training.”
    
With Top Garage, winners are those who are running their business the right way, in terms of internal processes and customer care. Despite already having their trophy, Alan and Jeanette continue to work on their business, via advice from business mentor, Aftermarket contributor and Kalimex retained marketeer Dee Blick. Jeanette observed: “Dee has brought us a good mindset on where we want to be, how we can do that, how we can achieve things and be even better than we are now. She has helped us in a huge way behind the scenes. You know you're good at your job, but a lot of people never really sell themselves. She helps us do that.”

Next goal
Looking ahead, Alan and Jeanette are going to keep pushing to be the best. “Our next goal is to win In Top Garage 2023,” said Jeanette, “but no matter what happens, we're still going to keep moving forward with Dee for the mentoring. We are also going to keep marketing ourselves; videos on Facebook, and now we've just joined TikTok. We also want to be more on board with customers, keeping them up to date with our progress within the business where we're at Not just bring the car, fix it, we want to keep them informed of all the training, everything else like that. This is especially of regular customers, because they believe in us a lot. They keep saying, you're doing so well, you do an amazing job, and that gives us an uplift.”
    
Alan observed: “We are thinking about doing a monthly news article to customers, just to keep them updated each month.”
    
One thing they are not going to do is let success run away with them, as Alan noted: “I've always been comfortable in two bays. I've got the ambition for us to be the best, but I don't want to get too big too fast. We've always got a nice volume of work, so it's a matter of balance. Garages can have more ramps and more staff, but being bigger does not always mean you get more profit. We've always had a family orientation, so it's a case of coming out of our comfort zone to build, while also being happy with where we are at.”

Parts availability has been a concern for garages over the last three years, with the effects of pandemic lockdowns and the war in Ukraine putting major strain on supply chains worldwide. At the same time, the cost-of-living crisis has meant consumers will now see a cost saving from a recycled part as a real bonus. The growing awareness of how recycling parts has a environmental benefit too means that eBay chose the perfect moment in May to relaunch its Certified Recycled programme, which sells recycled vehicle parts from 81 certified sellers.
    
One of these is Poole-based Charles Trent. The family-run business has been operating for almost 100 years, having been founded in 1926 by the great-grandfather of current CEO Marc Trent. While they might have a lot of history behind them, as eBay UK’s Category Lead - Vehicle Parts and Accessories Laura Richards pointed out, they are looking forwards: “For these guys it is all about process. This is leading the UK, technology-wise.” A lot of it comes down to data, as the company’s Chief Operating Officer Neil Joslin observed: “We have a ton of data analysis. A large chunk of it is led by demand from customers. What we are not doing is taking every part off the car, then putting it on the shelf and letting it gather dust.”
    
As he pointed out, they tend to see two types of car: “There are vehicles at their natural end of life, and then there are insurance write-offs.” The first stage after the vehicles are brought in sees them assessed. Some will be assigned to be stripped down, others will be crushed immediately. On the insurance write-off side, some will be able to be sold on as functioning cars, while others will be set for dismantling. Before that, they are cleaned, wheels and tyres are removed and all fluids are drained, including fuel, oils and all other liquids.
    
We then moved into the first workshop, where some of the more complex vehicles that could not be run down the de-production line are stripped down. A BMW X5 was beginning its treatment when we went in, and was still being worked on when we left a couple of hours later. This was in stark contrast to the 20 minutes it takes the guys to deconstruct the vast majority of vehicles. This area included an EV bay.
    
Every vehicle is electronically tagged, and each part harvested from it is also tagged, showing where it is from. “The reason for this is for provenance” said Neil.  “The market for illegal parts is massive, and this is a way of dealing with it.” At this point, the technicians can also provide an additional level of assessment, in case a part that had been tapped for re-use turned out to be damaged. In total, the X5 had 74 parts assigned for re-use, including the seats.
    
Our next stop was the company’s recently installed de-production line. Like with a production line in a factory, cars roll down as technicians perform their various tasks as part of the larger process. The line has been running since August 2022, and is unique in the UK, with only a few equivalents overseas. “We looked at sited in France that did something similar,” noted Neil, “but they deal with far fewer cars.  We have made a number of innovations, and this one is able to process more cars. At each stop, panels and doors are removed, along with seats and interior trim. Then mechanical elements come out, followed by electronics and electricals, the engine and more are removed. Different bins receive items to be retained for reuse, and elements that are going straight in the junk. Each stop is timed, although we may have mucked up some of this when we were given the opportunity to help tear apart some of the vehicles. When the engine is removed, the whole car can be lifted on its side.
    
“It has been set up with lean processes in mind,” observed Neil. “It can never be truly lean because every car is different, but we do aim to be efficient.
    
Once off the line, mechanical dismantling begins, with items cleaned in a washing machine. Parts are then prepared to go on the shelves and are quality-checked again too.
    
“By weight, 96.3% of the car will be re-used” pointed out Neil. “Across the UK, the target set by government is 95%, but generally we have been well below this nationally.”
    
Once they are cleaned, graded for quality and prepared, the parts are boxed up and placed on the storeys-high shelving units. A tracking system makes sure the company knows what it has, and knows what it can sell on. When shipping, all packaging is both made from recycled materials, and is itself recyclable.

Panel discussion
Following the tour, a panel discussion looked at the growing trend of green parts. On the panel were Head of Automotive at eBay UK Dr. Tony Tong and Laura Richards, Marc Trent, CEO at Charles Trent, ABP Club Chief Executive David Cresswell and VRA head Chas Ambrose, VRA, with YouTube car star Johnny Smith compering.
    
Starting with why certified recycled parts are so important, Chas Ambrose offered the following observation: “Certification brings recycled parts to a new audience. The working relationship we have with eBay is a natural fit.” David Cresswell commented: “The insurers are keen on green parts not just because it is the right thing to do. By having provenance, they are guaranteeing they are looking after the policy holder, and the bodyshop knows the quality of the part that was coming in.” Laura Richards observed: “From eBay’s perspective there are two opportunities. First the value; a 70% saving on the new part. Sustainability is also a big part of it as well. The biggest problem we had the was the perception challenge.”
    
On what drives consumers towards certified green parts, Marc Trent said: “That used to be cost, but for consumers now it really is the environment, as well as the delivery and service. We welcome the regulations getting tougher. We also have to think about where car ownership sits. We worked with the VMs back in the 1990s, and I think they are re-looking at this industry now. France seems to be a big driver of this, and I think the rest of Europe will follow. Mobility is changing, and a lot of factors are affecting the vehicle.”
    
Laura concluded: “We’ve had serious supply chain issues in the last few years. The factories making pattern parts were shut down, then there were the Brexit problems. With the likes of Charles Trent, you have the parts you need on your doorstep. The more eBay can do to help, the better.”

Manufactured to the highest quality and designed to operate under the toughest conditions, Quantum Oil is suitable for 95% of all vehicles on UK roads, including electric and hybrid vehicles for a range of manufacturers.
    
The Platinum Plus 0W-20 is the most recently added oil to the suite of products available. Platinum Plus 0W-20 is a new oil designed for more modern, economical engines. With its OV 040 1547 approval, as well as Volkswagen Group Brands it can be used in various BMW, Mercedes Benz, Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo models.
    
Dave Smith, Volkswagen Aftersales Product Manager for Fluids and Lubricants, said: “The Platinum Plus 0W-20 is our most recently added oil and is an excellent addition to the Quantum range. We now have the widest range of Quantum oils ever available and with it the reassurance for customers that TPS can offer the most comprehensive set of options whatever the requirements of their vehicle fleet and servicing needs.”
    
Within the current Quantum oil range, the LongLife, Platinum, Ultra and Synta oil sub-brands all provide a choice of options suitable for both petrol and diesel cars and for vehicles with long service intervals and specific engine requirements. Products such as Longlife IV 0W-20, Platinum Plus 23 5W-30, Synta D1 5W-30 and Ultra P 0W-30, offer better or improved fuel economy and excellent wear and engine protection through the use of advanced additive technology.
    
The Quantum oils are also available in a range of pack options including 1L, 5L, 20L, 208L and bulk to support all sizes and needs of a workshop. The 5L and 20L pack sizes come in Cube form, a single-use, recyclable packaging system, offering both reduced disposal costs for customers and a reduced impact on the environment.
    
TPS also has its handy oil finder tool to help ensure that you’re using the right oil every time. By simply entering the vehicle reg at tps.trade/oil-search you’ll be given all the information you need.
  
The Quantum oils range is available from your local TPS Centre. For further information visit:tps.trade/products/oil

In less than three years, workforces all over the UK have become accustomed to a hybrid working system of both in office and from home. Going into 2020, the number of people who had worked a single day from home was only around 12%. This rose to almost half of employees during June 2020 and while there was a decrease after world events began calming down, the statistics were still higher than pre-2020. September 2022 saw 22% of employees state they partly work from home regularly.

Companies are still looking to embrace hybrid working and with more people working from home, it means less time commuting to the office. Adding this up to the problems associated with driving, such as rising petrol and diesel prices and delivery delays for new cars, many drivers won’t need or want to use their cars as much. There are plenty of options available if you are hoping to reduce your driving. In this article, we will take you through some of the best solutions to get around.

Bike and scooter hire
Many cities in the UK have started introducing new methods of getting around with bikes and scooters that you can pick up and get going on. Statistics have shown that many trips in the UK tend to be short, with 24% of trips being less than a mile and 68% of trips being less than five miles.
    
Micromobility is the idea of using smaller, lightweight vehicles for travel like bikes and scooters, and is a fantastic solution for shorter journeys. Especially if you live quite close to your place of work, shorter commutes will benefit greatly from embracing these options. Not only is it more cost-effective, but it will also mean a reduction in emissions compared to what is produced when driving, thanks to the lack of fuel required to power them. Bikes and electric scooters are common options, and there are even electric bikes in some areas. Accessibility is made easy thanks to most providers having an app that you can create an account for and rent one of the vehicles for the time or distance you need it. Once finished, you can find a designated point to leave the vehicle using the app, while some allow you to leave it parked in a safe location

Car sharing
Many companies are now introducing car-sharing schemes that act like a combination of car rental and micromobility. Apps are available for these services, so you can see the GPS location of a car on the system. Using a booking system or calling direct, you book and then use a smartcard or your phone for contactless to unlock the car without the need for keys.    
    
This is a great option for drivers who may need to make the occasional (and sometimes unavoidable) longer trip but don’t want the hassle of owning a personal car. Not having to worry about cleaning or refuelling the car, as well as long-term concerns like servicing and insuring the vehicle, means you can choose when to drive to suit your needs. Once you’re done, simply park in a designated spot for it to be used by another member of the service.

Public transport discounts
Each city and region in the UK has their own public transport systems. Some examples are regional rail systems like the Tube in London, the Tram in Manchester and the Metro in Newcastle and Gateshead. Buses are also present up and down the UK, all running until the late evening hours.

While using public transport consistently can mean you build up costs over time, there are ways you can bring these overall costs down. This can include investing a bit more at the start of the month for a season ticket that will cover your travel for the rest of that month. Similarly, you can get a bus or metro pass that you can top up with credit so you can simply swipe or tap to ride. The drive for people to use public transport more regularly has inspired government incentives to make travel more affordable. A great example is the Get Around scheme that has been introduced between January and March 2023, which offers single cap tickets of £2 for the full three months.
    
Owning a car can be incredibly useful, but the rising costs could be enough to drive motorists away from sole ownership. If you would prefer to own your own car and live close to someone else who can drive, you could look into joint insurance that allows you both to drive the vehicle. That way, you could spread the costs evenly across both drivers.

www.co-wheels.org.uk

Supply chains across the globe have been plagued by disruptions over the last several years. A global pandemic, political and economic instability, and parts shortages have run rife, grinding supply networks to a halt. Few industries have been hit harder than the automotive sector.

Retailers and distributors in the automotive aftermarket must be agile and adapt to the ever-changing conditions or risk losing business. Those who digitised and automated their supply chain operations were the most successful dealing with disruptions and maintaining smooth day-to-day operations. While recent supply chain pressures have eased, an adaptable supply chain is more critical than ever. Here are five areas where digital information can transform day-to-day operations for automotive distributors and suppliers.

Set up new items faster  
Automotive distributors need accurate and complete item data from suppliers to add new products to their assortment. With continuous new car model introductions, responding quickly is essential to fulfilling customer demand. This is where item data management solutions can help. These solutions provide distributors with the most up-to-date product data from suppliers, including information on new products, product updates, discontinued items and pricing.
    
Other distributors will use electronic data interchange (EDI) to exchange this item information. The most popular documents used for this are EDI 846 Inventory Inquiry or the EDI 832 Sales Catalog. Both allow for an easier exchange of item data between distributors and their supplier partners. Having the right item data helps distributors place accurate orders, pay invoices precisely, comply with industry regulations, and deliver current information to both their own teams and customers. In addition, item data such as digital assets, product videos and images ensure consumers can access the product information they expect.

Improve order management  
A recent study found that 43% of businesses either track orders and inventory manually or not at all. Because the automotive aftermarket industry almost relies entirely on the rapid replenishment of parts and products, this number is alarming. Manual tracking is not only time-consuming and inaccurate but costly, too.
    
Without timely order status information from suppliers, distributors can’t tell if there is a problem with an order until it is too late. As a result, they often hold more inventory than they need to prevent running out of stock. Digital supply chain management systems help automotive distributors gain confidence in what inventory is coming and when. An automated system can help distributors prioritize orders that need attention or updates and adapt for partial or late orders.
    
For example, a large auto parts retailer notices an uptick in parts requests. An automated system could source them from the closest suppliers, plan the most direct route and manage costs in the blink of an eye – far quicker than any human could.

Enhance receiving efficiency  
Receiving goods efficiently is impossible with partial or missing data. Distributors often lack a clear understanding of what goods will arrive from suppliers or when. In addition to not knowing what a shipment will include, they also don’t know when an item will not be shipped on time or back-ordered.
    
Inconsistencies in suppliers' use of EDI transactions, such as advance ship notices (ASNs), can cause receiving bottlenecks and slow inventory turnover. In addition, without critical data, distributors must hire additional staff to open boxes, count items, and redistribute products manually. A digital supply chain communication system provides distributors with the necessary data from suppliers to track and organise shipments before they arrive. This enables distributors to schedule the right amount of labour needed to receive goods and move them to the right location at the right time.

Automate invoice reconciliation  
Invoice reconciliation is a matching process between goods ordered, goods received and invoices. Simply put, it ensures you pay only for goods received and avoid paying for inaccurate, mis-keyed or even fraudulent invoices. Because the automotive aftermarket industry heavily relies on the shipping of parts, there is obviously a substantial number of transactions involved – meaning a greater chance for mistakes in the process. Despite its importance, 86% of small to medium-sized businesses manually reconcile invoices, leading to costly and time-consuming errors.
    
Automotive distributors carry tens of thousands of SKUs to meet customer needs. Because of the number of unique line items on an invoice, poor invoice processing means more errors, increased costs in addressing those errors, and lost or missing invoices hampering productivity and causing further delays. Often, documents get lost in the shuffle, which can result in paying for the wrong quantity, price or shipping costs. If reconciliation and the subsequent payment don’t happen quickly enough, the retailer can miss out on promotions and discounts for timely payments.
    
Automated invoice reconciliation reduces or eliminates the bulk of these issues. By exchanging critical data with suppliers electronically, automotive distributors can let an automated system do the heavy lifting and manage invoice reconciliation by exception.

Drive higher supplier performance  
Despite advances in supply chain management over the past several decades, many distributors still rely on gut feel to evaluate their suppliers’ performance. They often can’t track supplier performance relative to their expectations in areas like fill-rate and on-time shipments.
    
The lack of consistent measurement leads to a vicious cycle of missed expectations and friction in supplier relationships. Distributors perpetually order more inventory than they need, and suppliers continuously ship less than what was ordered.
    
If distributors aren’t measuring vendor performance and suppliers don’t understand how they’re being measured, supply chain performance will suffer. Empty shelves and missed delivery dates are nearly inevitable. Using supplier scorecards, distributors can use data rather than instinct to manage supplier performance. With this data in hand, they can understand which suppliers they should be doing more or less business with. A scorecarding effort with insightful supplier metrics can help distributors and suppliers make positive changes in their supply chain performance.
    
In the end, when distributors and their supplier partners exchange digital transactions and item data their total supply chain costs go down while inventory performance and sales go up.

 By Scott Luckett, Strategic Account Executive, SPS Commerce

 Will a £4 billion investment in the UK to build a Gigafactory help further push forward the move to EVs? 

With EV expansion dependent on electricity generation being increased and more charging infrastructure, plans to expand power production and boost green industry were announced by the government at the end of March, along with a consultation that will look at how to make the 2030 deadline to phase out internal combustion engine vehicles a reality.
Commenting on the Powering Up Britain policy paper Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps said: “Access to cheap, abundant and reliable energy provide the foundation stone of a thriving economy with our homes and businesses relying on it to deliver our future prosperity. Following our unprecedented cost of living support this Winter, which continues, this plan now sets out how we fix this problem in the long term to deliver wholesale UK electricity prices that rank amongst the cheapest in Europe, as we export our green growth expertise to the world.”

As part of its plan to make possible the phasing out of internal combustion engine vehicles, the government has opened a consultation on its Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which will see vehicle manufacturers required to sell a particular proportion of EVs up to 2030.

Transition
Commenting on the consultation, SMMT Chief Executive Mike Hawes said: “Automotive is on track to deliver zero emission motoring, so we welcome this long-awaited consultation on a watershed regulation for the UK new car and van market. We want regulation that gives consumers choice and affordability, and enables manufacturers to transition sustainably and competitively. While the proposals rightly reflect the sector’s diversity, late publication and lack of regulatory certainty make product planning near impossible, and the continued lack of clarity as to what technologies will be permitted beyond 2030 undermines attempts to secure investment.

“Measures to improve the customer charging experience are a step in the right direction, but the fact that contactless credit or debit card payments will not be available on the vast majority of public chargers is a major failing that will significantly disadvantage EV drivers. It is also disappointing that, unlike in other countries, there is no commensurate regulation to drive investment into the public network given that paucity of chargepoints remains the biggest barrier to buying an electric vehicle. Ultimately, for this mandate to be successful, infrastructure providers must now turn promises into investment and catch up with the commitments of vehicle manufacturers.”

He added: “The UK new car and van market is already moving at pace towards electrification, the result of massive investment by manufacturers and increased consumer demand. If the UK is to lead the global race to zero emission mobility, however, it must go further and faster in unlocking infrastructure investment, incentivising EV ownership and helping ensure more of these vehicles are developed and built in Britain.”

