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Were lucky then . We only outsource the dent man ,any day except Mon and Friday Mon hes getting over being drunk , Friday he's to excited about being drunk . Tue/Thursday hes very good . Everything else is in house from pumping tyres up to gearbox rebuilds . Nothing challenges my lad at all , its freaky easy when you see him work . He's just done my XRF timing chains & tensioners and water pump WOW pure genius to watch , TT belts one and half .

Its very tough up here in Yorkshire, i fear for those garages both large and small with huge dept , stocking plans etc ....the next 3-5 months will see many go bankrupt im afraid. Our industry profits are horrendous, not sustainable .....

I'm far from being an expert on these things but doesn't CAT S require fresh MOT before the V5 is re-issued? Why not extend that to all write offs regardless, can't see how it would hurt. Especially bearing in mind the amount of guys that are doing the whole youtube "Copart rebuild" thing. And from what I've seen there are varying levels of competency; some guys should be banned from owning a set of spanner!

You're right nick just don't understand vosa sometimes. Even if it's minor damage but been written off as a category d surely if the headlight is damaged it must be repaired to be road legal what if the aim of the light if pointing towards the stars and not the road

I can’t believe the DVSA have not thought to invalidate MOTs following insurance loss. You’d think it was common sense. Always always do a new Mot on a write off car to confirm that repairs have been carried out to a high enough standard and that the car is STILL roadworthy. There is no point to save the £30odd test fee.

By the way- welcome Casper and thanks for the introduction! There's a fair few big names down here on the South Coast that are hurting too. I'm amazed that Westover got bought recently by Hendy - so I guess they at least must be an attractive proposition.Who knows. I wonder how we'll all look back on the 2015-2020 period in a few years time. Any previous era and words like 'squeeze, crunch and recession would maybe have been mentioned?' Or maybe it's just the transition from actual to virtual business a-la Amazon.

Noticed a lot more dry spells this year... where before there were 10 days straight where it felt very quiet that's extended to 3 week to full months of feeling very quiet. Not good. Then you have a month where you sell a load only to lose the profit made to niggly warranty claims. You only have to look at the amount of due diligence you need to do in this job (paperwork, PDI etc) and the many variables to see why it's hard.

The best bang for the buck is Autel Maxisys Pro, around £1800 Snap On is a rip off for the updates, Delphi is good, but like MarkTVS said no one machine does all. I have all 3 of those, (well actually I have the Maxisys Elite which is good for access to some hard to get on line database files but you'll not need that unless your Techie is a flasher ), they are a good arsenal for all day to day stuff. As most of you know I also go way more in depth than just code reads and have around 12 different Dealer Level machines too, there isn't really anything I cant diagnose and fix in house, recently started EEPROMMING work too !! Yes, for general Car Sales work the Autel will pay for itself time and again. Beware of that Solus for that price

I like a balance between the two so there is always something to do, keeps the spirits up, helps pays the overheads to have staff around to keep bills down if that makes sense.

We do everything in house one mechanic employed full time, but we do not advertise to the retail market we only work for the trade, lots of reasons but in the end this route worked out to save us a fortune we zero headaches. quick example, Phone rings hello Mr Jones how can i help you, hi you fitted new brake pads for me last months and now i have an eml light on, aw ok bring it down and we will have a look, Mr Jones your 02 sensor has failed, well no way i am paying for that it was fine until you touched my brakes !!!!.......good bye retail customers. The work he does on the trade cars doesnt bring in a fortune but pays his wage and then all the work completed on our stock is labor free with enough left over to buy a few pizza's.