All of us are living in challenging times, and if you feel frustrated by your inability to master the diverse skills needed in what was once a fairly cut and dried business like automotive repair, take solace in knowing you are not alone. Last week, J.C. Penney dismissed its CEO, Ron Johnson, whom it lured away from Apple in 2011 with the hope that he could do for the general merchandise giant what he did for the specialty retailer. If you haven’t been following this story, the long and short of it is that a management superstar was clearly unable his replicate success in another marketplace. In fairness to J.C. Penney, board members at the time noted that Apple’s model wouldn't translate completely to J.C. Penney's stores, but they...

Would you go to a doctor's office with blood splatters on the wall? Would you feel comfortable with the dentist working with his Bahamas t-shirt on when it is hot out? Then, why do so many of us work in dark, dirty and disorganized shops? When I see pictures of brand new shops, I am amazed at the photos that show how clean some of them are. Granted, they are doing a photo shoot, so they are on their best behavior. Even yet, I can never make my shop that clean. I have a normal three-bay garage in a suburb of New York City. I don't have those shiny floors that resist dirt. Yet, people still compliment me on my shop's cleanliness. I think my region has low expectations for these things. Nevertheless, people can tell when you do the...

Global Information Inc., a research firm, recently released a report claiming that the connected car will be the "next big thing" for the automotive industry. Future generations of cars and devices will rely more on cloud-based, back-end systems for content, information, and services, turning the car as we know it into a huge data repository, opening new avenues of business opportunities for service industries and content providers. (To access this report, click here .) The research notes that network carriers like AT&T have identified the automotive market as the next growth area, given the penetration of smart phones. AT&T recently signed an agreement to provide connectivity across most of the 2015 fleets for Chevrolet, Buick, GMC...

My experience with retread tires is fairly extensive, as I used to put them on post office trucks. To be honest, those vehicles never had a single issue on the road. Retread tires "will perform as well as the best major brand new tires, with an adjustment rate as low, and often lower, than that of virgin tires," according to  Harvey Brodsky, managing director, Retread Tire Association (RTA). ( www.retreadtire.org ) "During a visit to a retread plant, I said to the plant manager that I'd bet him that their adjustment rate for their retreads was under 1 percent," Brodsky said. "He said I'd lose the bet because their adjustment rate was under 1/2 percent. New tire manufacturers can only dream of having an adjustment rate that low." I...