NFDA Chief Executive Sue Robinson said: “We are pleased that government has answered our calls to provide further clarity on how it plans to reach its Net-Zero targets and the ban of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, and support the transition to electric vehicles. Whilst it is positive to see government addressing key issues towards adoption, NFDA is concerned that more still needs to be done to achieve these ambitious net-zero targets, especially through further stimulating consumer demand in EVs. On the government’s commitment to invest £380.8m into charging infrastructure, Sue said: "An efficient charging infrastructure is crucial towards boosting consumer confidence and driving transport decarbonisation. NFDA will be engaging with the relevant government departments to encourage a structured approach towards improving the UK charging network”.   

Commenting on the consultation, she noted: “With growing interest and demand from motorists for Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) it is encouraging to see more focus rightly shifting towards supply, ensuring more products are entering the UK market with a ZEV mandate. “

Challenge
Andy Marchant, Traffic Expert at TomTom, said: "The government has a roadmap to achieve its goal of ending the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2030. Incentive and funding seem to help more and more people switch to electric vehicles, with over 22.6% of new registrations of electric vehicles. The challenge to accelerate EV adoption is both to put in place the infrastructure enabling optimal use of charging points, and to educate drivers to trust the technology to overcome the range anxiety with EV: integrated EV navigation systems offer connected services on the best route based on itinerary and charging stations availability, to give drivers the best possible experience.

"In addition to improved EV incentives, technology and infrastructure, smarter transport solutions are urgently needed to reduce traffic congestion in the UK. UK drivers spent 2% more time in main cities’ traffic jams last year compared to 2021. It’s clear that the sheer volume of slow-moving traffic, coupled with the UK's antiquated road infrastructure, continues to have a significant impact on transport emissions."

Fiona Howarth, CEO of Octopus Electric Vehicles, added: “The wheels for the EV revolution are firmly in motion. The ZEV mandate will set the roadmap towards 2030 zero emissions transport - cutting harmful emissions for both people and the planet. The industry needs clarity and decisive action to place the UK EV market in pole position. We need to end our reliance on imported fossil fuels as we transition to zero emission vehicles powered by homegrown green energy. The devil will be in the detail, and this is our chance to further drive down costs and encourage new models to enter the market, giving drivers access to cheaper, greener, tech on wheels transport.”

To read the government’s policy paper, visit: www.gov.uk/government/publications/powering-up-britain

If I asked the question ‘are you a good listener?’ I would imagine most of you would think that you are.
Imagine the following scenarios;
 

Cheltenham-based electric vehicle specialists Cleevely EV were the hosts for the recent unveiling of a new battery testing device being brought to the market by Maverick Diagnostics.
    
Austria-based battery diagnostic specialists AVILOO have joined forces with Maverick to bring their new Flash test to the UK, through which users can assess the condition of the battery on an EV in three minutes.  The tool assesses vehicle communication, battery controller, HV battery state, LV system and battery history, which enables it to produce a score between one and 100, rating the condition of the battery. The user can then provide the score and overall findings to customers via a report.
    
The company has developed the Flash test, building on the foundation offered by the more in-depth Premium test. This requires the car to be driven so that the battery can drain from 100% to 10%. A full state of health (SoH) result can be garnered from this. The sheer mass of data that AVILOO accrued testing thousands of EVs has enabled the company to get to the point where it can offer the faster snapshot provided by the Flash test. While the result is more comprehensive, the Premium test does takes several hours to perform, and for garages and other users that might need a more rapid picture of the condition of a battery, a speedier offering was required.
    
The Flash test comes in two parts; The Aviloo box hardware that collects the data, and the AVILOO platform, which receives it and provides the result. There is also the AVILOO app. These are the key components enabling users to perform the Flash test.
    
AVILOO Chief Technical Officer Nikolaus Mayerhoffer demonstrated live how the test is performed. To use the Flash test, the user connects the AVILOO box to the vehicle via the OBD port. Then, a flashing yellow LED light says the test is starting. The user then starts the vehicle. The LED turns green when the test is complete. The report is then created and sent to the e-mail address synced to the device.

Solution
At present, AVILOO can test around 80% of current EV and plug-in hybrid models. Explaining the company’s background, AVILOO MD Dr Marcus Berger commented: “We are based in Austria. The company was founded by my brother and our Chief Technical Officer Nikolaus Mayerhoffer. The aim was to do battery software. We have 30 employees and we believe we are market leaders on battery analytics especially with EVs. Our office is in a KIA showroom.  We can drive cars in. It us a typical start-up. The AVILOO flash test is a quick test. in three minutes, you get an assessment. The Premium test has led to the flash test.”
    
According to Marcus, the issue that the Flash test offers a solution to is very easy to grasp: “The key problem is battery life. It is familiar to anyone who has a phone. We started with the Flash test in late 2021. We are now in the UK with Maverick Diagnostics. All of our activities are being managed through Maverick.”

Solution
According to AVILOO’s Nikolaus Mayerhofer, regular battery testing is very important: “Traction batteries are chemical energy storage devices that are subject to a natural ageing process due to load and lose their storage capacity over time. Likewise, usage behaviour, such as permanent driving in the upper power range or frequent charging with high charging powers, can lead to faster battery ageing.”
    
He continued: The AVILOO Premium test was the origination of our company. This was the original idea; If you buy a used EV, you need to know the battery’s state of health. If it is not good or you can’t get the range you have not spent the money properly. If you want to swap the battery, it could cost several thousand pounds.
    
“We took this product to the market, but dealers said ‘we cannot drive the car down to 10% to test it. We need something faster’. So, we developed the Flash test. You just need to plug it in for three minutes” Because it is a rapid test, a different way of gauging the information was needed:  “Far less data is being collected, which is obvious, so you can’t do a full state of health, which is why we developed the AVILOO score, which gives you a decent idea of the battery.”
    
On how this is made possible, Nikolaus said: “Because we have all the data from the Premium test, we can take this data and use it, interlinked with the flash test. This is why it is so difficult for the competition to deliver something similar. We have collected data for thousands of different cars.” On what makes it so useful, he noted: “SoH varies at 100,000 kilometres from 98% to 68%. This is why we believe there is a huge need for a battery test. Many people do not understand this. They think, as with combustion engine vehicles, you can assess a car on age and mileage. With EVs you need to consider how it was charged.”
    
On how the different offerings are being taken up, Nikolaus said: “The Premium test is very much a consumer product. Although we have been offering it to car dealers, typically consumers are the ones buying it.” On the wider offering, taking in the Cloud platform, Nikolaus said: “Our cloud platform can be offered to workshops to find the root cause of the battery problem.” This shows where a car is being driven, and how the battery is charging or discharging, and also shows the voltage spread from the highest to the lowest.”
    
This has led to some surprising real-world results, as Nikolaus explained: “One customer came to us, with a range issue – the car had half the range it should have. He had taken his Nissan Leaf to two dealers but they could not help him. His Leaf displayed a transference state of health, but it was not the truth. We proved Nissan was completely off. Also, when he was accelerating without eco mode for 30 seconds the car would stop suddenly. To prove this is super-complicated because it takes hours to test. In this case he put the Flash test box inside the car. We then told the customer to provoke the problem. Eventually climbing a hill, we had the result. The cell voltage had dropped to 1.4V. We proved there was major damage in the battery. We could replicate the event, and we proved there was no fault code for this either. We also showed there was a safety risk and risk of fire. After six months, the driver got a replacement battery from Nissan.”

Accurate and reliable
The system is already available in Austria, Germany and across Scandinavia, and now the UK. On the team-up with AVILOO, Andy Brooke, Managing Director at Maverick Diagnostics, added: “Our partnership with AVILOO represents a game-changing opportunity for workshop owners and technicians. This is the first test of its kind. Customers can now see, in the simplest form, what condition their EV or plug-in hybrid’s battery is in. The technician can then use this accurate and reliable information to make a reliable assessment and, potentially, justify a battery replacement.”
    
Users lease the AVILOO box for the Flash test, and pricing is on a subscription model, with a range of prices based in usage. The Premium Test is available for £99.
    
For more information, visit: www.batterydiagnostics.co.uk

Reducing the environmental impact in a garage can feel like a challenging task, but there are many areas of the business where you can make a difference and your choice of cleaning wipes is one, often overlooked, area.
    
By their very nature garage workshops can be dirty and greasy environments with oils, fluids and solvents used, meaning leaks and spills are a regular occurrence.  Garages typically use single use wipes or disposable blue paper roll to mop-up such spills and to clean parts as they are disassembled, repaired and refitted.  Like the use of any disposable product, it is inherently wasteful and this practice has a significant environmental impact.

Cleaning up and the environmental impact
A study by the climate-neutral consulting firm, ClimatePartner has shown the enormous ecological footprint of disposable cleaning cloths compared to reusable textile cloths.  It compared our Mewatex wipe with a 100% cellulose paper towel and a non-woven cloth made of 70% cellulose and 30% polypropylene.
    
The study looked at water and energy consumption, as well as CO2 emissions during the manufacture and use of both types of wipes. The results showed significant differences, up to 40 times more, in the resources used to remove 1kg of dirt. Among the results it was found that the total amount of water consumed when using a 100% disposable paper towel is 188,500 litres, compared to just 4,538 litres for the reusable wipe.  The energy consumption during production was also clearly contrasting; The reusable cloth consumes nearly three times less energy than a disposable cloth with 87 kWh compared to 31 kWh for a reusable cloth. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions generated, disposable wipes cause between 2.8 and 5 times more pollution than reusable cloths: 33.3 and 61.6 kg of CO2 compared to 11.9 kg of CO2.
    
Also striking was the difference in the amount of textile needed to make the cloths. The amount of textile used in a disposable paper-based cloth is 25.5 kg compared to just 0.5 kg for a Mewa cloth that has a cleaning life of up to 50 applications. Paper roll and single use wipes aren’t really all that efficient at absorbing liquids.  Furthermore, any cleaning cloths and paper wipes soaked with oil and other industrial fluids are potentially classified as ‘absolute hazardous’ entries on the Waste Framework Directive’s List of Waste document. They therefore must be safely stored before being disposed of by an accredited hazardous wastes contractor.
    
Instead of this traditional approach, many industrial workplaces are contracting third-party suppliers to deliver high-quality re-usable wipes.  Once soiled, these products are then collected, laundered in an environmentally friendly way and returned for re-use.
    
This also eliminates the need to manage the purchase, delivery, storage and disposal of single-use materials, not to mention all the wasteful packaging these come in.  The service also removes the significant burden of hazardous waste storage and disposal from companies, reducing costs as well as mitigating potential health and safety fines.

Environmental benefits
In additional to the conservation of resources and emissions, there are other environmental benefits of using such a service. Because of their reusability, we estimate that the use of our wipes by our customers prevents thousands of tonnes of industrial waste from being created.
    
Increasingly customers, investors and employees want to do business with and work for greener companies and when two-thirds of the average company’s environmental, social, and governance footprint lies with suppliers, it makes sense to work with partners who can help you be greener.  

Running a vehicle repair business is never a simple task – all those awkward customers, and sometimes staff, not to mention your competitors around the corner, key suppliers, technical training and all the various tools and equipment needed, to mention but a few.
    
However, when all your planning and hard work come together, your business succeeds because your team work hard to ensure that you provide a great service that is valued by your customers and the final result is that you are profitable. Great job!

Key elements
What I haven’t mentioned are those key elements that are outside of your control, but which directly or indirectly impact your business. The list may be longer than you think and probably includes not just variable costs, such as when a war impacts energy costs so greatly, but closer to home in every sense of the word, are those elements where compliance is required, but that which you need to comply with are outside of your control.
    
Local planning restrictions, parking constraints or business rates are all critical and can be decided without any consultation.  Perhaps more concerningly, the UK government can implement legislation that directly impacts your business without consulting with you. The most recent example is a very detailed document that amends a whole range of legislative requirements for vehicle type approval. At this point, I imagine that your eyes are glazing over and your brain has simply asked ‘why should I worry about this?’ Let me explain, as this is critical to your ability to diagnose, service, repair or maintain your customers’ vehicles – which is rather fundamental to the success of your business model!
    
The automotive aftermarket requires access to a wide range of technical information, tools, training and spare parts, but all of this originates directly, or indirectly from the vehicle manufacturer who have their own dealer network, so are not incentivised to support competition from the independent repair sector.

Critical
A quick history lesson is needed here of why legislation is so critical for the Aftermarket. In the 1980s, it was a simple issue of interpreting the first electronic systems’ blink codes, followed in the 1990s as vehicles became more technically advanced, with the ability to access and use the data and DTCs as the basis for repair and maintenance. This had become an increasingly key issue and the legislator needed to act to ensure that effective competition was still possible. This was created as part of the European Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation (MV-BER), which provided an exemption from Competition Law requirements when main dealers had geographical monopolies when selling vehicles, but also supported competition between authorised and independent workshops. This came into force in 2002. This provided a framework that detailed what a vehicle manufacturer had to make available to independent operators (i.e. all aspects of the aftermarket – diagnostic equipment, tools, spare parts, training, technical information etc.) on a non-discriminatory basis when compared to what their main dealers could access and use. This was a good basis, but in legal terms it is based on Competition Law which was difficult to enforce if a vehicle manufacturer was deemed to be non-compliant.
    
The legislators in Brussels (the UK was still part of the EU at this time) were made aware of the difficulties of an independent workshop trying to legally challenge a vehicle manufacturer (i.e. good in principle, difficult if not impossible in practice), so decided that as this was predominately a technical issue that it should become part of the vehicle type approval requirements. This allowed a much more detailed description of how access to a wide variety of requirements must be made available to independent operators and which in turn, could be checked by the type-approval authority, both at the time a vehicle was type-approved or later if a non-compliance was raised via an aftermarket trade association. This was introduced in 2007 as part of the Euro 5 Type Approval regulation and has been significantly updated in 2018, before coming into effect from September 2020.
    
The MV-BER has also now been revised to better reflect the realities of the market and is being implemented from 1 June this year (so, as you read this, basically right now), but behind all of this legislation, Brexit has occurred.
    
Although the Department for Transport (DfT) had issued two previous consultations to which various Aftermarket associations had responded, without being informed by the DfT, these associations learned between Christmas and New Year that a new UK Regulation had been implemented that came into force at 23.00 on 31 December 2022 (effectively 1 January 2023) as part of the UK government’s overall revisions of EU legislation that will still apply in the UK. This new Regulation (2022 No. 1273) was a 141-page list of detailed amendments to various pieces of legislation that refer to vehicle Type Approval.
Serious concerns

This was designed to help tidy up the quite complicated array of vehicle type approval requirements for vehicle manufacturers. However, for the aftermarket, there are some serious concerns. These range from the deletion of important references, such as the access to repair and maintenance information (RMI), as well as the security forum which created the SERMI scheme to provide standardised accreditation for independent operators to access anti-theft related RMI from all vehicle manufacturers, to completely deleting EU secondary legislation.
    
However, although this new Regulation retains the reference to the EU type approval regulation that came into effect in September 2020 (EU 2018/858), it does not reference what has subsequently been enacted in the EU to provide the greater technical details of ‘how’ the requirements must be fulfilled (secondary legislation), only the what’. In other words, the retained UK type approval regulation uses expressions such as “Manufacturers' obligations to provide vehicle OBD information and vehicle repair and maintenance information,”  but without stating the process, costs, conditions or the detailed content of how this will be done.
    
As another example, the legislation states: “Manufacturers shall also make training material available to independent operators and authorised dealers and repairers,” but again, not the details of how this would be done, so when trying to book onto a vehicle manufacturer’s training course perhaps no places exist for 12 months or more for independent repairers.
    
Equally, the UK government has not provided any indication of what they may be considering to provide this further technical detail – and without this, independent operators will be increasingly controlled by what a vehicle manufacturer chooses to impose, ultimately restricting independence and competitiveness. Against the background of other Type Approval requirements for vehicle cybersecurity, embedded applications for diagnostics or prognostics for bespoke service and maintenance requirements (which are fully controlled by the vehicle manufacturers), the UK government needs to wake up and smell the coffee and listen to the needs of the UK aftermarket to ensure consumer choice for competitive vehicle repair and maintenance services are covered by detailed secondary legislation.
                     
xenconsultancy.com

What if motorways were converted into Digital Roads so you could predict any potential issues for your trip? Could these hinder drivers as much as they help? In this article, we will examine what a Digital Road actually entails, including the potential positives and negatives that come with adding technology to roads.

Technology is becoming a big talking point when buying a car. This ranges from parking assistance that helps guide the car into a space to new plug-in hybrid technologies that many cars such as used Mazda CX-5 have. But are these digital evolutions only happening to our vehicles, or are we seeing improvements being made to roads and motorways too? The concept of Digital Roads comes courtesy of National Highways, formerly known as Highways England. To improve the efficiency of journeys on the motorway, they are looking to introduce technology that provides drivers with the most up-to-date information possible.

The major step to achieve this is moving all their data onto cloud servers. Centralising this to a more accessible platform will aid data collection. Making the input of data a simpler process means that the information that is output to drivers and motorists will improve. This is a plan that has the target of keeping innovations operational with their own informational webpage and plans for 2025.
Adding this new technology means that National Highways will be able to share accurate updates on their plans for maintenance of the roads, delays, and other congestions with motorists. As well as information that can be constantly updated, this new system will utilise artificial intelligence to forecast potential issues and conditions around a full day in advance.

How would this benefit drivers & motorways?
National Highways is building their vision for Digital Roads around three core themes; Design and construction, digital operations, and digital for customers. All three centre around streamlining the efficiency of motorway use in the UK through the application of technology.

Implementing digital design into road maintenance and construction means you can optimise how the work will be conducted through the design before it even begins. Having the ability to see a digital visual of what work needs to be done can ensure designs are correct from the start, reducing the need for changes or amendments down the line. They can also visualise any safety concerns for the workers on the site. Control room operators will also benefit from digital innovations on motorways. Giving them better tools to detect and respond to road incidents in order to avoid further danger or congestion will result in smoother traffic flow and lower carbon emissions.

Potential detriments
With all these points proposing positive changes that could happen with the introduction of digital roads, are there any worries that could come with it? In short, yes. It is unclear how the public will respond to frequent updates. Though with these new systems you’ll be able to see what incidents occur on the road or the congestion caused by traffic, this may cause more build-ups of people trying to outwit the traffic. Giving all motorists the option to observe updates about the motorway means it could cause further problems with people trying to get around them.

Data management could also be an issue. Data protection is something we can never take for granted, even with social networks such as Facebook that we trust to protect what we share. On top of that, combining digital data processes of recording trends with how it’s inputted by humans means there are bound to be problems along the way.

Introducing Digital Roads could completely reinvent the way we approach motorway travel. Technological advancements could mean a reduction in congestion due to traffic and road maintenance thanks to pre-visualisation using artificial intelligence and 3D models to see what needs to be done. This can help motorists and keep workers safe, so there is no danger of injury when working on the road builds. Problems will arise from moving to a digital approach to motorways, however, digital technology will contribute hugely to how long trips are taken.

