.. Interested to take a poll.......

Hypothetical scenario here:

If there was a local shop ( wharehouse style space, privately owned) equipped with a 2 post vehicle lift, compressed air, rest room, shop sink, h.d. 8' work bench, tranny jack. The shop would be well lighted, open, clean concrete floor, heat in the winter. You would bring your own tools, and any equipment you may need.

Essentially your renting a space with a vehicle lift to work on your projects. No drama from the apartment management, the land lord, or your Mother. What would this be worth to you in terms of renting the space. It would be available from 7 am to 7 pm Monday through Friday. I think on the weekends there would have to be a preminum charged.

For the time being lets say for the sake of argument, hourly rental, vs. all day rental 12 hours, and overnight storage fee.. Just as a reminder most legit shops are charging $75 per hour on the low side up to $120 per hour on the high side.
I have worked on many lifts and the payback in time is huge.

On an hourly basis ?
On a daily basis ( 12 hour period) ?
Over night storage fee. ?

Thanks for any feedback-

 

Im gona tell you this now, its been done before. I even came up with the same scenario a few years ago, but i was quickly shut down at the logistics of it all when i ran the business plan with a business lawyer and bank.

While its true, a business like this would make lots and lots of money. At the same time, to run this sort of business requires you to pay tons and tons of money for more than what its worth, and you probably wont be seeing any real profit for a LONG...LONG time.

The biggest hurdle you will face here is RISK!!!!! Since you and lending shop space to a customer to work on an automobile, they are exposed to toxic chemicals, and are able to operate heavy machinery. You also do not know the qualifications of each individual, even if they are ASE certified, they could be total douch bags. Because of this risk, you pay a incredibly high premium for insurance to protect yourself and losses during an accident. If you refuse to pay insurance, you can be subjected to several fines by law and see jail time for a substantial amount of time, not to mention a potential lawsuit if one of your customers gets injured.

Since you have customers do work on vehicles, not employees, the game changes quite a bit.

 

Try finding liability insurance that will let you do this- and you can afford. I tried.

 

This sounds like a really good idea, but the insurance thing sucks.

 

the Idea is great one, but like mentioned, the insurance alone would kill it.... however, I know there might be a way to do a shop... it may have to be a 'club'.

check out techshop for an example
like a club, membership dues are required, training on all tools and membership ID required at all times in the shop. I'm sure the big holdup with techshop coming to seattle has something to do with insurance.... IDK

anyway onto my thought...
maybe if a small auto club got together they could purchase an 'active-use' storage garage (i.e. garagetown or garageplusstorage) with a lift. An initiation fee and monthly dues would be to pay for tools, utilities, mortgage, etc..... and members could reserve it for up to a set time, determined by the club members... monthly meetings would be required to sort it all out, if it could be done at all...

maybe it'd be like group or club ownership of an airplane... to take another common example....

the last thought is: what happens to ownership if the club dissolves?

just some thoughts.... I have no idea if that would be a way around it.

 

Japan does this for as little as five dollars an hour to use their shop. Here is a different story with liability issues and crap.