How to add big bucks to vehicle servicing

Published: 26 January, 2021

Kalimex provide three ways to increase your income from servicing through the use of products from JLM Lubricants

Money doesn’t grow on trees, so here are three effective ways to boost workshop revenues using JLM Lubricants’ range of trade trusted- and-trade- tested diesel and petrol additives and toolkits. Thousands of mechanics worldwide are already reaping the rewards. It’s time to join them.

Offer an interim vehicle check up with some added TLC

For motorists who deferred their MOTs last year contact them now offering a vehicle spring health check. As well as the usual safety checks use JLM’s professional fuel additives to give the engine a thorough spring clean - especially important for diesel vehicles on short journeys during the pandemic.

Launch a dedicated DPF check-up and cleaning service

Prevention is better than cure so checking the DPF will identify any developing problems. A blocked DPF is often a symptom of an engine problem so advising your customer of your findings will generate additional work. Check-up complete, a dose of JLM’s DPF ReGen plus, or Diesel Extreme Clean for the less loved vehicles, will leave your customer with a healthier engine and less chance of a catastrophic and costly failure.

Introduce a JLM additive bundle with special time limited offers

For example, a four-pack of the JLM Petrol Emission Reduction Treatment gives a customer 12 months’ worth of professional quality additive to keep their engine, injectors and CAT in tip top condition. When they’ve used the final bottle, remind them it’s time to come back for their check-up or service. Don’t forget the voucher or special VIP discount you gave them at the same time as selling the product bundle.

Goodies up for grabs

For a chance to win a superb JLM goody pack including a limited-edition bobble hat, professional workshop gloves and more, email info@kalimex.co.uk with your name and business details quoting AFMFEB21. Kalimex will draw five names at random on 28 February. Winners will be notified by email.

For more info on JLM or call Kalimex on 0800 783 3717 or visit www.jlmlubricants.co.uk

Add more value to vehicle servicing
This article is the result of one of our trade customers, my local garage, asking for tips on how to promote some of the JLM Lubricants’ products we supply to them. Many of the products are for trade use only. For example, the DPF Cleaning Toolkit which will clean a fully blocked DPF without having to remove it. However, other JLM products are designed to prevent problems from recurring and are simple to apply. This makes them ideal for a customer to use in between having their car serviced.
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Desk diagnostics
By Neil Currie
And the worst MOT tester in the UK is… YOU
To save money and raise efficiency, the DVSA has turned to automation. They no longer need an army of Vehicle Examiners wandering from MOT bay to MOT bay. Instead they are collecting data all the time.

Let’s say I am the boss and my business is low on revenue. I beat up the manager and he in turn influences the tester to fail everything coming through the door. The customer is now stuck with no MOT and I have some simple high yield repairs.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The DVSA computer is monitoring individual tester behaviour and looking at averages. The pattern is really easy for a computer at the DVSA to see because it’s just not possible that lots of cars fail on the same items every day. The DVSA’s fix is to target garages where data shows they are hunting for work and send in a VE to crosscheck. He needs only to wait nearby until our tester issues his favourite fails and then arrive to retest the car.

We all, as testers, now have access to our TQI. Lots of testers that I speak to have the sentiment that this data is all rubbish but, here is the rub. The DVSA have a team of very capable data processors looking at this data and writing algorithms that alert them to trends that need investigation.

Take my example of one of my longest-serving testers and allow the DVSA computer to tell me every car that he has tested in the last two weeks of November for the last seven years and add in that we only want to know about cars tested after 4:30pm. We find only one car; a Y reg (2001) BMW 320i convertible, always tested after 5pm with a longest test time of thirty-two minutes and shortest of twenty-seven. Guess what, it’s my guy’s brother-in-law’s car!

For me the horror is that the car has never failed an MOT. It’s also never been in the workshop for any repairs. It looks absolutely dogged out and is on around 180,000 miles. Worst still my guy has never once even advised anything on this car. The VE would assume Barry’s guy is prepared to let things slide at the end of the day, so maybe he plans to visit me after 5pm on a Thursday.

Conflicting vehicle locations
This is a fun story from a close and trusted friend. My guy is at a DVSA IVA check and overhears a conversation by a couple of Vehicle Examiners. It goes like this; VE no.1 is suspicious of an MOT bay offering fraudulent MOT tests. He parks down the road from an MOT bay in Kent and checks which vehicle is logged on and being tested. He takes the registration number of the vehicle in question and calls the DVLA, identifies himself and asks if the vehicle has been seen on the DVLA camera system anywhere in the last half hour. The car was last seen on the M25 twelve minutes ago near Watford in Hertfordshire over 70 miles away.

So, our VE is in Kent and the car is in Hertfordshire. If this works today in a manual sense how long will it be before computers can do this to every single test? Talk about an easy way to stop fraudulent MOTs, just using computers that the government already own.