With EV expansion dependent on electricity generation being increased and more charging infrastructure, plans to expand power production and boost green industry were announced by the government at the end of March, along with a consultation that will look at how to make the 2030 deadline to phase out internal combustion engine vehicles a reality.
Commenting on the Powering Up Britain policy paper Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps said: “Access to cheap, abundant and reliable energy provide the foundation stone of a thriving economy with our homes and businesses relying on it to deliver our future prosperity. Following our unprecedented cost of living support this Winter, which continues, this plan now sets out how we fix this problem in the long term to deliver wholesale UK electricity prices that rank amongst the cheapest in Europe, as we export our green growth expertise to the world.”

As part of its plan to make possible the phasing out of internal combustion engine vehicles, the government has opened a consultation on its Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which will see vehicle manufacturers required to sell a particular proportion of EVs up to 2030.

Transition
Commenting on the consultation, SMMT Chief Executive Mike Hawes said: “Automotive is on track to deliver zero emission motoring, so we welcome this long-awaited consultation on a watershed regulation for the UK new car and van market. We want regulation that gives consumers choice and affordability, and enables manufacturers to transition sustainably and competitively. While the proposals rightly reflect the sector’s diversity, late publication and lack of regulatory certainty make product planning near impossible, and the continued lack of clarity as to what technologies will be permitted beyond 2030 undermines attempts to secure investment.

“Measures to improve the customer charging experience are a step in the right direction, but the fact that contactless credit or debit card payments will not be available on the vast majority of public chargers is a major failing that will significantly disadvantage EV drivers. It is also disappointing that, unlike in other countries, there is no commensurate regulation to drive investment into the public network given that paucity of chargepoints remains the biggest barrier to buying an electric vehicle. Ultimately, for this mandate to be successful, infrastructure providers must now turn promises into investment and catch up with the commitments of vehicle manufacturers.”

He added: “The UK new car and van market is already moving at pace towards electrification, the result of massive investment by manufacturers and increased consumer demand. If the UK is to lead the global race to zero emission mobility, however, it must go further and faster in unlocking infrastructure investment, incentivising EV ownership and helping ensure more of these vehicles are developed and built in Britain.”

NFDA Chief Executive Sue Robinson said: “We are pleased that government has answered our calls to provide further clarity on how it plans to reach its Net-Zero targets and the ban of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, and support the transition to electric vehicles. Whilst it is positive to see government addressing key issues towards adoption, NFDA is concerned that more still needs to be done to achieve these ambitious net-zero targets, especially through further stimulating consumer demand in EVs. On the government’s commitment to invest £380.8m into charging infrastructure, Sue said: "An efficient charging infrastructure is crucial towards boosting consumer confidence and driving transport decarbonisation. NFDA will be engaging with the relevant government departments to encourage a structured approach towards improving the UK charging network”.   

Commenting on the consultation, she noted: “With growing interest and demand from motorists for Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) it is encouraging to see more focus rightly shifting towards supply, ensuring more products are entering the UK market with a ZEV mandate. “

Challenge
Andy Marchant, Traffic Expert at TomTom, said: "The government has a roadmap to achieve its goal of ending the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2030. Incentive and funding seem to help more and more people switch to electric vehicles, with over 22.6% of new registrations of electric vehicles. The challenge to accelerate EV adoption is both to put in place the infrastructure enabling optimal use of charging points, and to educate drivers to trust the technology to overcome the range anxiety with EV: integrated EV navigation systems offer connected services on the best route based on itinerary and charging stations availability, to give drivers the best possible experience.

"In addition to improved EV incentives, technology and infrastructure, smarter transport solutions are urgently needed to reduce traffic congestion in the UK. UK drivers spent 2% more time in main cities’ traffic jams last year compared to 2021. It’s clear that the sheer volume of slow-moving traffic, coupled with the UK's antiquated road infrastructure, continues to have a significant impact on transport emissions."

Fiona Howarth, CEO of Octopus Electric Vehicles, added: “The wheels for the EV revolution are firmly in motion. The ZEV mandate will set the roadmap towards 2030 zero emissions transport - cutting harmful emissions for both people and the planet. The industry needs clarity and decisive action to place the UK EV market in pole position. We need to end our reliance on imported fossil fuels as we transition to zero emission vehicles powered by homegrown green energy. The devil will be in the detail, and this is our chance to further drive down costs and encourage new models to enter the market, giving drivers access to cheaper, greener, tech on wheels transport.”

To read the government’s policy paper, visit: www.gov.uk/government/publications/powering-up-britain

Since 2019, MAM Software, the company behind the Autowork Online GMS, has been under the Kerridge Commercial Systems (KCS) umbrella, joining a host of companies worldwide that provide automated systems to businesses across the distribution, automotive and retail spheres.
    
To keep in touch with their clients, and to discuss new products and systems it is launching, the company holds a number of Konnect Customer Conferences around the globe. Other recent events took place in South Africa and Ireland. On 2 March, the company held its fifth and largest ever UK event in Stratford-upon-Avon, with 300 delegates drawn from across the UK customer base.

Digitisation, profitability and sustainability
With the entire UK management team on-hand, plus many members of the rest of the organisation, the event was kicked off via an opening address from James Mitchell, Managing Director (Distribution and Automotive), UK & Ireland, Kerridge Commercial Systems said: “We are doing these events to keep a continuity in our world. We have grown through organic growth and merger and acquisition. We are close to 1,200 people now. At the end of the day we are an R&D organisation. We do this in-house. We have six different offices in the UK and Ireland. We have different skill sets in each office through mergers and acquisitions.”
    
He continued, covering the theme for the two-day event: “In the dark days of COVID -19, there was a great conference online about sustainability. The speaker was Lord Denham. He produced a phrase that really resonated with us: ’Sustainability and profitability go hand in hand.’ We took that one step further and we believe digitisation, sustainability and profitability go hand in hand. We have been digitising businesses for years. It is not just about freeing up resources; It is really to make a business more efficient and more profitable. Our biggest bang for our buck is taking 31,000 customers globally and giving them the option to go paperless. Small changes make a big difference. It is a big elephant to eat, but we have to do our bit. IT has a very large part to play in that.”
    
James added: “Digitisation is not scary. We are accelerating quite fast now. We have to think about profitability and sustainability in the same way. We feel we are in the middle to help you with this.”

Cloud and cybersecurity
Next on was Neil Abraham, Director of Cloud and IT Operations, who went on to discuss the benefits of moving on from running an on-premises server to using the cloud. K-Cloud, the cloud-based services delivered by KCS, currently serves 7,000 customers worldwide. On the environmental benefits, he noted: “We are taking hundreds of servers and putting them on less servers, in data centres.”
    
He was followed by Martin Turbitt, Chief Information Security Officer, who covered cybersecurity: “The market around cybersecurity is worth £200m, and there are lots of threats. How do you go about dealing with it? It is all about risk, understanding the risk profile, and building up. It comes down to risk management. Ultimately, my job is to reduce the risks within the business. 40% of the threats out there are from supply chain attacks.”

Insights and support
Looking at their products and where it will take their customers, President of R&D David Liddle said: “A lot has happened in the last 3-4 years, since we last held an event like this. Since lockdown, we have learned a lot about how we work with you, and how we build our software. We are growing around 12% organically, which is the people we take on via acquisitions.”  Looking at the automotive side, he discussed how affordable handheld devices have become: “You can pick up an Android device for £100, as opposed to £2,000 for a ruggedised device. He was then joined on stage by Coenette Bosman, Global Product and Delivery Director, who discussed the company’s approach to research and development investment.
    
Moving onto customer support, Chief Support Officer Chris Owen was next up, and declared: “We are here to help you – we are the problem solvers.”  He then brought on Martin Searle, Service Delivery Director, who talked about growing the team, which has seen a 7% increase in the last 12 months. He explained the learning pathway for those who join, taking in faster onboarding, specialist training and continuous knowledge growth. Ken Hughes, Service Delivery Director, then talked about the investment in tooling being made to enhance service levels. James Maggs, Global Customer Success Director, then covered the process from the customer’s perspective: “Customer-centric processes mean different things. Some examples of what we do include a standard customer onboarding process, understanding our customer health, complete 360° view of our customer, customer retention and value.” He added: “In customer success, we are looking at the customer as a whole.”
    
Following that Jason Bradshaw and Harry Eride from Phocas Software explained how they help businesses with operational and financial analysis, financial management reporting, and Budgeting and Forecasting process. Jason observed: “Phocas help you be pro-active instead of reactive in the business.” Over 250 KCS customers using Phocas, which is integrated into many systems including MAM Autopart. “Phocas is a tool for the everyday user” Jason added.
    
Filum Ho, CEO at Apollo came on next to cover robotic process automation (RPA), and how this can help businesses: “RPA is the use of computer software for repetitive tasks. It takes the stuff you guys are doing every single day, and automates it. It is computer coded, replaces humans and is cross-functional, but is not walking talking robots, machines or AI or voice recognition and reply software.  It is super important you guys embrace it if you want to drive efficiency in your business. It is the fastest growing part of enterprise software. If you don’t use it, your organisation will be the poorer for it. Automation is a technology megatrend. If a human can do it, it has uniform inputs, automation can do it.”

Mental toughness
The keynote speaker for the afternoon was TV presenter and former rally driver Penny Mallory, who was there to discuss mental toughness: “It is something that is relevant to every single one of us. The weird tough times are not over yet, don’t think things are going to get easier any time soon.” The difference between those who succeed and those who fail is that they have developed their mental toughness.”
    
The event then closed with an update on the Konnect Online Integration Platform, led by David Liddle and Coenette Bosman, who returned to the stage. David added: “We are in the process of developing an integration platform to create a collection of reusable services that can be used as the building blocks for future as well as existing applications."

Nestled in the heart of the village of Billingborough in Lincolnshire, you will find Billingborough Cars and Commercials. “We're an old school garage with a modern twist,” explained Russ Houlden, Owner-Manager and grandson of the founder.
    
He continued: “Our workshops are dirty; Our techs still wear overalls and we're still willing to do engine rebuilds. We're prepared to do the big dirty jobs that other people don't want to do. We're happy to do the bigger jobs, but we are also capable of doing the smaller jobs. We do pretty much everything with wheels. We've got a customer with a mobility scooter. We also do lorries, six wheelers. We do American cars. We've been known to do restorations. There's nothing we don't touch, basically.”
    
As well as serving Billingborough itself, the customer base extends to a number of nearby villages. With five techs, the garage has three car ramps, one MOT bay and two lorry pits. “The workshop is, generally speaking, always busy,” explained Russ. “The majority of our customers are local people. Fortunately for us, Billingborough is bang in the middle of quite a lot of villages. We also have customers coming from quite a wide area to us, mainly based on our reputation.”
    
Unsurprisingly for a garage serving a rural area, the business began leaning on the agricultural side, opening in 1968 as Billingborough Tractors and Commercials. “My maternal grandfather, Gordon, started it with his business partner, eventually buying him out. The garage was based on the high street in Billingborough at the time. My grandfather then managed to find some land next to the school, and it grew bigger from there. We amalgamated the truck and car side on the site we're on now, and a lot of houses have been built around us since we have been here.”
    
They seemed to keep recruitment close to home: “My dad joined as a technician. He had been working as a roofer, but he had a fall and injured his back. He could already do the mechanics, so my grandad said ‘come to work in the garage until you are better’, and he never left. Then my mother joined to do the financial side, and she never left. I came in about eight years ago. They said, ‘Russ, do you want to answer the phone during the holidays?’ I haven’t left either. There's a recurring theme of asking family members to help and then them just not leaving.”

Sensible
Since discovering escape is impossible, Russ has found himself leading the team, and has been looking to push the garage in the right direction where it is needed: “I inherited this place along with its older garage attitude of ‘it works so we won't change it’. Training has been a fairly new experience for some of the techs that we've got here, but, it's something I'm very keen on. While there are only two EVs in the village that we know about, and we don’t see them yet, we've already got people EV trained and ready to go. Everyone is trained on the diagnostic equipment, and we can do most cars, but we're sensible with the stuff we do take on. For example, we know not to take on a Peugeot with the 1.6 engine because it's going to be a right pain. We're aware of the stuff that we shouldn't be touching. It's come from years of experience. We’re honest with our customers enough to say ‘we can fix your key - it will take us 10 hours, but you can go to a key man who can do it in 10 minutes’. It's a trust thing.”

Top Garage
The garage was a winner in Top Garage 2022 in the 4-6 staff members category. Commenting on his experiences in the competition, Russ observed: “I'll be honest with you, I never expected to get as far as we did. I entered it with the thought of, wherever I stumble, that will be where I need to improve. So, I was going into it expecting not to win, I was expecting just to enter it, find where we're going wrong and then move forward. And we obviously kept getting through and I was thinking, I don't know what's going on, I don't know what's happening with just a little garage from Billingborough in Lincolnshire, in the county that no one really thinks about. And I looked at other garages that were in it and I thought we've got no chance. We showed up to the final, and I did the interview with the judges, and I remember walking out to my sister who drove me, and I was like, we've not won it. The first interview question they gave me was, ‘what would it mean to you if you won Top Garage?’ I said, ‘it wouldn't mean anything’. They were surprised by this. Then I explained that getting to the final is already justification enough that we're doing the right things. It's already proved to our customers that we're one of the best in the country. I can already say to the blokes, everything that we're doing is sending us in the right direction. If we win it, it's just the cherry on the top of the cake. I was very shocked when we were named. My sister screamed like a banshee, like I've never heard before. Genuinely, neither of us expected it. The ironic thing for us, for both me and my sister, was that the day of the final and the Awards Evening was the anniversary of our dad passing away, like everything coming full circle.”
    
He continued: “We are entering it again this year. Since winning, we've hired an apprentice, which will put us into the 7-9 category for 2023’s Top Garage contest. There have been a number of other changes too, including new tyre machines, new pit jacks, more analysis, better KPIs, new CCTV, a clearer plan, an organisational chart, more defined job roles, cashflow improvements, various training days, a new website, increased social media activity, cultural development, and that’s just the start. We encourage all the techs to enter Top technician, and get our Service Advisor into Service Advisor of the year. Then hopefully we can get a clean sweep. We're hoping to make it a double or even a triple, but you never know, do you?”

Processes and systems
On what comes next for the garage, Russ added: “We've already started doing a few different things here. It's only been fairly recently that we've gone to online job cards and paperless diaries. The tidying up of the yard and the workshop and everything is another big one for us, making more space.
    
“We tend to focus in on one thing and then push that. We've done equipment, culture, organisation. We are currently on processes and systems. There will be more training, hopefully a new roof with the possibility of solar panels, further cashflow developments, workflow analysis and KPI improvements. For our customers, we are looking to ease the experience using video technology and email reports. For the front-of-house we are hoping for payment from an email link, with training for FOH too. Basically, we are developing the business side for this first quarter. Then we'll go from there.”

 By Julien Deconinck, Managing Director of DAI Magister

Garages can be noisy places. The sound of engines, tools, and people working can be deafening at times, and the noise can cause hearing damage if you are not careful, especially for those working long hours in the workshop. Here are some noise cancellation tips to help reduce the effects of workshop noise and create a healthier environment for you, your team, and your customers.
    
Foam panels are a great way to reduce the overall noise in an auto shop. Foam panels absorb the sound and can help keep the noise levels down significantly. You can find a reputable business to install foam panels along shop walls where possible – the more locations you can install them, the more sound they will absorb. Foam panels are also an excellent option for your reception to minimise the noise that travels from the workshop and ensure you can clearly communicate with customers. You can find foam panels that look nice, much like decor, to add to the aesthetic of your customer waiting area.

Stand on rubberised flooring
Another way to reduce noise in an auto shop is to ensure your workers stand on rubberised flooring. Rubber flooring material helps deaden the sound of your footsteps and reduces the overall noise level in the shop. While it might not be possible to install wall-to-wall rubber floors, you can use rubber floor mats at service stations to reduce the sound. Rubber mats also add more cushion beneath your workers to soften the weight they put on their joints, especially when standing for long hours.

Use noise canceling headphones or earplugs
If you are working in an garage for long periods, consider investing in noise-cancellation devices, like headphones or earplugs. Noise cancellation devices allow you to hear any important announcements or questions but noticeably reduce the overall noise level.  Noise-canceling headphones can also help reduce distractions and allow you to focus more on your work. Plus, who doesn't love getting to listen to music while you work? Some headphones can hook up to phones or other devices via Bluetooth to add an element of entertainment to the sound reduction.

Upgrade old windows
Want to minimise the effects of auto shop noise for your workers? Upgrade the windows. Windows that are old or not properly installed can let additional noise in that adds to the cacophony of sounds. Replacing the windows with double-paned, soundproof windows can help reduce the amount of noise that comes into the garage.
    
You may also want to consider adding soft textiles window treatments like curtains to absorb even more sound. Upgrading your windows can be an expensive task, but it's a worthwhile investment for your shop and employees. If you can afford the new windows, you'll notice a big improvement in sound.

Apply soundproof blankets
Soundproof blankets are a great way to help reduce the noise in an auto shop. You can hang them on walls or doors to help absorb sound and keep it from bouncing around the room. Soundproof blankets come in many sizes, so you can find ones that fit your needs and budget.
    
Soundproof blankets are also a good option for covering up tools or other equipment (as long as it's safe) that create a lot of noise. By covering the tool, you can help muffle the sound it makes and make it more bearable for those working nearby.

Require protection for certain tools
Some tools in garages can create a lot of noise, even when they are being used correctly. To help reduce the noise levels in your workshop, you may want to require that workers use hearing protection when using certain tools. Designated hearing protection tools could include earplugs or earmuffs that fit over the ears.
    
Hearing protection is crucial for all workers, but it is especially important for those that are going to be using noisy tools for many hours. By requiring hearing protection, you can help reduce the overall noise in your workshop and protect the hearing of your staff. While you might not want to be the enforcer of such new policies, explaining to your team that it's for their benefit to protect their health will help your employees implement these changes seamlessly. Most workers will recognise the true intention of the new rules and adhere to the guidelines not only to obey their employer but also because they want to protect their hearing for the long term.

Use a decibel meter to measure damaging noise
Noise levels in a garage can vary depending on what is going on. To get an accurate measurement of the noise levels, you'll need to use a decibel meter. A decibel meter measures the sound pressure level and can tell you how loud the noise is.  You can use a decibel meter to find out if the noise levels in your workshop are too high and if so, take steps to reduce the noise. Many decibel meters come with a ‘hold’ function that allows you to get an accurate reading even if the noise level fluctuates.
    
Noise levels in an garage should be kept below 80-85 decibels (dB) to protect workers' hearing. If the noise level is consistently above 85 decibels, you'll need to take steps to reduce it. In the U.S.A, the CDC has reported that any noise over 70 dB over a long time can create hearing damage, but some tools and machines used in garages are naturally louder than that. Noises over 120 dB can cause immediate harm, so use your decibel meter to ensure nothing reaches that point.

Final thoughts: Keeping quiet for hearing health
There are several ways to reduce the noise in a garage. By taking some noise cancellation steps like the ones listed here, you can make a big difference in the noise level and create a more pleasant working environment for your team. You'll also protect their hearing health long-term, which they'll be grateful for.
    
For more information, visit: www.plant-tours.com

Garages can be noisy places. The sound of engines, tools, and people working can be deafening at times, and the noise can cause hearing damage if you are not careful, especially for those working long hours in the workshop. Here are some noise cancellation tips to help reduce the effects of workshop noise and create a healthier environment for you, your team, and your customers.
    
Foam panels are a great way to reduce the overall noise in an auto shop. Foam panels absorb the sound and can help keep the noise levels down significantly. You can find a reputable business to install foam panels along shop walls where possible – the more locations you can install them, the more sound they will absorb. Foam panels are also an excellent option for your reception to minimise the noise that travels from the workshop and ensure you can clearly communicate with customers. You can find foam panels that look nice, much like decor, to add to the aesthetic of your customer waiting area.

Stand on rubberised flooring
Another way to reduce noise in an auto shop is to ensure your workers stand on rubberised flooring. Rubber flooring material helps deaden the sound of your footsteps and reduces the overall noise level in the shop. While it might not be possible to install wall-to-wall rubber floors, you can use rubber floor mats at service stations to reduce the sound. Rubber mats also add more cushion beneath your workers to soften the weight they put on their joints, especially when standing for long hours.

Use noise canceling headphones or earplugs
If you are working in an garage for long periods, consider investing in noise-cancellation devices, like headphones or earplugs. Noise cancellation devices allow you to hear any important announcements or questions but noticeably reduce the overall noise level.  Noise-canceling headphones can also help reduce distractions and allow you to focus more on your work. Plus, who doesn't love getting to listen to music while you work? Some headphones can hook up to phones or other devices via Bluetooth to add an element of entertainment to the sound reduction.

Upgrade old windows
Want to minimise the effects of auto shop noise for your workers? Upgrade the windows. Windows that are old or not properly installed can let additional noise in that adds to the cacophony of sounds. Replacing the windows with double-paned, soundproof windows can help reduce the amount of noise that comes into the garage.
    
You may also want to consider adding soft textiles window treatments like curtains to absorb even more sound. Upgrading your windows can be an expensive task, but it's a worthwhile investment for your shop and employees. If you can afford the new windows, you'll notice a big improvement in sound.

Apply soundproof blankets
Soundproof blankets are a great way to help reduce the noise in an auto shop. You can hang them on walls or doors to help absorb sound and keep it from bouncing around the room. Soundproof blankets come in many sizes, so you can find ones that fit your needs and budget.
    
Soundproof blankets are also a good option for covering up tools or other equipment (as long as it's safe) that create a lot of noise. By covering the tool, you can help muffle the sound it makes and make it more bearable for those working nearby.

Require protection for certain tools
Some tools in garages can create a lot of noise, even when they are being used correctly. To help reduce the noise levels in your workshop, you may want to require that workers use hearing protection when using certain tools. Designated hearing protection tools could include earplugs or earmuffs that fit over the ears.
    
Hearing protection is crucial for all workers, but it is especially important for those that are going to be using noisy tools for many hours. By requiring hearing protection, you can help reduce the overall noise in your workshop and protect the hearing of your staff. While you might not want to be the enforcer of such new policies, explaining to your team that it's for their benefit to protect their health will help your employees implement these changes seamlessly. Most workers will recognise the true intention of the new rules and adhere to the guidelines not only to obey their employer but also because they want to protect their hearing for the long term.

Use a decibel meter to measure damaging noise
Noise levels in a garage can vary depending on what is going on. To get an accurate measurement of the noise levels, you'll need to use a decibel meter. A decibel meter measures the sound pressure level and can tell you how loud the noise is.  You can use a decibel meter to find out if the noise levels in your workshop are too high and if so, take steps to reduce the noise. Many decibel meters come with a ‘hold’ function that allows you to get an accurate reading even if the noise level fluctuates.
    
Noise levels in an garage should be kept below 80-85 decibels (dB) to protect workers' hearing. If the noise level is consistently above 85 decibels, you'll need to take steps to reduce it. In the U.S.A, the CDC has reported that any noise over 70 dB over a long time can create hearing damage, but some tools and machines used in garages are naturally louder than that. Noises over 120 dB can cause immediate harm, so use your decibel meter to ensure nothing reaches that point.

Final thoughts: Keeping quiet for hearing health
There are several ways to reduce the noise in a garage. By taking some noise cancellation steps like the ones listed here, you can make a big difference in the noise level and create a more pleasant working environment for your team. You'll also protect their hearing health long-term, which they'll be grateful for.
    
For more information, visit: www.plant-tours.com

In 2021, London won the unenviable reputation of being the most congested city in the world. As things stand drivers populating the roads of our capital can expect to waste 148 hours at the wheel on average due to blocked-up traffic jams. Not only does this consume motorists’ precious time, but long vehicle queues don’t do the environment any favours either. Mindful of the negative effects of traffic pollution, ministers have plans to decrease these figures in the (not so) long run.
    
In the meantime, more and more people are opting for different ways to get around. Motorists are starting to realise, in fact, that they do not need to own a car to comfortably move from A to B. Leasing vehicles, for instance, is one of the most prominent alternatives, offering drivers an array of general and eco-friendly benefits. Here, we delve into the rising popularity of hiring your own car or van, while outlining what actions are being taken to shrink the number of private vehicles.
    
Rates of car ownership in London are significantly lower than in the rest of the UK. In the capital, each household owns an average of 0.74 cars. Meanwhile, households in the South East and South West regions of the country possess 1.41 and 1.39 vehicles respectively. Still, Londoners – as well as drivers in large cities across Britain – are being incentivised to limit their car journeys or refrain from buying new vehicles altogether.
    
The implementation of Ultra Low Emission Zones (ULEZ) is contributing to the mission. First launched in London in April 2019, and now extended to populous centres in the UK, ULEZ are areas within cities where residents are required to abide by certain emission standards. Only electric and hybrid vehicles, as well as ones that satisfy Euro 5 (petrol) and Euro 6 (diesel) standards, are allowed to circulate in these zones for free.
    
If drivers want to journey through ULEZ with a car that fails to meet these requirements, they have to pay a daily charge of £12.50. For regular commuters, this can soon become a hefty expense. A solution would be to buy an electric car, but there is no hiding that this would be a costly purchase. Leasing an EV, instead, would allow drivers to circulate inside city centres in a sustainable and affordable way without breaking the bank. Hence, it is fair to say that it is an effective green measure to discourage people from purchasing and relying on their own private cars.
    
Additionally, London mayor Sadiq Khan has unveiled plans to introduce smart road pricing. This means that, from 2024, motorists across the whole of London may be charged every time they jump behind the wheel of their own vehicle. The aim is to minimise carbon emissions and enhance air quality, spurring residents to travel from A to B in more sustainable ways. In this respect, more than one-third of car journeys in London could be walked in less than 25 minutes, and two-thirds could be cycled in under 20 minutes.
What’s more, ministers hope to favour lower private car ownership figures by pushing for more public transport all over the country. The government has set aside £5 billion to fund and level up local transport connections across the UK, which can play a significant role in helping Britain achieve its net-zero target by 2050. By investing in efficient public transportation while also supporting ride-sharing platforms and e-scooter services, there is a good chance that pollution levels will gradually drop.  

Leasing: an alternative solution
For those who like the freedom and comfort of driving a vehicle, what is the best and most popular option? Car and van leasing represents a great way for drivers to get around city roads in a more strategic and sustainable fashion. Leasing benefits do not end here. How can it aid workers and commuters with their day-to-day travels? One of the main advantages of leasing a vehicle is that you have the opportunity to choose the model that best suits your needs. Do you require a spacious van? Do you care about the well-being of our environment? Electric vehicles can be a pricey investment if you decide to buy one from the outset. Instead, leasing an EV is an affordable alternative that allows you to hit the streets without having to splash out a considerable amount of money.
    
Another factor that makes car and van leasing an appealing option is that you do not have to commit to a specific vehicle for years and years. Has a greener, more sustainable vehicle made its debut on the market? You can hand back your old  model and get behind the wheel of a more appropriate alternative. Hence, leasing offers motorists the opportunity to stay on top of attractive updates. Likewise, if you have reached a stage in which you do not require a vehicle to cater for your business or personal commutes, you do not have to keep a dormant automobile on your driveway. Return the car or van keys, reduce the number of vehicles on the street, and start travelling by bike, by foot, or on public transport.
    
With specific measures in place, as well as sustainable plans in the pipeline, the future of private car ownership doesn’t seem too bright. In fact, additional commuting fees and increased funding for public transport are favouring more eco-friendly ways of roaming around the roads of British towns and cities. For those who require a vehicle to carry out their daily duties, however, car and van leasing is becoming a handy, popular solution. From shorter commitments to more affordable and sustainable options, leasing is an appealing alternative that ticks all the right boxes.
    
For more information, visit: https://used.vanninja.co.uk

More often than not within the pages of Aftermarket, we will refer to the fact that the internal make-up of vehicles has changed greatly in recent years, and that the shift towards electrification is accelerating the process further. No one knows this more than companies making parts, be they OE, Tier One or going straight into the aftermarket.
    
Wanting to show the world more about the work that go into producing the EGR valves, air mass meters, exhaust pressure sensors and many other parts that they make, SMP Europe recently invited the press to take a peek inside their UK engineering centre in Nottinghamshire in order to shed some light on how their products go from an idea to being a physical item in the hand. With manufacturing taking place both at home and in Torun, Poland, the primary purpose for touring the UK site was to find out how the team take products from idea to prototype at as rapid a pace as is practical, get them tested and then get them into full production.
    
The company chose a good time to open the doors too, particularly when looking towards the EV side. With electric cars of all types becoming more common, garages are starting to think about the need to get parts, and realising that it is not easy. SMP Europe are already thinking in this direction, and they have even put in an EV garage on site for testing on the vehicle itself, but we are getting ahead of ourselves here. We will come to that later.

Tour
The tour began in the engineering department, where the various parts are designed, taking in the reality of the hardware itself – the key physical elements, and the firmware side, which many people would refer to as software. With many ideas on parts that could be produced by the company coming from the sales team that is out talking to the factors and garages, the first step is putting together the building blocks. Once the team have decided that a product will be both viable and profitable, they embark on their work towards producing a part. The part itself is designed just a desk away from where the firmware is written from scratch to do the job it needs to do. To enable this to happen, production designers and mechanical engineering designers sit side-by-side. On one side of the room, you have programming and circuits being designed, then on the other you have the casings being put together in CAD programmes where potential parts can be visualised and designed in 3D.
    
With just a connecting door to traverse, our next stop took us through to a clean workshop, where thanks to investment in 3D printing, the team are able to swiftly move from the design stage to a point where they can have an early prototype in their hands, which they can then begin to perform physical tests on, to see if what they have come up with is viable. From here we moved onto the machine room where circuit boards drawn by the human staff just a few metres away can be constructed by robots, and then finished via drying in a 12-stage oven. We then stepped through to the Validation Test Laboratory. “This is one of the most important areas in the factory,” said Engineering Manager John Wass, as it is where the team find out if what they are making actually works. This includes three thermal cycle ovens where products can be put through the stresses that both very low and very high temperatures will inflict. If that’s not tough enough, there is also a thermal shock chamber, and a pair of hot soak ovens a salt spray machine and an electromagnetic test unit, built especially for the company.
    
One of the last parts of the process is on-vehicle testing, and with this in mind we found ourselves in the on-site garage. The area is split between an internal combustion engine vehicle section and an EV area and even has a jukebox sourced from the local pub so the team have music while they work. Here they are able to try the parts in a real-world setting, with real-world stresses and strains as the parts would experience on the vehicle. Once a part has survived and successfully passed the prototype phase, they will ultimately end up in production, and eventually in real garages, with real mechanics.  Once a part works, it can be put into production, and on the factory floor, parts are constructed, with many, such as air mass meters each being set, one-by-one. “Individual calibration is the only way,” John pointed out. “We have tried to find a way to set them all en masse, but there is no way of doing it.” Remember that when you order one in.

Electrification
This is a tried-and-tested process that works well for the company, which in the last year alone has introduced a host of parts including ignition leads, NOx sensors, fuel vapour valves (FVVs) and much more. However, the company was keen to share its move towards providing EV parts for its customers.
    
It’s not an easy jump though. As SMP Europe Marketing Director Martin Turner observed, while they can get a product for an internal combustion engine vehicle from idea to production in around six to 12 months, with EV parts the situation is not quite the same: “At the moment, it is relatively early days. From an R&D side, we need more information on what components are failing.”  As well as identifying parts that may need to be produced by SMP Europe, the team is working with experts in the EV field, such as garages in the HEVRA network, and notable names such as Matt Cleevely from Cleevely Garage, who are able to help them source hard-to-obtain donor parts for research. Once they have gotten hold of the parts and are able to study them, they can begin the process we have described here.
    
Of course, while parts from across the gamut of the EV parc, ranging from the humble Renault Zoe to the proprietorially data-obtuse output of Tesla are often drivetrain or even vehicle-specific, there is still a lot of cross-pollination from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles. Martin said: “We do have, as part of our core ranges, parts that are common across both ICE vehicles and electric as well, like wheel speed sensors and temperature sensors. It's an ongoing project that our product management team are focusing on to maximise that offering as much as possible. We want to make sure that the garages and factors feel confident that if they have an electric vehicle come through, that they're able to offer the parts that they need. This is where they're trying to identify potential needs for the market and create the product to fit that need.”
    
Martin concluded: “It is a quite complicated process, but the message we want to get out to market is that that development is happening.”

The phrase ‘does what it says on the tin’ expresses that a product or service offers exactly what is advertised, and required. On that basis, Premier MOT Training, based on two sites in Hockley, Essex and near Derby, would seem to be pretty explicit in the services you would expect it provides to the motor sector. Sometimes though, a name will only tell you a small part of what is being offered as Director at Premier MOT Training Donna Chapman observed: “We are an automotive training company that specialises in MOT training, but we also do F-Gas training, and hybrid training as well, and more.”
    
The Essex site, based on a industrial estate in the small town outside Southend-on-Sea is the company’s H.Q, and fields 10 staff, with three in the Midlands. “This is where all the bookings go through. Every student or garage that contacts us will be dealt with in the office upstairs. We are the busier centre, being next to London, and with the M25 nearby, running about 30% more courses here than we do in our Midlands site every week.
    
“We do the MOT Tester entry qualification every other week and then we do a MOT Site Manager course every two weeks. We do a motorcycle course every two weeks as well. Those are the core courses, but like I said, we do run other courses and a hybrid course as well.” There are three rooms on-site for the class-based training. “We have one smaller room upstairs, and two big classrooms downstairs where we can have up to eight students, two laptops per student, with a projector.”

Relationships
Obviously, with the training being undertaken, it is not all theoretical, and the site includes a large workshop area, including four MOT bays. The site is a real working MOT station, and is also used for commercial purposes in the evenings and weekends, as Donna explained: “We work with two local businesses who serve contracts for the County Council, taxi fleets  etc. We've got a good relationship with them because rather than investing £50,000 to £100,000 setting up a MOT station, they rent out our bays.” It also helps Premier MOT Training to have real MOTs being performed on-site: “In order to keep compliant, we have to have a live MOT bay. All my trainers have to keep their live testing status in order to be compliant. You've got to do a quality check on each of your testers too. This means we need a live MOT bay, so it is a win-win. When one of our trainers is doing an MOT, we can QC them, or we can use that as part of a course to Quality Control check somebody else, and then it goes onto the system.”
    
Donna continued: “Our busiest courses are always MOT, hence why we have run them every week since the pandemic. We used to run groups of nine, but since COVID-19 we keep them below eight just because then they get a desk each and a laptop each, without banging elbows.”
    
While MOT training is the core offering, the business is keen to promote its wider training, and is looking to push in this direction in the next few months. “We are currently building a new website. We currently have two websites. our MOT Annual Assessment site, which is www.annualtraining.co.uk, and we're currently merging that into our Premier MOT website.”    
    
There are also new courses on the horizon:“We're about to do a pilot in December with Ian Gillgrass, which is going to be launching us as becoming accredited with the IMI. We're going to launch a IMI-accredited diagnostic IMI accredited course for Level 3. Obviously we do offer the hybrid and the F-Gas as well. We are trying to put it out there more about hybrid and F-Gas.”

Surprising
That’s not all: “We had a first-generation Toyota Prius here, and we kept it as a historical talking-point, because people still don't believe the first hybrid vehicle ,the Toyota Prius, was first released in 1998. People were just still shocked that. Types of vehicles that in our sector we tend to think of as new have been out on our road for 25 years. We've still got 70% in the market to train up in this area, which is quite surprising. We try and keep our cars to pretty much what our students see. We could go out and buy brand new cars, but none of our students are ever going to do a test on that or ever do any servicing on it. We are not keeping a brand-new EV though, because that's not relatable to our students. They won't be seeing them. They won't need an MOT or a service in an independent for some time. We try and find something around seven years old because that's what they're going to be getting in their workshop.”

Growth
Looking at what Premier MOT Training will be looking to achieve during 2023, Donna added: “We've really put ourselves about lately, and will continue to do so. We were at the UK Garage and Bodyshop Event at the NEC in June, we were reception drinks sponsor at the Top Technician and Top Garage Awards Evening in October, and we will be at Automechanika Birmingham in 2023. We've gone for a bigger stand, and we are going to try and bring two bikes along because we noticed there was no bikes there last year.” They will also look to grow the team: “We're going to look at taking on another trainer and another member of staff in the office. We don't have sales staff – They are Training Consultants. They are not selling a product, they are supporting garages around their trading needs.”
    
Donna added: “If we don't feel like it's the right course for someone, we won't book them on it. We are all about matching a candidate for the right kind of course.”

For more information, visit: www.premiermot.com

Charging at work is an advantage for employees and for the company itself. If the charging energy is obtained from renewable sources, charging at work is also an investment in the future and a significant contribution to the promotion of e-mobility.
    
Across Great Britain, people who usually drive to work account for around 68% of journeys among a total of 2.3 million commuters. This figure varies from region to region but gives an indication of the extent to which motorised private transport accounts for the share of greenhouse gas emissions. This fact should be enough to use electric vehicles instead of internal combustion engines, and the wide range of models available on the market, now covering almost all vehicle classes, is also helping to make electric cars increasingly attractive to a wider public. Yet the lack of charging infrastructure is still an obstacle for many users in making the final switch to battery-powered cars. Moreover, the increase in BEVs on the road will consequently require more charging options across the board: motorists will not be willing to give up their combustion engine-driven vehicles without the security of reliable infrastructure. This does not necessarily mean that they need a private home charger.
    
Charging stations are becoming necessary wherever people spend time, i.e. at the supermarket, the gym, and, above all, at work. The possibility of charging points at work is a key factor in the transition to e-mobility, because it allows even those who do not have the option of charging at home to easily switch to an electric car. Rapid infrastructure expansion throughout the country is therefore essential for the further development of e-mobility, but this is not just a call for politicians to take action. In fact, the economy can also make a contribution if companies are willing to install charging stations in parking areas and car parks, offering visitors and employees the option of recharging their vehicles on site.

A benefit for society as a whole
Outside the home, work is the place where a car spends the longest time parked. For the driver, it makes no difference whether recharging takes place during the day or at night. If they are able to conveniently recharge their vehicle during working hours, usually about eight per day, they no longer have to recharge at home overnight. Some commuters live in urban centres, in residential neighbourhoods where access to their own charging infrastructure is still limited. For these people, the availability of charging stations at their work means that they can avoid trips to public charging stations.
    
Rural areas, on the other hand, which are most affected by large industrial and commercial developments, could also benefit from expansion of the charging infrastructure. How? Through installation of modern and efficient charging management systems, vehicles can be connected daily during normal working hours. This in turn can provide impetus for additional future-oriented expansion and can thus increase flexibility and technological progress. The expansion of state-of-the-art charging infrastructure in these areas would also increase the population’s willingness to switch from internal combustion engine-driven vehicles, which are still widespread, to electric cars.

Smart stations for charging in parking areas and car parks
22 kW devices with a type 2 plug are ideal for this type of use, either permanently installed on a wall or pillar, or as portable chargers which also make conventional power sources accessible via various adapters. Regardless of which option is chosen, these stations are mostly intended for parking areas and car parks and must have certain features. First, they must be equipped with integrated fault current protection, which can detect power loss and automatically disconnect the power supply to protect users and the network. They must be safe, robust, and durable in accordance with an internationally recognised protection class, preferably IP67 and IK10. Finally, they must be intelligent and thus set up for dynamic load management, be controlled by the energy supplier, updated over the air, and should make it possible for the charging process to be activated through simple access management with RFID or Plug&Charge.
    
The Juice Charger me 3 from Juice Technology meets all of these requirements, as well as having an attractive design with minimalist shapes that allows the device to integrate well into all kinds of contexts. It is easy to handle and immediately ready for use since it arrives from the factory already pre configured, clear in its functionality and intuitive to operate.
    
The device is available in 11- or 22-kW versions and the hardware of each version is already ready for this modification at no extra cost. It is compact and the entire unit weighs only 6.5 kilos including the 5-metre cable, which guarantees flexibility of use. Being shock-resistant and completely waterproof, the device is suitable for indoor and outdoor use. In addition, it meets the requirements of the new ISO 15118 standard and is compatible with the Plug and Charge protocol, which allows charging to be activated as soon as the cable is connected to the car if the car supports the technology (otherwise, it is activated with the RFID card provided).
    
This wall charger is particularly suitable for charging at any public or private facility, as it can be ordered with a (calibrated) MID-certified meter and, as an additional option, with an integrated circuit breaker. The charging current is therefore accurately billed according to consumption, and the device can be easily and economically integrated into power distribution systems.
    
Communication with the backend system and device updates are carried out either over the air via Wi-Fi or by cable via Ethernet. Each station is ready for dynamic load management of up to 250 units.
Where does the electricity to charge vehicles come from? A question that comes up, but the energy question could also be effectively solved by charging at work using locally generated electricity. Indeed, the proportion of energy generated from renewable sources is steadily increasing and, to date, already accounts for 42.8% of the UK's total electricity production. Photovoltaic modules can generate solar power efficiently and cost-effectively when installed on the roofs of manufacturing, commercial, office and large car park buildings. Excess electricity would flow directly into car batteries. At the same time, the system would produce enough energy to supply the building and pay for itself after a few years through savings on energy purchases.
    
According to a study conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute on behalf of the German Association for Nature Conservation and Biodiversity, recharging at work is even the most efficient way to promote electric mobility. CO2 emissions could be reduced simply by shifting the recharging time to normal working hours, especially if the energy was generated from renewable sources.

Social benefits
From a corporate perspective, the presence of charging stations at work is increasingly appreciated as a service for employees and visitors, while it can be an essential operational tool for companies with a fleet of electric vehicles. If a company or public body provides employees with the infrastructure and power for charging free of charge, both parties will benefit. Employees will be able to charge their vehicles during working hours and, at the same time, the company will be able to present itself as an employer with a strong employer brand, able to attract new talent and retain the professionals it already employs. Companies like Juice that offer their employees the option of recharging at work not only provide employees with a practical benefit but also promote a sustainable mobility model.

Many businesses are currently undergoing reviews to determine the best way to cut costs and maximise profitability in what is an uncertain economic landscape.  Your ERP software is the driving force behind your business and there is no better time to ensure your software has the core values of protecting margins and driving sales.
    
Autopart is the versatile business management solution that seamlessly integrates your sales, stock management, account and reporting processes into one easy-to-use package. As well as many processes that are fundamental to a successful business, Autopart is filled with intuitive features that can streamline, digitise and maximise productivity in an economic climate where a smart business strategy is vital to success.

1. Maximise your margins – Diving into invoices, costs and trends through in-depth reporting gives you a clear view of your margins including where they are too low. In MAM’s Autopart system, this process is simple and all reports can be automated in the day end to ensure this important information gets to the right person so it can be acted upon efficiently.

2. The right stock at the right time – Analyse your part usages to ensure you are ordering the right amount of stock.  Autopart recommends new minimum and maximum stock levels. These figures can be used to generate suggested purchase orders ensuring only the right amount of stock is ordered.

The Spring Budget offered few surprises for the motor industry, and presented a number of missed opportunities around EVs 

I have worked with Mike Schlup, Kalimex MD for 19 years. As you would imagine, the brand started from humble beginnings. In the early years I worked in what was a glorified stationery cupboard but nevertheless we were focused on world domination, one sale at a time.
    
In the last 19 years Kalimex has really taken off and is now the top performing distributor of the JLM Lubricants’ product range; A position they have occupied for 10 years – pretty much from when they started selling JLM products. This is no mean feat, given JLM have 45 distributors scattered in all corners of the globe and a thriving business at their home base in the Netherlands.  
    
With this in mind, I thought you would find it useful if I share some of the marketing tips that have contributed to the success of Kalimex because they can be applied in your workshop. As with anything, talking about marketing and planning marketing is great, but you must move swiftly onto actually doing it.
Here are six cut-to-the-chase questions you need to answer and action:

#1: Do we have an end target for 2023 in terms of sales?
I am reminded of this quote from Seneca: “If one does not know to which port one is sailing then no wind is favourable.” Set realistic targets, ones you can reach at a stretch with some elbow grease; Tough, but within your grasp. Every month monitor how close you are to reaching them. Discuss the targets with team members so they are aware you are not standing still and they have a part to play in your success. Sales are the lifeblood of any business, whether the sales are from existing customers, new ones or as is more likely a mix of both. If you are not setting targets, you risk settling for second best, which benefits no one. Worse still, there is the risk of realising mid-way through the year that sales are not even covering your overheads, let alone making a profit.

#2: Will you sell (more) products to customers?
Aftermarket shared some fascinating research from Castrol a few issues ago, looking at the opportunities workshops have to generate additional income from repeat sales of high-quality lubricants and additives. Here are two key take outs:

Workshops are missing out on upselling opportunities. Over a third of motorists say they are ‘never’ offered a choice of consumables alongside a vehicle service; Just over a quarter say ‘sometimes;’ and only a fifth say ‘always.

A majority (51%) said they would be happy for their workshop to upsell more expensive, premium-quality consumables if the benefits were explained to them.
    
Barry Lawson, a member of Darren Darling’s DPF Doctor Network is a technician renowned for building a growing channel of repeat sales from selling JLM Lubricants’ products to his customers. With motorists keen to cut repair bills, the market is right for superior quality lubricants and additives. And you are in pole position to recommend them and use them.

#3: Are you willing to commit more resources – human and financial to growing your business?
For any workshop there comes a time when the next stage of growth can only be accomplished with an injection of money, and/or an additional person supporting the sales effort. Are you trying to do everything on your own? Will you reach your sales targets if you bring another person into the team? A part time person working a few days a week can be the key that unlocks the growth potential in your business.

#4: What must change for us to grow?
Be honest; Is the growth potential of your business affected by problems that need addressing now? Are you not investing enough time working on your business because you’re working in it and can’t see the wood for the trees? Are you allowing yourself to be distracted by non-income generating activities? Is your marketing scattergun rather than targeted? Only you can see what must change within your business to unlock the door to more sales.

#5: What are market conditions now and how do they affect our workshop?
We know from research conducted by the Motor Ombudsman that in a bid to save money some motorists are cutting back on servicing and repairs. It’s a false economy of course. So, make sure you keep in regular contact with customers, sharing top tips on vehicle maintenance and reminding them of the importance of booking the next service and the benefits of doing so. Customers may not have made the connection with regular vehicle servicing and fuel optimisation/long term reduced running costs. It’s your job to educate them.

#6: Do we have a marketing plan?
Far from being a document to be filed away and forgotten, look upon it as a useful plan of action that saves time, provides clarity, and focus and, that enables you to take the next steps in growing your business. Here are the key headers.

We last visited Erme Valley Autos in Ermington, just outside Ivybridge in deepest Devon in 2018, after Andrew West had been a semi-finalist in Top Technician that year. Fast-forward to 2022, after a few more semi-final and final appearances, and he is now the reigning champion. Perseverance pays off you see. While he has appeared in six finals overall, even he could not tell you exactly how many times he has entered Top Technician.
    
You might expect things to have not changed much in this rural corner of the country, and in many ways you are right. Erme Valley Autos and its small team of four, including Andrew and his son Joe and apprentice David are in the workshop, and they still see a lot of 4x4s in general, and Land Rovers in particular. Andrew’s wife Sarah is still dealing with the business side of things, and they are still on the same site, which includes their home and the garage, that they have been on since 1993.

Change
However, there has been a slight shift. The yard outside was full on the day we dropped by, and while there was a fair amount of Land Rovers, covering original to almost-new, it was not all typical country garage fodder: “I had two EVs in today,” said Andrew, “both Nissan Leafs. There was one that was in for a service and one on the four post that had a fault, which had been to the main dealer already before being brought here. Out of 25 cars in the yard, three today are full-electric.” While three out of 25 is probably a representative ratio in the overall car parc right now, bear in mind, this is not a town centre location. The times are changing in rural Devon as much as everywhere else, and Andrew made sure he has been changing too, by keeping up with new tech, and continuing to train. Part of this process for him was participating in Top Garage.
    
To be the winner in Top Technician 2022, you needed to have a lot of experience working with EVs, as well as a solid grounding on the more traditional side of automotive. Luckily for him, Andrew was well-placed to win on both fronts. “We tend to be a bit delayed down here with developments,” he observed, “but with EVs it has really kept moving forward.” Ironically, country-dwellers are in many ways better set up for EV take-up than the townies: “Obviously, almost everybody here can charge at home,” noted Andrew, “so the lack of public charge points is not going to be a drawback. We are even looking at getting one for ourselves.”
    
While Andrew is moving with the times, his son Joe is keeping it real, by which we mean keeping it internally combusted. His current passion project is a Peugeot 205 1.8 diesel, which he is upgrading to a 2.0 litre through an engine swap-out. Back to Andrew though.

Promotion
So, the business continues to develop, and we wondered if winning Top Technician has led to Andrew promoting the diagnostic side more: “We've been here for nearly 30 years now, so I already promote what we do, quite a bit on Facebook for example.” The business has a local reputation for being the garage where problems will get solved. As the best diagnostic experts and trainers will tell you, getting to the heart of an issue is often simply a matter of paying attention to the details, and following the process. Andrew had an example of that on the day we visited: “This morning, we had a vehicle in for an MOT, and Joe made an advisory note on the fact that there was play in the offside upper inner rear arm bush. It turned out that the customer had recently taken the car to three other garages in an attempt to establish where a knocking noise was coming from, but none of them could work out what the source of the noise was. After receiving the MOT, the customer then asked if the inner rear arm bush issue could be the cause of the knocking, which it was. That’s where it was coming from, and the other three garages had missed this.”
    
Being known as the place that will find the problem has its downsides: “We have a reputation for doing what we do, but people end up coming to us last. Some say we are expensive, but usually it's because we end up doing complex repairs when they have already spent a fortune somewhere else before they called us.” He ruefully added: “But if they brought it here first, it wouldn't cost as much.”

Skills
This reputation is partly a result of the skills Andrew has accrued over decades, that have led him to win the Top Technician trophy. One of the reasons Andrew participated in Top Technician in the first place was to test his existing skills, and to see what he could learn. This was part of an overall approach, which included undertaking training with the likes of James Dillon and Frank Massey. While winning in Top Technician rules him out from competing again, Andrew will still be looking to keep his skills up to date, but also pass them along: “I'm hoping to step back a bit and let the son take on more of the more challenging work. He doesn't get the chance to do a lot of the diagnostics, because I'm doing it all.”

Will we see another West taking on the Top Technician challenge? Only time will tell.

                                

Tyre buying is now a fully digital process with tyres fitted right on the customer’s driveway at a time and place that suits their needs. How did we get here though? The answer, of course, is digital.

It's not a secret that online purchasing has become more popular than ever and even tyre buying is moving into digital world. However, unlike regular consumer goods, the buying journey for tyre purchasing requires technical expertise to fit the purchased items once they arrive on the customer’s doorstep. Here, I will chart the growth of online tyre buying and its transformation to a ‘buy and fit’ market using mobile technology that is closing the gap on this last-mile disconnect.
    
The UK tyre buying market will grow in the coming years on the back of rapid infrastructure growth and expanding automobile fleet sizes. To meet the growing demand by customers for tyre purchasing convenience means bringing together the customer tyre buying journey across an entire digital marketplace, but providing quick and convenient mobile fitting to customers is no small feat. There is clearly an as yet un-met need to provide an end-to-end online tyre buying experience for consumers.
    
During the last 20 years, the development of mobile partnerships as part of the install network of tyre businesses has been extremely prevalent. Until now though, the tyre market has predominantly operated with customers buying tyres and having them shipped to their homes, then being left to take care of the install themselves or take them to a garage for fitting. With the mobile technology and business models available today, this last-mile disconnect can be addressed so that a customer can purchase their tyre of choice, and then schedule an install almost immediately in any county, city or town across the country. There should be no online vs physical divide.

Technology takes centre-stage in tyre buying
A key factor in powering this roll-out is the availability of supporting technology. For TireBuyer, this has meant leveraging existing technology with leading-edge mobile service technology that could underpin the smooth customer journey between online purchase, tyre distribution and mobile fitting provided by any of a network of installers nationwide.
    
Online tyre buying and mobile service delivery is so much more nuanced than just opening the doors and expecting customers to come to you. When your installation process is on wheels, there are so many more variables than a static shop – controlling these variables requires dedicated software support.

Up-to-date data analysis
Avayler provides an extremely tight integration between TireBuyer and its thousands of installation partners to give real-time visibility into van and technician availability. This optimisation goes right down to being able to track the schedule of every van in order to dynamically schedule tasks based on existing installation plans and the proximity of new jobs. The software also lets installation partners clearly track, monitor, and analyse their mobile operations and profitability right down to a per-van basis. Ultimately the field service technology will allow TireBuyer to optimise partner time and energy to provide a better net yield for everybody involved in the tyre buying and installation process. In short, they can then do more jobs for customers. It is like putting together a full jig-saw puzzle set that fits together properly in terms of availability and scale management – especially for mobile tyres that are delivered as part of an online solution
    
Customers are at the centre of this new end-to-end tyre buying experience. Avayler Mobile keeps the customer in the loop throughout the service. After selecting their tyre and specifying a fitting time, the solution alerts the customer of accurate arrival times to keep them in the loop about the service they are receiving. All fitting details are digitally documented for the customer to refer back to on their preferred device.

Building a tyre ecosystem with impeccable data
Since the end of Q1 2022, all mobile teams within the TireBuyer network have been up and running on the Avayler platform. With this live, TireBuyer has been able to leverage data insights to deliver more value for both end-customers and its installation partners.
    
Operationally the aim is to gather insights and feedback from our customers and installation partners in real-time to help inform development going forward. This means using our practical day-to day operation as a live lab to help support and improve how the field service technology will support customers and installation partners now and into the future.

Taking the tyre buying market to the next level
The tyre buying market has moved online at pace – compare, purchase, deliver. But supporting software is required to truly optimise time and resources by seamlessly connecting vehicle owners with trained tyre technicians. With the development of technology and the change of customer needs, the last-mile disconnect in the tyre buying journey can be addressed so that a consumer can purchase their tyre of choice online and schedule an install at their convenience at a time and place that suits them.

As you may have heard and as I reported in Aftermarket’s September 2022 issue, the Motor Vehicle Block Exemption (MV-BER) is up for renewal. The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) issued a consultation in July 2022 on how any renewal may be structured, assuming that the MV-BER will be renewed when it expires on 31 May 2023.
    
The CMA’s final recommendations to the Secretary of State of BEIS (Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) were subsequently circulated in October 2022 and were a mixture of recommendations for good improvements, but with some concerning elements which would be detrimental to the UK aftermarket.

Direct legislative requirements
The basis of the MV-BER is in competition law and is based on direct legislative requirements in the main regulation, with additional ‘guidance’ to describe how these requirements should be met (which is a weaker legal basis).
    
Ultimately, the MV-BER seeks to ensure that there is non-discrimination between authorised and independent workshops in their ability to service and repair vehicles, which in turn provides motorists with the choice of where they can have their vehicles maintained. However, MV-BER has been in existence since 2002, and although it was updated in 2010, it is obvious to anyone reading this that much has changed in the last two decades in the automotive sector. Although the CMA’s recommendations needed to address some existing issues, it was even more important that they addressed new issues that have impacted the aftermarket during this period.
    
In effect, the CMA are proposing to ‘go supersize’ on the revisions of the MV-BER, but is this wholly beneficial to the UK aftermarket – and just what are the CMA recommending? Most importantly, the CMA recommends that the MV-BER should be retained, with no change to the existing scope, but that it would become a UK ‘Order’ in UK law – i.e. an ‘MV-BEO’ and be extended until 31 May 2029. The other key recommendations then fall into three distinct categories.

Hardcore restrictions
Firstly, there are recommendations to rectify “residual and novel issues” in the existing requirements which are not being implemented correctly.  These included the CMA’s revision in the guidance for improved clarity from the vehicle manufacturers and their authorised repairers: “...to produce additional and updated guidance to clarify that the clauses contained in all the documents proposed to consumers by OEMs/authorised dealers or repairers should clearly state the consumer's right to use the services of an independent repairer without losing the benefit of the warranty.”
    
The CMA also understood that the requirements of the existing “hardcore restrictions” that provide access for independent operators to OEM parts, or the ability for Tier 1 parts manufacturers to sell their parts through their Aftermarket divisions is not working as intended. Therefore, the CMA is: “...recommending that further guidance on this matter be issued in order to address residual and novel issues reported by stakeholders.”
    
Secondly, the CMA recognises that there is a need to address the definitions in the MV-BER.    Therefore, there is a recommendation to update the definition of ‘spare parts’ to address: “…access to software is increasingly a necessary condition to ensure providers of repair and maintenance are able to fit certain spare parts. In this context, the CMA considers that the definition of  spare parts should encompass all software, together with activation/configuration codes for replacement parts and components, which are strictly necessary to fit those parts and to replace or update components or systems of the vehicle, which are necessary for the use or operation of a motor vehicle…’
    
The CMA have also recognised the importance of “access to vehicle and technical information and ‘in-vehicle data” and recommend the introduction of a new definition. However, the details are not yet clear: “The CMA acknowledges that the manner in which technical and vehicle information is provided is a relevant consideration and notes that this issue is already covered in the EU Supplementary Guidelines in paragraph 67. Furthermore, the CMA is minded to issue further guidance on this subject in the context of any MVBEO Guidance. We also received comments that the legal instruments above mentioned do not cover in-vehicle generated data which may constitute an essential input for independent providers. The CMA agrees the in-vehicle data may amount to an essential input on which independent operators rely and recommends that this type of information is included in the definition of technical and vehicle information.”
    
Although the CMA recognises that this new definition is important, they are also recommending to include this as an ‘excluded restriction’: “...given the potential for these restrictions to distort competition, in particular, competition between authorised and independent providers, it would be appropriate to ensure that these types of restrictions are carefully self-assessed by businesses on a case-by-case basis, taking account of the specific circumstances.
    
This effectively states that the vehicle manufacturer will be responsible for defining what and how access to vehicle generated data is provided and be self-assessed on a ‘case-by-case’ basis.
    
This has partly been addressed by the CMA recognising: “...the CMA considers that this risk could be sufficiently mitigated by the issuance of revised guidance which could assist and help businesses to carry out the self- assessment and to distinguish restrictions which meet the conditions for individual exemption from those that do not.” However, for the aftermarket, this is still likely to be highly problematic, whilst also only providing a very weak legal basis for any challenge to be made by independent operators against a vehicle manufacturer.
    
Thirdly, the CMA recognises that they ‘should be mindful’ of what the EU is also considering in the EU’s revisions of the MV-BER: “The CMA has been mindful of the approach proposed in the EU by the European Commission. The CMA is conscious that there may be advantages in divergence from the EU in certain circumstances .....Equally, the CMA recognises that, all things being equal, there can also be benefits in consistency between the EU and the UK block exemptions...”

Distorting the market?
In both the EU and the UK, the remote access to a vehicle, its data, resources and functions is already distorting the market and should be included in the revision of the MV-BER. However, in line with what the EU is proposing, the CMA recommends a ‘wait and see’ approach: “It therefore seems likely that some parts of the motor vehicle sector will evolve rapidly over the coming years and that this will have an impact on the conditions of competition that cannot currently be quantified.”
    
So overall, although the CMA has recognised many of the issues that impact the UK aftermarket and which should be addressed, there are also well intended revisions that have yet to be detailed (i.e. the new wording in the guidance of the MV-BEO) and which if not handled correctly, could be very detrimental to the future of the UK aftermarket. Supersizing the MV-BEO will be good, but only if implemented correctly.
                      
xenconsultancy.com

By Alex Wells

Manufacturing parts is one thing, but managing to make sure they work in the real-world conditions of a garage, when technicians need to deal with the vagaries of how the VMs actually put their cars together with little thought of them being taken apart for repairs years later? That’s something else.
    
With this in mind, Schaeffler routinely looks to work with garages, in order to get its kit into the hands of techs, and give them the chance to fit their parts onto cars in the real world, to see how easy it is, or otherwise. Aftermarket teamed up with Schaeffler’s FAG product specialists recently on just such an exercise. The venue was Oldfields Garage Services in Leominster, a business led by Tim Benson. The family business has been serving the area for the last three decades, and on its current site since 2010. According to Tim, they work closely with Schaeffler: “We're only about 15 miles away from them. We probably see somebody from Schaeffler on the technical side every couple of months. We keep in regular contact to see if there's anything that we're doing in the workshop that can help them with the process. It's a mutually beneficial way of doing things, as we can give them a ‘first-hand at-the-coalface’ experience and knowledge from our point of view. Conversely, we get to learn about new technologies and best practice in the way of doing things.”

Pitfalls    
Schaeffler’s FAG brand, known for its OE wheel bearing range, entered the steering and suspension market around 18 months ago, and the company is keen for garages to see its kit up close, and to find out how they work with it. Along with the necessary parts for the cars chosen for the day, a 2013 Volkswagen Polo and a 2014 Citroen Berlingo van, FAG Product Manager Mike Tomkins was on hand, along with other team members.
    
Two techs from Oldfields, Sam and Chris were to perform the business end of the fittings, with the former handling the Polo and the latter taking on the van. When it came to the VW, this was going to be the first time the control arm had been replaced, so it took some effort, some elbow grease, and a heat inductor to begin to remove the parts. It was during this time that Sam encountered a small hinderance.
    
Mike Tomkins commented: “We're a little way into the job now and suddenly we find this problem here. On the offside of the front suspension arm, when you go to remove the bolt, the bolt falls on the vehicle sump on the nearside. You can’t just pull the bolt, undo thebolt and pull it straight out. We tried to slacken off the subframe to see if the bolt will pass, and unfortunately it won’t. So, we're now having to unbolt and release the engine mounting and then jack the engine up a little bit further so the sump will not foul the bolt. When you come to replace the offside arm, you need to be aware that you have to take these extra steps.”
    
The only way you're going to find this out is if you go into a workshop and try and take one off and put the new one on. “Exactly,” replied Mike, “that's one of the reasons I'm here today. I can sit at my desk and think I know all the pitfalls, but coming out to a proper working garage and seeing the parts being fitted and the problems that can occur is a great help to me. We learn from them as much as they learn from us. I'm always willing to come out to garages and see the steps the mechanics are taking to be able to replace these parts safely and professionally.”
    
Ultimately, the Polo ended up on the ramp as far up as it will go, with Sam having to go right into the depths of his box of tricks to get the part loose. “I bet you didn’t think I had a ladder in my toolbox did you?” he laughed. The realisation of the impediment led to Chris coming away from his mainly straightforward Citroën job to help Sam get the job back on track, where he ended up with a big scratch on his nose. “Thanks for that” he said with good humour, after he had helped Sam get the subframe loose. Once that particular hurdle was overcome, Sam was able to continue with the job and fit the new part with relatively little fuss. One area where Sam was particularly pleased with the FAG offering was the fact that all the necessary fittings come with the part.
    
When the parts arrive, they come in a box, with a scannable QR code on the side which identifies the part, provides fitting instructions, including torque settings where necessary. Crucially, they also come with all the necessary components including any replacement bolts required. Mike observed: “It's very important, because if the vehicle is stuck on the ramp, waiting for parts affects workshop efficiency, as the technician cannot carry on with the job. If you have all the parts you need, you also have the confidence to know that, for example if a bolt is seized or damaged, you can cut it off.  It gives the technician and the garage peace of mind.”
    
As our readers will know, finding those bolts, if they don’t come with the part, can be complicated. “It certainly can be,” replied Mike, “and it wastes time. The vehicle is stuck on that ramp and efficiency goes down. It is absolutely key to have all the right parts. If your labour rate is £50 an hour and you have vehicles stuck on the ramp for an hour every day because of missing parts, then that's £250 a week. It's just not worth it for the sake of a few bolts.” As we mentioned, Schaeffler’s FAG steering and suspension offering is a recent addition. We wondered how it was going down with garages and technicians. Mike observed:  
  
“Our product here at Schaeffler is absolutely top notch and a very high standard. That sets us apart. Within the last twelve months we've really started to get more interest from garages around the steering and suspension range. They've all liked the extra components that we put in the box.”

Removal
Meanwhile, across with the Berlingo, Chris was having a relatively simpler time, although another bolt in an awkward location during the removal of the old control arm did cause a small delay. Ultimately, this was a straightforward job however.
    
Summing up, Tim observed: “When we're looking for suppliers, we're always looking for high quality products. One of the nice things with these suspension components, is that they come with everything in the box, which makes it a lot easier from a technician's point of view. No more worrying about whether the nut comes off or the bolt shears or whatever. Having those bits readily in the box is a big bonus.”
    
With Tim and the team clearly impressed by the FAG steering and suspension range, Schaeffler is keen to get the kit into “as many garages as possible.” Mike Hansford, Territory Manager at Schaeffler commented: “All of the feedback we've had from garages is very positive. They like the product and they want to use the product.”
    
Tim agreed: “We need it more readily available to get access to it. We're lucky, obviously, because we're very close to FAG here, but even so, it's getting that when it's on the ramp. We don't want any downtime. The finishing and the attention to detail is one of the things that sets FAG apart from some of the other suppliers. The types of boots that are used, the way that things are all put together, it all makes it easier. Obviously, price point is a factor, but our customers are more interested in what we believe is the correct part for the job.”

Before embarking on your shoestring marketing journey, it’s important to recognise the marketing mistakes you’re guilty of. And to cut them loose quickly! Here are the headline mistakes.
    
A business reckons their work sells itself; no marketing needed:  In a competitive market, even the best businesses must shine a spotlight on their work, so they remain top of mind when a customer or prospect is looking to buy.
    
They put all their eggs into one basket – usually advertising and social media:
    
Not every customer or prospect is waiting to see your latest social post or glancing your ads. Effective shoestring marketing is about pulling several activities together.
    
They believe that marketing is only for marketers: My experience working with mechanics has shown me that any workshop willing to invest some time in marketing can succeed. Being organised and committed to marketing your business week in, week is what counts.
    
They say they have no time for marketing: This is a big one and I get it. However, if you don’t want to hand your power to a more marketing savvy competitor then time must be found. If you can spare three hours every week to focus on marketing your business, that’s a great start. But focus is key – away from your phone and the day-to-day work. The most successful businesses I’ve worked with do this and many at some stage will bring in a part time resource for a few hours a week to pick up the phone, send letters to prospects, emails to clients etc. Start making the commitment to three hours and then decide if you need an additional resource to support you.
    
I understand that if you’re to commit to shoestring marketing, you have to be persuaded of the benefits of doing so. What can marketing do for your business? There’s an entire article in this but the headline benefits of being a marketing-centred business are as follows:
•    You build your customer base. More good customers are always top of the wish list, aren’t they?
•    You weather the storm when times are tough, and grow in the golden times.
•    You build awareness of your brand and all the remarkable things it stands for. This makes it easier for influencers to recommend you and for existing customers to stay with you and put a good word in with their ‘tribes’.

The decision-making process shortens: The time it takes for a potential customer to say yes reduces because a person knows, likes and to an extent trusts you before they’ve even set foot inside your workshop. Your marketing has established the groundwork.


How to start on your shoestring marketing journey
Start with a simple yet powerful plan
    
Your target audience: This is knowing who you want to reach. If you want more fleet business, make a list of the exact companies you want to target. More of the same customers you have now? Make a list of the customers you’re going to approach to ask for referrals and another list of the postcodes where these people are likely to live. Make a third list of local businesses where potential new customers are likely to work. This is about making your target audiences real. Doing this will take a good few hours but it’s time well spent because you’re really focussing on the people you want to introduce your business to rather than crossing your fingers that a social media post or an advert will have the same effect.
    
For each group make a list of their needs: Why they would come to you. This is about looking at the landscape through the eyes of potential customers.
    
Now construct your business DNA: List the reasons why you offer such an amazing service to each target audience. Don’t just write down ‘customer service’ and leave it at that. It says nothing about you. Is it your extended opening hours, free added value touches, clear and detailed pricing, your explanations to a customer before you begin work, the comfort of your inclusive and cheery reception area? If a local journalist asked the question: “Why should our readers choose your garage?” what would you say? This is all about capturing the unique DNA of your business so it should include the nitty gritty of your experience, your expertise, your investment in training and your customer care philosophy. Don’t assume that your customers know all of this about you. Commit your outputs from this exercise into a working document that every person in your team has contributed to and understands. Make it a focus of a team meeting. Very few businesses do this, yet it is important stock to use when approaching new customers and reconnecting with those customers you have not seen in some time. It also reminds your regulars of how good you are. You are using the power of words to paint a great picture of your garage so that you become irresistible.
    
I want to conclude with the WOW model which is integral to my shoestring marketing philosophy. The Plus 1 WOW model: Delight your customer. Delight = expectation plus 1:
+ 1 more contact
+ 1 moment of thoughtfulness
+ 1 extra minute of your time
+ 1 check to see all is ok

The +1 effect leads to the WOW factor:
Wow – That’s great
Wow – That’s what I call service
Wow – That was thoughtful
Wow – I didn’t expect that!

    
The best +1 factors meet the following criteria: They are instantly noticed and valued by customers, they are quick and easy, they cost little or nothing and they are implemented on a consistent basis not just when you are in a good mood.
    
Make sure that when capturing your business DNA, you reference all the small touches that are part of your WOW philosophy. Next time, I’ll look at how you translate these tips into action.

For more information visit: www.jlmlubricants.co.uk

Rising inflation, spiralling prices and higher servicing costs are all combined to pose a challenge to the aftermarket sector, with a recent McKinsey report forecasting stagnating revenue growth across European auto aftermarkets of around 1.5% annual growth until 2030.  Car owners are already cutting back on spending, reviewing budgets and delaying non-essential repairs.
    
Considering this, retailers and distributors must adapt their businesses to better support their consumers’ needs. One route they should consider is improving the flexible payment options they offer at checkout, such as buy now pay later (BNPL), which would help ease the financial burden on their customers.

Stuck in first gear
So, why is the industry stuck in first gear on this? The UK automotive aftermarket ranks as the fourth largest industry in Europe and ninth in the world, and contributes over £12bn annually to the economy, supporting 345,600 jobs. This means that the fact that the outlook for the sector is weakening is extremely concerning. Furthermore, research consultancy IBIS World is forecasting that the average age of UK motor vehicles will start to fall this year, suggesting a dip in second-hand car sales, which typically need more aftermarket support. Compounding this negative backdrop is rising prices. In a survey conducted by the Motor Ombudsman earlier this year, some 63% of independent garages and dealerships said that because of delayed deliveries and global supply chain problems, they would be raising prices over the next six months. They also noted evidence of drivers cutting back on spending on their cars as part of their efforts to limit spending.
    
The impact of all these trends is likely to see a rise in buyer hesitation. Cart abandonment, across all industries, already sits at nearly 70%. The cost-of-living crisis will inevitably increase this figure further still. So, how can the aftermarket sector meet this issue of rising cart abandonment head-on?

Expanding the scope
Expanding the scope of checkout finance offers a solution. To stem the resulting revenue loss from increased cart abandonment rates and falling consumer demand, retailers should consider and evaluate flexible payment options.
    
Finance options such as hire purchase and personal contract purchase (PCP), which allow a buyer to spread payment over a longer time period, are largely confined to purchasing new or used cars, rather than vehicle parts and accessories. However, implementing a more flexible payment option at checkout for these products and services, such as buy now pay later (BNPL), will help alleviate the financial strain of such purchases for consumers. This is because BNPL splits large payments into smaller manageable instalments, so customers do not feel the full financial impact in one go. However, traditional BNPL products often present a one size fits all approach that fails to comprehensively meet the needs of aftermarket businesses.

Future
Lender aggregation is the future of BNPL. Checkout finance solutions that are supported by multiple lenders are the next step in the evolution of BNPL. This is because a combination of lenders provides a broader range of risk appetite, which means that the right lender will be matched with the right consumer. For retailers, this innovative matching of lenders to customers will boost acceptance and conversion rates, and, consequently, sales. Whilst customers will benefit from having greater access to finance and more freedom to pay the way they want.
    
The UK’s primary multi-lender checkout finance option is Deko’s Pay Monthly product. Deko’s lender aggregation means it can cover basket sizes ranging from £25 to £25,000, with interest-free options available and instalment periods up to 60 months. This flexibility that comes with multi-lender finance products will empower your customers to service and upgrade the cars they love, building better customer relationships and lasting consumer demand.

Economic contribution
BNPL can also support the sector’s economic contribution. As the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) put it in a recent report: “The automotive aftermarket is a vital part of the UK economy … By keeping the country moving, the aftermarket delivers significant direct and indirect financial benefits to the country.” Retailers should adopt BNPL, not only because they want to boost their revenues but also to help and support their customers. Seeing BNPL being used more broadly across the sector would help it mitigate the impact of the emerging slowdown and allow the auto aftermarket industry to continue to make a significant contribution to the UK’s economic recovery.

As we saw in the last issue, the first step is to let angry customers talk uninterrupted, but rarely will a customer say everything in one go. They will seek attention, start talking, ramble, move into other areas, before coming back to the main point. The worst thing you can do is to interrupt them – it will just make them angrier. If you let the customer talk until they are done, their emotional high will subside and they will be more amendable to interactive conversation.
    
Be supportive with your comments and then when the customer has finally finished, take control of the situation by acknowledging that there’s an issue.

Acknowledge the problem
Before you can properly start to deal with the issue at hand, it is important to go over your understanding of what the customer is upset about, reiterating the key points and the priorities as the customer sees them. This will reassure them that you understand their problem. Again, use a gentle and calm voice and ask the customer to confirm your understanding is theirs. It is irrelevant how a problem started or where the customer sees themselves in the resolution process. All that matters is that you take ownership of the customer’s problem and see it through to the bitter end. If you do not take this course of action, you will be pouring fuel onto the fire and giving the customer very good reason to become incandescent with rage.
    
Your problem is that it is very tempting to deny responsibility for the issue, state that it has been caused by someone else, hoping that the customer and their problem will go away. Unfortunately, in today’s litigious and social media-based society it is not going to. The harsh reality is that even if you need to go to someone else to find out more, possibly at another of the business’s locations, you will still be the customer’s main point of contact. The customer doesn’t care for hurdles and is also not bothered how internal procedures work – they just want a resolution.

People first
While it may seem entirely logical to deal with the physical manifestation, dealing with the human side of the complaint will help satisfy the customer. One they have calmed down you will be able to move on the technical issue with them on your side. So – deal with the anger first and then progress on to fixing the problem. Interestingly, it may transpire that the technical issue behind the complaint – say an online system or a double charge made on a credit card – could be affecting more of your customers.

Fix the problem
Once the customer has been reassured, you need to move forward and deal with the reason for the complaint while also looking to ensure that long term, the problem does not reoccur. Cast-iron guarantees that the problem, or something similar, will never happen again are not always possible. However, what you can do is tell the customer that if an issue ever arises again that you will be happy to be their point of contact. That said, if you think you have fixed the problem once and for all, make a point of proving this to the customer.

Follow Up
People like to be remembered and it is good practice to revisit a complaint and contact the customer to ensure that they are happy with the resolutions, and the business. A phone call or personalised email or letter is all that it takes to make the point that the customer is valuable to the business and that their complaint was taken seriously. It’s an incredibly powerful message to show that you care. Remember if you truly do not care about a customer’s concerns, dealing with issues will only ever be a short-term problem; No more customer, simply put, means no more complaints – and that really is incompetent.

Hybrid cars are outdated, pointless and hindering the transition to zero-emission fully electric cars and clean transport. If we truly want to build a net-zero world as soon as possible, then they should be banned.
    
Back in the 1990s, hybrid cars had a purpose. They demonstrated the potential of electric technology and e-vehicles, and how a future free of fossil fuel consumption truly was on the horizon. Cut to 30 years later, with the advancement of full-electric vehicle technology, hybrids have become an obstacle to the electric revolution.
    
Removing hybrid cars will accelerate the move to a better, completely electric-driven future. Currently, they stand as a roadblock, slowing the changes in infrastructure needed for fully electric cars and distracting consumers with the allure of an alternative type of vehicle that ultimately isn’t worthwhile. Banning hybrid vehicles, alongside combustion engines, should be a priority as part of the electric revolution we are currently on the precipice of.

The hybrid lie of helping the environment
Many people have noble intentions when it comes to wanting to do more to help lessen their impact on their environment, and when it comes to travel, the right personal vehicle is something most can control directly. There is a growing need to drive more efficient machines, and thus the appeal of the hybrid car is evident. The range is not an issue, as its internal combustion engine is available regardless of charge level, and you can drive secure in the fact that your emissions are reduced compared to a gas-guzzling alternative.    
    
Only these preconceptions are falsehoods. You have been coerced by the hybrid lie. Three of the most popular plug-ins in 2020 all emitted more CO2 than advertised when tested in the real world, according to research by Transport and Environment – and this matches previous research on older models.
    
The effects are more than negligible, and any benefits are countered by drawbacks. Even with a plug-in hybrid (PHEV), the benefits of charging a battery are countered by its limited size and range – typically less than 50 kilometres – and therefore after it is quickly used up you are straight back to petrol or diesel once more. Sure, 50 clean kilometres is better than nothing, but this quickly adds up to causing more harm than the alternative of a purely electric solution.

Placebo effect of hybrid culture
As a placebo for real impact on the market, hybrids act as an unnecessary distraction on the journey of transitioning to a fully electric future and seeing real, measurably positive impacts on carbon emissions. Are they marginally better for the environment? Arguably. Yet overall, their impact on the consumer and position within the market leaves an overall negative impact.
    
People want to ‘do their bit’. People want to make a difference – usually, that involves the path that of least personal effort, trusting advice from experts. Settling for hybrids as an equal alternative to going fully electric, however, is misdirection, and only delays the valuable changes they could have made from the start. Preying upon the ethical intentions of consumers is yet another distraction created by these attitudes towards hybrid vehicles.
    
Another common practice is the idea to try hybrid first before going full electric. This quite often comes down to irrational fear of the range of electric cars, or maybe just fearing change in general. Research conducted by Nissan showed that 97% of EV drivers found the switch "as expected" or "easier", and 89% believe ditching diesel/petrol was the right decision. Ultimately, this only means that the hybrid option once again reduces or delays the desire to go fully electric – it stands in the way of change.

The limitations of EV infrastructure
With the scarcity of EV infrastructure as it is, a hybrid car using a charge point takes reduces what limited resources EVs have available to them. There are only a limited number of charging points out there – and even fewer rapid points vital to the electrification of roads and motorways.
    
Building more infrastructure is critical– there is not nearly enough currently to support a complete green transition. But also ensuring that this infrastructure is used by the right type of vehicles should be a priority. If used by cars that will drain their small batteries quickly, and ultimately end up relying on a combustion engine, any positive impact on the environment is immediately lost, as well as directly reducing the operational capacity of electric infrastructure.
    
Congested charging points also have a greater effect on the consumer mindset. If refuelling an ICE car is always massively quicker and easier compared to queuing for a charging point, most will come to the same conclusion – “it’s not the right time to get an EV.” Ultimately, more electric infrastructure is needed, but also removing hybrid cars from these queues gives a better indication of just how accessible going fully electric can be to the average onlooker.
    
The promise of the hybrid may once have been true – hybrids are better for the environment, a good transition to electric cars, and a way to reduce emissions. The reality, however, is that they are now behind the times. When better alternatives exist, the hybrid lie just serves to mislead and obfuscate the path to real, meaningful change that the modern era of e-vehicles can bring.
        
www.aidanmcclean.com

Point S has become a familiar name since it first landed in the UK in 2011. The global network began in France, and has spread out across the world. While its initial focus was on tyre fitters, it has widened its remit and increasingly draws in more garages each year.
    
Explaining something of the history, Point S UK’s Network Operations Manager Wayne Daniel said: “Point S was started in 1971 as an association of French tyre dealers looking to pull together their purchasing power. The network has developed since its inception, and now covers other service items like batteries, wiper blades, and bulbs. We are on four continents and in 48 countries to defend the independence of our members and our network and support their profitability around the world.
    
“We have 2,950 members running 7,500 depots. Point S Auto Care Network was established in the UK in 2011, 40 years after France. So, last year, while France celebrated its 50th anniversary, we celebrated our tenth, and we have come a long way in those 10 years. We currently have 177 members with 288 depots across the country. We're fast approaching the 300 that we're looking for. We have the Business Development Managers on the road, working with the members to push as much of the portfolio products or the offers that they have to the members to make sure they got the right deal with the right quality. They are also actively out there looking for people to join, but they'll only be looking in areas where we don't have anybody.”
    
Considering its origins as a tyre-focused business, you won’t be surprised to learn that tyres remain absolutely central to the offering. Point S members have access to a wide range of tyre brands, including, among others, premium brands such as Bridgestone, Continental, Pirelli, Michelin and Goodyear. Members are also able to offer customers the Point S own-brand tyre. “That's manufactured by one of the premium manufacturers under license,” said Wayne.

Harmonisation
With this sort of network, while the signage is the same, each business is independent, so the key is to get all the members going in the same direction: “Harmonisation is one of the fundamentally important parts of getting our plan out in the marketplace,” Wayne observed. This can be tricky when some sites are running as a single outlet, and others are part of a group: “For example, we have one member in Maidstone that has one site and then have others that have four sites in Birmingham. We have some that have got 10 sites.
    
On how they find working with this kind of spread, Wayne commented: “From our point of view, some at the smaller end of the scale needed more help than the bigger ones, but we work with them all.” How long a business has been going has an impact as well: “We have within our network that have been going over 40 years now, so they're well-established.”
    
Addressing the ongoing shift in the nature of the membership has been one of the main themes of Wayne’s tenure so far, and this does not look like it will change any time soon: “One of the fundamental things that has changed is that a lot of our members aren’t just doing tyres anymore. They are diversifying their businesses towards the mechanical side.
    
“A lot of our members now do servicing, MOTs and brakes. This means it's really important for our business model that we offered our members parts, consumables and batteries. It was also really important that we associated our members with the premium side of parts.”

Switch
It is ironic that tyre sites are moving towards the traditional garage market, because a lot of traditional garages are moving into tyres. In short, everybody is becoming someone else. According to Wayne, it’s part of a changing world: “When my father was driving, he would have gone to a tyre dealer to get his tyres, then he would have gone to a garage to get his car serviced.
  
“Today, if you want to keep a customer, you have to offer everything. You don't want to give the consumer the opportunity to go somewhere else. It does make you laugh because garages make a good margin in what they do, and they've gone into the tyre side, which is probably not as profitable as they thought it was going to be.  Meanwhile, tyre businesses have gone into the mechanical side and they're seeing how profitable this market can be.”
    
He continued: “Back in 2017, most new members were tyre outlets. Now, 50% of businesses joining our organisation now will be garages. However, the garages that we're talking to already do tyres, so they're not completely green. Maybe they need a bit of direction with what they're buying. We help with marketing to customers. We do a digital platform for them, so they can sell tyres online. We can do local advertising with them too and we give them training on the tyres.
    
“The key when selling tyres if you are a garage is being able to upsell to a good tyre for maybe for a customer who's just got no tread and needs tyres but don't really know anything about tyres. That's where the Point S tyre comes in. It's a mid-range product that's competitively priced.”

Ambition
For a garage looking to join a network, you will be looking for that name recognition. If you are a traditional workshop, will Point S be the right fit for you? “Point S in France would be equivalent to how the general public perceive Kwik Fit in the UK. They are decades ahead of us.”
    
How do you push this forward in the UK then? The changing face of the car parc could provide an answer: “Nobody knows really what's going to happen with dealer networks. Look at what Elon Musk has done in this sector; Lorries that just dropped their sides in town centres and sales points with no workshop attached. Electric vehicle manufacturers may need a network to service their vehicles. It's really, really important that we recognise what's good for today, but also where our members need to be in the next three or four years. A lot of the members that we are bringing on now are coming from the mechanical side because they feel that they need to be part of something. Point S is very much playing a major part in supporting the independent sector and keeping them ahead of the game where we're going.
    
“It's our ambition to be the largest qualified certified European network for electric vehicle maintenance by 2026. It will enable our independents to take their businesses to the next level and future-proof their businesses.”
    
That’s not all though: “It's our aspiration over the coming years to have our own training centre in the UK, covering all aspects as well as EVs. My job is to look 12-18 months ahead and further, to see what’s next coming. The training school concept plays a large part in what I've been doing over the last six months because it's a large part of what our business is going to be moving forward.”
    
Wayne concluded: “We're working towards tomorrow, building with the members so they can have a sustainable business for the future. It's a 50/50 partnership, one that works.”

The sharing economy is booming with more consumers using instead of owning; Think Airbnb or Zipcar. What about the business community?  What if you could hire a cleaning cloth, return it for washing when it’s dirty, and receive a clean one in its place? What if you not only had one, but as many as you needed, on-site, ready to use?

The idea of a sharing economy in which people use resources rather than own them is very current in society and commerce today, but it’s not new. Mewa has been doing it for over a hundred years and our cloths are now rented by some 190,000 companies in 21 countries.

Garages have more need than most for wipes to keep machinery, equipment and premises clean and safe. In the Mewa system, clean reusable cloths are delivered as necessary. After use, they are placed in our SaCon safety container. From there, they are collected, washed, dried and delivered back to the client clean.

Reusing products is more environmentally sustainable than throwing them away.  Companies choosing this green option can enhance their reputation, which helps in attracting and retaining customers and staff. More immediately though time is saved and costly health and safety lapses avoided.

Save on cleaning time
Because our cloths are better suited to their job and offer higher absorbency, they clean in less time. The saving compared to disposable paper roll, for example, is up to 35%. Our absorbent mats too can absorb 3 litres of fluid such as oils, solvents and other liquids, transporting the fluid from the outer fabric into its special fibre core, keeping the surface dry. This eliminates the need for drip trays or oil pans and granules or sand to soak up these liquids, all of which are time consuming to oversee. A reusable wipe service also lightens the administrative time, effort and cost involved in checking and reordering stock, using up valuable storage space and tying up capital.

Any cleaning cloths soaked with oil, and many other industrial fluids, are classified as “absolute hazardous” entries on the Waste Framework Directive’s List of Waste document.

 Therefore, to ensure that you remain compliant with legal regulations, all wastes contaminated with absolute hazardous industrial fluids, including any cloths used to mop-up spillages, must be safely stored in a suitable recipient before being disposed of by an accredited hazardous wastes contractor.

Our legally compliant SaCon safety container and washing system means you don’t have to organise special storage or disposal of contaminated wipes, saving you time, money and reducing the risk of Health & Safety fines.

Avoid worker downtime
Health & Safety Executive (HSE) figures show that slips and trips are the most common cause of major injuries at work. 95% of major slips result in broken bones and, on average, are responsible for 20% of over-three-day injuries to employees. The cost to UK employers is £512 million a year in lost production and other costs.

HSE advises that all spills should be mopped up immediately to reduce the risk of slips. Help avoid worker downtime by always having cleaning cloths to hand to mop up spillages and absorbent oil trapping mats in those high leak areas.  
The value of reusable wipes to a business is extensive, helping improve productivity, sustainability, as well as saving time and money.  

Hillclimb Garage is based in Downley, a village on the outskirts of  High Wycombe. The garage itself is based in a former Renault dealership that later became an independent used car retailer.
    
As you might expect from an ex-dealership, the workshop is pretty big: “We've got seven working bays, five of which are fully operational with ramps,” said owner Mark Darvill. “Next year we are putting another ramp in.”
    
Mark bought Hillclimb Garage two years ago, following a career where he had worked with many of the major factor names supplying the aftermarket.
    
“My history is with Allparts,” said Mark. The name may be familiar to some readers. “I started there as a warehouse boy and ended up as a shareholder and Managing Director. We were a founder member of The Parts Alliance way back in 2000, with the likes of Andrew Page and Camberley Auto Factors and several of the other big names that have gone now. We sold it in 2012 to HG Capital.” After an additional two years with the company, he moved onto a series of consultancy roles and other positions across the sector, but he still had a dream that kept pushing out from the back of his head: “I always had this idea that I wanted to run a workshop and I heard on the grapevine that Hillclimb Garage was up for sale. The rest is history.”
    
The garage currently fields a team of nine, including two on the service desk and four technicians, three of whom are MOT testers. Rounding out the team are an apprentice, now in his second year and a general assistant who cleans cars, as well as collecting and dropping off for customers among other duties.
    
“We're looking for another service adviser and another technician,” he observed. “We're currently having to push people up to three weeks into the future for their bookings, and of course, not everybody can wait, so we've got to invest further in people.”

Transformed
Where it had been a used car dealer running the garage side as almost a separate business, Hillclimb Garage is now entirely a service and repair operation: “We've transformed the place. We've invested heavily in the workshop, completely refitted it from top to bottom. We renewed the workstations, and we're now renewing the ramps. We've invested heavily in technical equipment and more importantly, we've invested in people.
    
“Tom, who's a Master Technician, is the workshop manager, and we've built the team around him in the workshop. We've also made a lot of changes out the front as well, in service, reception and just the way that we manage the whole customer experience.”

Confidence and transparency
On how they are marketing the business in the area, Mark said: “We pitch ourselves as supporting our customers and maintaining their vehicles to a high standard. That means picking cars up, washing every car and videoing every job. All advisory work is detailed to the customer with a paragraph on every recommendation. Everything is priced, everything is transparent and all of that takes time. However, what it allows us to do is give the customer confidence and trust in what we're recommending and puts them in control. Of course, they love it.”
    
The business is generalist, with German leanings: “We've got two VAG-trained technicians, so we tend to see quite a lot of German stuff. This means we are seeing more BMW and Mercedes-Benz, alongside the Volkswagen-Audi group vehicles. We've even got a growing number of Range Rover customers, for our sins.”
    
It’s not all rolling gin palaces though: “Tom is a Honda Master Tech, so we are seeing more on that side. It's about a true-cross section, looking after all different types of customers and trying to get to know them and how they want their car to be maintained. It's something we spend a lot of time on. Let’s say the car is eight or nine years old, with 60,000 or  70,000 miles on the clock. The customer can't afford a new car. They are relying on us to maintain it, to keep it going, get us through the MOT for another year. It's a cliché at the moment, but with the cost of living crisis, managing those cars carefully for our customers is so important, and they welcome that. If it doesn't need brakes for three months, we tell them we will give them a call in three months. That goes into our system, and that gives them another three paydays. When they come back, they've got it in their mind already that they're going to have that cost. That helps build trust, and again, the customers love it.”
    
While all this is going on, the electrification of the car parc continues: “We invested a lot of money in that last year with EV equipment and with EV training, getting the guys fully qualified. We are now starting to see more and more vehicles come to us. EV owners are savvy and are looking for independent electric vehicle garages, so that investment is really starting to pay off. Tom is our Level 4 EV technician and we have two other Level 3 qualified technicians. The high voltage work is carried out in a quarantined area. We've got a Renault Zoe in today that we're doing a DC/DC converter change on. “

Top Garage
On their experiences taking part in Top Garage 2021, and winning in the business with seven-to-nine employees’ category, Mark said: “We loved it. It did us the power of good. There were so many positives that we took from it. We were lucky enough to get the vote from the judges, and the positivity and the reinforcement that what we're doing is right across the team was fantastic. It helps with staff retention, because they know they're working for a great company. Also, when we're out there looking for people, which we are doing at the moment, we are able to say we are a winner of a national award. This gives us an edge on other companies and reinforces our professionalism and integrity. That was the one thing that I said to my people; This is Aftermarket’s Top Garage. It's got real credibility.  
    
“As far as our customers are concerned, it gives them confidence. We actually had a five-star review on Google a couple of weeks ago It said, ‘I saw this garage as an award winner and so thought they must be doing something right. So, it helps us to win business. It also helps us to retain customers and says we're being recognised for the work that we're doing. It's had a very positive effect on us.”

Future
Looking to the future, we wondered if Mark had identified the next mountain to climb for the garage: “We're growing, so we're taking on two more people, we're expanding the workshop, putting another ramp in. We are also looking at how we can continue to develop our technical capabilities. We've got meetings with various different ADAS equipment suppliers already lined up. We're also continuing to meet the EV and hybrid challenge head-on. We are gold members of HEVRA, and I think that's going to be really important for us to maintain our position and ensure that our knowledge level stays high. It's only going to get busier in this segment.
    
“We're redeveloping the service desk area early next year. We've got a lovely glass-fronted showroom anyway, so we're going to have separate desks where customers can come in and sit down with us with a tablet there so we can show them the work that's been done and talk through what needs to be done. We are also working with a software company to introduce fully digital service records in the near future.”
    
He concluded: “We have so much planned. We want to keep the momentum, up, and make sure we stay ahead. It’s not just about the big stuff, it’s about making small but significant marginal gains. We're growing at a good, solid, steady pace, and we need to keep investing in people, technology, equipment and the customer experience. We are building a framework to ensure we remain fit for the future.”

Most of us will reluctantly admit that, at times, the loudest problems or customers, get our attention.
    
Why do we feel the need to discount or offer something to those customers who shout the loudest? All our customers come with their own needs, some may ask a lot of questions, some may complain, some are very needy and require a lot of information and support. Sometimes the ones who complain are giving voice to those that are quiet and just drift away without voicing their opinions. So why do we reward those that shout the loudest?
    
This can come in many forms. Here are just a couple of examples. There is the aggressor. Their body language and their manner are aggressive, and they are very demanding. Shouting the odds, blaming someone else for their problems. These customers can make us feel intimidated and scared. There is the emotive. They are upset, displaying tears and self-pity. These customers make us feel emotional and bad about the situation. In both scenarios, it is normally about the costs or the time to carry out the repair.
    
Often, a conversation with an explanation is enough, but remember, we are running a business, we cannot just start giving out discounts to every customer who comes in showing the above behaviour. Ultimately, it is not our problem that the customers vehicle is broken or how much it costs to repair. Finding the balance in the dichotomy here is very hard.
    
The biggest mistake we make, is that we do not listen, attentively listen to understand. We need to listen with our ears, eyes, and bodies. Give that customer the feeling that they and what they have to say is the most important thing. Your listening skills demonstrates dignity and respect for your customer. There will be times when you feel like interrupting as you do not agree with something that they are saying, but wait, listen. Let them talk themselves out, reiterate what has been said so they know you have taken it all on board. Do not argue, you cannot win an argument. Even if you shoot down the other parties’ point of view with evidence to prove that you are right, you have still not really won. You, will feel great, you have won, haven’t you? What about the other party? All you have done is make them feel inferior, embarrassed, downtrodden. Is this how you want to make your customer feel?
    
Many bad situations can be resolved by listening, taking the emotion out of the situation and being empathetic. Stay assertive, this does not mean being aggressive. Be influential rather than argumentative. After all, prevention is better than cure. Remember, in every situation, how you respond affects the outcome.
    
When we offer a compromise, a discount, an offer that can be used later, a car valet or some other service. All we are doing is feeding the lion.
    
Why don’t we offer this to our loyal customers, those that come back time and time again, no complaints just quiet happy customers? How many of us know who are real loyal customers are, not just those that spend but those that are our raving fans and recommend us to everyone they know? How many of us reward those customers?

By Andrew Marsh, Engineering Director, Auto Industry Consulting Ltd

Speed and location of charge points aren’t the only issue with today’s electric vehicle infrastructure; Standardisation is also key

Maverick Diagnostics feels the need; The need, for greater training provision to help the aftermarket to get techs up to speed on EVs and hybrids. With the cross-industry staffing shortfall running into the thousands as more electric and hybrid vehicles join the roads, many organisations across the industry are hearing the call to action. With this in mind, Maverick Diagnostics has just thrown the doors open at its brand-new Automotive Training Academy.
    
Tucked away on an industrial estate outside Wrexham, just a few minutes from their H.Q, the centre will be offering a two-day IMI electric/hybrid vehicle system repair and replacement course, the nationally recognised IMI accredited Level 2 and Level 3(combined). The IMI-accredited centre received its official opening on Monday 11 July, with the ribbon cut by IMI Chair and OPUS IVS MD Kevin Finn. The IMI is fully backing the launch, and looking to encourage everyone that signs up to join the IMI TechSafe Register too.
    
Commenting on the opening, Kevin Finn said: “It's great to see that in this area where there wasn't the ability to get access to EV and hybrid training even where there's a high population of vehicles, that this has been opened.”
    
On the opportunity, Kevin observed: “Even I thought the entry level into servicing EVs and hybrids was really high. What I've discovered is that it's in the hundreds of pounds and the training cost itself is moderate. I believe you can actually qualify and have you garage ready for basic servicing at Level Three for electric vehicles, for probably less than £1,000 including the training. That's been, even for me, quite a surprise.”
    
He continued: “I think we have to really pay attention to this now because the number of vehicles that are out there that require our attention is huge, and many in the aftermarket are missing the opportunity. With the number of EVs and hybrids out there versus the small number of technicians, there seems to be quite a large opportunity for the forward-thinking garage.
    
Kevin added: “The aftermarket is currently missing out, and they need to take advantage of the massive EV and hybrid opportunity.”

Opportunity
This was part of the reasoning behind opening the centre for Maverick Diagnostics M.D Andy Brooke, who said: “Many garages still don’t understand the opportunity at all. Some people still don't believe that EV and hybrid will arrive. Well, clearly every TV ad for a car mentions EV and hybrid. It’s here now and it’s here to stay.”
    
He continued: “Myself and my team along with the OPUS IVS team have been looking at the EV and hybrid market for several years now. There's a huge opportunity, not only to service and maintain these vehicles once people have been correctly trained, but also with areas like refurbishment of batteries, testing of batteries, assisting customers with problems. Take for example the heating and ventilation problems that you get on these vehicles. If you have a hole in the condenser on a ICE car, all that would happen would be that your air con would stop working. However, on an EV or a hybrid, the vehicle will actually shut down. There are massive opportunities for training, massive opportunities for the future for garages to get involved with many areas and of course they need to be IMI Techsafe registered.”

Investment
According to Andy, getting qualified should not be viewed as an administrative issue for garages, they should think of it as part of the marketing armoury: “Having a certificate will pull customers to your workshop.” After that, another factor that Andy is keen to highlight is that the investment for garages for getting into EVs may be far lower than they realise. “Once they've got their qualifications at Level 3 and Level 4, how much do they actually need?
    
Simply put, we've got a plastic insulated tool tray that cost £44. They then need a rubber mat to stand on, awesome gloves, preferably high insulation gloves with dating. Lastly they need some insulated spanners and a multi meter. Total investment is probably going to be under £600.
    
“It's only when you get to removing and refitting batteries and components that you're going to need to a clear floor vehicle and  battery lifting platform, which would probably set you back another £3,000. You may already have a clear floor transmission lift. The bottom line is that it's a lot less than you think. Once they realise, garages are going to jump onto it. However, they don't see them yet as an opportunity. Unfortunately, they see them as a bit of a hindrance which they're running away from. Once a vehicle is safely isolated, there's no voltage to electrocute you.
    
“There's an opportunity in the future remove to batteries for refurbishing and to remove and refurbish components on the vehicle. After all, these cars are going to have a much longer lifespan than the average petrol or diesel vehicle. Not only that, they can be a few issues with hybrid vehicles where they can wear out the engines. All together there’s actually quite a bright future for the aftermarket.”
    
For more information on Maverick Diagnostics’ new Automotive Training Academy and the courses available, visit: www.maverickdiagnostics.com/automotive-training-academy

I love competition. No really, I do. Competition abounds in a wide variety of aspects of everyday life. It helps to formulate innovation or is often the basis of experience, in both good and bad ways. Competition creates choices when you have money to spend or forms the basis of just about every sport, whether you are participating or watching. Competition is at its best when there is a level playing field,  both metaphorically and literally.
    
There are many more examples of competition, but from the UK aftermarket’s position, it is the very foundation of its existence. The aftermarket only exists because it offers vehicle owners and operators a choice. If they choose to use the aftermarket, which they predominately do, then it remains the vibrant, innovative and service-centric sector that it is.

Evolution
The aftermarket has evolved for well over more than a century, but in the 21st century the level playing field has become increasing distorted. This is due to the rapid rise in vehicle technology, particularly the vehicle’s electronically controlled systems and functions. In recognition of the corresponding reliance on the vehicle manufacturer being the sole source of the technical information needed to diagnose, service, repair or maintain the vehicle, aftermarket associations lobbied the legislator to act and create the level playing field. As I alluded to in an article earlier this year, this was done as part of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (V-BER) created in 2002 that exempted a variety of industry sector distribution models from the requirements of competition law that would otherwise have made these distribution models illegal. The specific needs of the automotive sector were then covered in a sub-regulation – the Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation (MV-BER) that allowed main dealers to operate as a monopoly within a set geographical area. For the aftermarket, this also included the non-discrimination between workshops, so that independent operators were able to access the same repair and maintenance information (RMI), replacement parts, tools and training as the vehicle manufacturer’s main dealers. The MV-BER was updated in 2010, valid in both the EU and UK  and importantly for the aftermarket, included some new hardcore restrictions concerning the access to captive parts and the ability of Tier 1 suppliers to sell their parts into the aftermarket. Also importantly, it included supplementary guidelines that help to define many detailed aspects of the original Regulation. However, the current MV-BER will expire on 31 May 2023.
    
More recently, many in-vehicle ‘software driven’ aspects have evolved and created an increasing number of ways that the vehicle manufacturers themselves can now directly provide aftermarket services to the driver, vehicle owner or vehicle operator in direct competition to the independent aftermarket.
    
This has led to new service centric business models, especially using the remote wireless access to the vehicle when it is being driven. Monitoring of the vehicle’s functions, as well as how the driver is using the vehicle, using embedded diagnostics and predictive analysis of the vehicle’s data, as well as bespoke service and maintenance offers directly to the driver via the in-dash display are now where it is happening. The basis of competing business models now starts in the car when it is being driven. By the time it gets to a workshop, half the work has been done (the identification of the problem, what work is required, and the parts needed have been identified) so that workshop costs can be reduced by up to 50%.

As only the vehicle manufacturers have remote access to the vehicle, their own embedded applications, and the ability to bi-directionally communicate with the driver, the aftermarket is at a severe disadvantage.

Principles
So, where is the level playing field and non-discrimination unless independent operators can also have equal abilities? (I choose my words carefully).
    
The MV-BER is very important to retain the principles of effective competition for the aftermarket but needs to work in parallel with the vehicle type approval regulations, as these contain much more detail about both the technical and the access requirements that the vehicle manufacturers must support. Vehicle type approval legislation also allows non-compliance claims to be challenged through the type approval authority, as opposed to the more difficult and expensive route through the courts under the MV-BER.
    
Post-Brexit, the role of the UK legislator in the guise of the Competition and Mergers Authority (CMA) is most important. The CMA have consulted on the continued relevance of the MV-BER and plan to issue a two-stage consultation during the summer, so it seems that they plan to renew MV-BER, but it is not clear how new requirements needed to address “technical progress” would be included, if at all. This would require either change to the wording of the MV-BER itself, or an update to the wording of the supplementary guidelines, which although easier to do from the legislative viewpoint, has less direct legal basis in the event of a “non-compliance” by a vehicle manufacturer.
    
Aftermarket associations in the EU, but equally importantly in the UK, have submitted key proposals for updates to the MV-BER supplementary guidelines. The UK government has stated that they will also take into consideration what the European Commission propose to do. The European Commission issued its proposal in early July which explained their approach and their draft proposals.
    
These documents confirmed that MV-BER will be renewed until 31 May 2028, but their proposal also stated that there needed to be an update to “reflect the importance that access to vehicle-generated data was likely to have as a factor for competition.” However, although the European Commission felt that “some parts of the sector would evolve rapidly over the coming years and that this would have an impact (not yet quantifiable) on the conditions of competition,” they also stated that the extension of the MV-BER will “allow some of the currently emerging technologies to consolidate and will put the Commission in a better position to re-assess the situation under the new market reality.”
    
The Commission also explained that access to vehicle-generated data would be included in the revised wording of the Supplementary Guidelines, but although this seeks to establish that “withholding the item in question will have an appreciable impact on the ability of independent operators to carry out their tasks and exercise a competitive constraint on the market” as the basis, this does not clarify many other important related aspects, for example how vehicle generated data would be accessed, what can be accessed, at what cost and what registration/declaration conditions would be imposed by the vehicle manufacturers.
    
The UK government will need to consider what the European Commission has proposed, but for truly effective competition in the UK aftermarket where the vehicle manufacturers are now increasingly and directly competing with independent operators and where the basis of vehicle-related service offers starts remotely when the vehicle is being driven, the UK government will have to do much more. Given the time frame before the current MV-BER is set to expire, the reality is that the ‘rules of the game’ are likely to be insufficient to ensure that the playing field remains level, meaning that the next few years are likely to be increasingly challenging for the UK aftermarket to have the equal abilities needed to compete.

By Rebecca Pullan, Carmaster Garage

Advances in technology mean that the day-to-day jobs of technicians are evolving constantly. It is easy to see how technological skills, understanding and equipment are needed to meet the requirements of increasingly connected vehicles. However, there is a lot going on behind the scenes as well.

Technology is fundamentally changing the way garages do business, from bringing in customers, to scheduling jobs and ordering parts, and taking payment once work has been completed.

Boosting customer experience with digital tools
Digital tools like garage management systems (GMS) provide a simple and cost-effective way for garage owners to streamline their business operations and enhance the customer experience they offer. GMS have been proven to have a positive impact all the way along the value chain. They help garages deliver a service that’s slick and professional, build customer trust and loyalty, and maximise technicians’ billable time by reducing the amount of admin on their plate.
    
LKQ Euro Car Parts customers benefit from exclusive access to CarSys, a cloud-based GMS application. There’s no installation required and it’s available on both desktop and mobile, meaning it’s accessible anywhere, anytime, as long as there’s an internet connection. This includes a dedicated app, free to access for CarSys customers. Simple to use and available on both iOS and Android, it features mobile and digital job cards, integrated HaynesPro data, job clocking, quick quoting, parts ordering and much more. Garages benefit from an extra layer of efficiency at their fingertips, able to streamline processes and move towards becoming a truly paperless workshop.

Why CarSys?
Seamless online bookings: Garages’ online booking systems are supported by the CarSys workshop agenda. This means that whenever a driver books an appointment, it integrates with the workshop diary. The workshop schedule is automatically updated once a booking is made, and the driver receives email confirmation. This helps to reduce the number of no-shows, prevent double bookings, and make the process as seamless as possible for everyone.
    
Ongoing customer communications: CarSys is specifically designed to help reduce the managerial burden on garage owners and support their customer relationships. It stores customer and supplier records in an integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system, meaning that garages can easily send automatic email reminders whenever services are due – and even special birthday offers – helping to drive revenues.
  
Accurate scheduling: Built-in access to Haynes Pro data means technicians can quote for work confidently and accurately every time – and plan it in once they have got the go ahead. Using the Haynes Pro technical data bank, garages can view service schedules, average repair times, and key product information such as oil grades, fluid capacities and torque settings.
    
Professional accounting: Stay on top of your accounting with customer and supplier invoices, sales, reporting and VAT returns, all via the CarSys platform, in tandem with existing Sage, QuickBooks and Xero packages. This functionality also includes the option for the garage and the driver to view a job payment breakdown, along with a record of which payments have been taken and what is still owed, delivering all-important transparency and building trust. It might sound simple, but this is an easy way for garages to impress customers, by offering an experience that rivals the dealerships’ and that encourages drivers to come back again and again.
    
Inventory management and orders: CarSys can help garages manage their stock in the most efficient way, providing a real-time overview of stock levels for accurate re-ordering, meaning they only ever have essential stock on the shelf.
    
When it comes to ordering the parts themselves, using CarSys provides integrated access to the market-leading LKQ Euro Car Parts catalogue and online ordering platform. This gives them access to exclusive deals and promotions, as well as priority service, which ensures that all Omnipart deliveries are first on the van from the nearest branch. This functionality is more important than ever in the current economic climate.
    
Easy onboarding: From day one, the in-house CarSys support team will support garages with their GMS journey. With access to full, bespoke training and consultation, users can get to grips with the system and have it configured to meet the specific needs of their garage. Unlimited ongoing support is available for garages until they are totally comfortable with the platform and achieving the engagement levels they want from it. As the aftermarket evolves, it is key that technicians and garage owners change with it – and those with tools such as GMS at their fingertips are at an instant advantage.

Testimonial: Atlanta Garage
Atlanta Garage is a family-run workshop based in Portsmouth, offering a full range of MOT, diagnostic and repair services. Since April, the team has used CarSys to drive a series of efficiencies across the workshop.
    
Nik Buck explained: “We use CarSys for so many things day-to-day – everything from bookings, allocating and prioritising jobs, and tracking accounts. For us, it has really helped to streamline our work. Our team has expanded from two to five in the last few months, so keeping track of where everyone is up to, and what they’d be working on a particular day has helped us to stay organised as we grow. We use it for managing our finances. It helps us track profit and loss, and we use it to prepare customer invoices. This also helps to drive cost savings, as we no longer need to rely on an external bookmaker for support. Instead, all of the information we need is at our fingertips.
    
“Most of all, CarSys helps to support our customer experience. The ability to share booking reminders for servicing and MOTs is helping us to generate more business than ever before. When customers arrive at the garage, the process of checking them in is completely seamless. A great feature for us is the ability to leave notes on a customer file, which means that even if someone else served them on their last visit we can handle any queries up front. It also helps to support upselling. If we left an advisory message after their last service, for example, we can remind them and explain why it would be beneficial to invest in a new part.”
    
Nik added: “Moving forward, we’ll also be tapping into some of the additional functionality that CarSys offers, such as running reports and analysing servicing trends. We’d really encourage every garage to invest in CarSys if they can. It’s been a fantastic tool for us already, and we know it will help us make even more improvements over the coming weeks and months.”  

Riding the MOT wave
The pandemic turned the traditional MOT demand curve on its head. Nearly three quarters of MOTs due in the early months of the UK’s first national lockdown were deferred until the autumn, meaning they will once again be due in the coming weeks, on top of those that have always fallen later in the year. This means it’s critical for garages to prepare now, and this is where slick customer communications come into play. Getting ahead of the curve now lets garages manage demand effectively, while also maximising revenue.
    
Planning ahead: The first step must be getting in touch with customers who you know have tests coming up. This means you can plan resource in the best way, as well as get more tests booked in overall. And don’t forget that vehicles due an MOT can be serviced up to a month in advance – you can start to tick vehicles off early to avoid a glut. The benefit of systems like CarSys is that drivers will be reminded of their bookings, through either SMS or email, helping to minimise no-shows and helping garages keep on top of exactly what will be coming through their garage doors, and when.
    
Technology plays a key role in helping to map out demand. Tools like HaynesPro let you accurately estimate labour costs and identify the right parts, making it easier to manage capacity and cashflow during times of high demand. CarSys is fully integrated with HaynesPro, and has stock management, parts ordering and quoting and invoicing features to streamline processes throughout the garage and enhance the overall customer experience. Top-notch business management and customer service are as crucial to ensuring existing customers keep coming back as they are to bringing in new ones.
    
Upskilling: Keeping on top of training and skills requirements is also an easy way to win customer loyalty and trust. Sharing product knowledge and recommendations following an MOT can help customers to avoid repeat problems in the future, or stop small issues from becoming serious, and generates opportunities to upsell.
    
We are committed to helping technicians maintain outstanding levels of service with the IMI-approved MOT training we offer through the LKQ Academy. Garages can opt for either the full annual CPD programme, due by 31 March each year, or routine refresher courses, which can be accessed online or in our classroom-based sessions.