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How You Can Get Over 200,000 Miles Out Of Your Car

by Jacob Spaans | Feb 13, 2015 | Articles

For anyone who is at money-conscious, having a car that lasts for hundreds of thousands of miles is a huge money-saver. My last car read over 330,000 miles on the odometer before it

finally passed on into the great junk yard in the sky, and vehicle owners across the world have gotten media attention for getting even over a million miles out of their rides. So if you’re looking to drive a car until it has “hundreds” of thousands of miles on it, you need to make sure to take the following steps:

1) Buy Reliable – If you’re buying a car, or car brand, that is notoriously unreliable, it might be difficult to reach your goal of 200k or more miles. Some cars are just poorly designed, which makes for frequent repairs, and will derail you from your journey to high mileage right when you drive it off the lot. Here is a list of the most reliable car brands, and another of the least reliable car brands to get you started.

2) Follow the Vehicle Maintenance Schedule – Most vehicle owners either don’t know, or don’t care to find out exactly how their car is supposed to be taken care of. The ones who make their cars last longer than their marriages, however, follow their vehicle manufacturer maintenance schedule which can be found either in the vehicle owner’s manual or by doing a simple online search. This is an absolute must for anyone aiming to brag about how many miles their car has.

3) Don’t Ignore Your Car – Another failure of many vehicle owners is their neglect for the signs their car is showing that something may be wrong. If anything sounds, looks, or feels out of the ordinary when you’re driving, it’s imperative that you get it looked at by a professional immediately, not only for good of the vehicle, but for your own safety as well. Turn the radio down occasionally to listen to how the car sounds, keep en eye on the exterior and interior of the car to note any irregularities, and be mindful of how the car feels while driving, and investigate any changes, no matter how slight.

4) Find a Mechanic You Can Trust – Mechanic Advisor’s core mission is to connect people with a local mechanic that they can trust. Developing a relationship with a competent, reputable, and honest mechanic is key for vehicle longevity. No matter how dependable a car may be, normal wear and tear requires replacement work, and maintenance is crucial in long-serving cars. Ask for referrals from friends, check reviews online (Yelp, Angie’s List, Mechanic Advisor), and take time to ask your potential mechanic questions until you feel comfortable working with them.

5) Take Pride In Your Car – Lastly, without pride in your car, there is absolutely no way you’ll make it to 200k miles and up. People whose cars last nearly forever always take great pride in ownership of their car, whether it’s a Bentley or a Honda Civic. Prideful owners keep their car clean, free of major defects, and immaculately well maintained. If the car has any noticeable issues, they can’t get a good night’s sleep until it’s been resolved. They follow the maintenance schedule to a “t” and drive the car like they will own it forever. Most of all, they take pride in being able to brag to people about how their car has over 200,000 miles on it.

http://www.mechanicadvisor.com/articles/how-you-can-get-over-200-000-miles-out-of-your-car

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The 10 Things That Mechanics Hate The Most

by Jacob Spaans | Jan 28, 2015 | Articles

by Bobby Gaglini

This is a PSA of sorts for all the customers out there. Sure, you can do these things, but I don’t know why you would ever want to. Here are the top 10 things customers do that absolutely infuriate auto mechanics.

1. Arguing on price.

Mechanics get a bad rap. A few bad apples out there and all of a sudden people think they’re getting scammed. Well, just because you don’t know what’s under the hood of your car doesn’t mean a mechanic is trying to scam you. Arguing on price really riles up a mechanic since most of them are very trustworthy, honest people. If you really think you’re getting ripped off, just say “Thanks, but I’ll hold off on that for now,” and go somewhere else.

2. Touching their stuff.

Would you go to a doctor’s office, and start picking up their tools and playing with them? An auto shop is like an ER of sorts, and things have to remain in order for there to be productivity. So don’t enter their domain and start touching their stuff. Picking up a mechanic’s tools will create some serious wrath.

3. Calling 1,000 times.

It’ll be done when they said it will be done. Calling over and over won’t make it move faster, and it sure as heck won’t help you win any friends at the auto shop. Usually you’re not the only person who needs their car worked on, so hang tight, and have a little empathy.

4. Customers working on their own cars.

Don’t, just don’t. Unless it’s something that you absolutely know how to do, don’t try to work on your own car. Maybe this doesn’t really frustrate mechanics, but it can definitely make the job tougher. If you screw something up, it could mean paying a lot more money for you, and a lot more frustration for the mechanic. Just take it in to the shop.

5. Waltzing around the shop.

Usually there is a designated area for customers to stand in, which is both for the customers’ safety and to keep the work area only for people who are hyper-aware of what’s going on. Moving around the shop can create a headache for the workers there trying to do their job, and a literal headache for you if you bang your head into an exposed brake rotor.

6. Saying it’s something else.

Bringing your car into a mechanic and then telling them that they’re wrong is one of the strangest and most frustrating things you can do to a mechanic. If you went to a doctor and they told you that you had a sprained ankle and you told them it was broken, they’d probably tell you to get out of their office and enjoy your pain. It doesn’t matter what your “cousin’s boyfriend who’s a mechanic” told you. If he’s a mechanic, then bring it to him, and not somewhere else.

7. Coming in at 4:59 p.m.

Okay, so sometimes this is unavoidable, but everyone just wants to go home at the end of a long day. If you have the opportunity, try and go earlier in the day to avoid bringing your car in right at the end of the day. You probably won’t get it back until the next day anyways, and the mechanic might be upset that they have to stay longer.

8. Explaining how your old mechanic was so great.

Okay, so maybe this one is a little bit over the top. But honestly, talking about how awesome your old mechanic back home was isn’t going to win you any fans. There’s also no positive gain from doing it. Instead, try to establish just as good a relationship with your new mechanic as your old one.

9. Telling them what to do.

This one is in the same vein as telling them what your cousin’s boyfriend said what wrong. It’s one thing to talk shop if you know your stuff, but it’s another to be overbearing and presumptuous. This stuff can really upset a mechanic, so just let them do their job, and I’m sure things will be alright. After all, you brought it to them so that they do the work for you, right?

10. Getting mad over a delay.

Delays happen, and so long as the mechanic lets you know about it, and it’s for a legitimate reason, don’t be angry. I know it can be frustrating for a customer, but mechanics are doing what they can to work on your car as fast as possible. So when you get mad, they might get mad too.

The New Shop Rates

http://www.mechanicadvisor.com/articles/the-10-things-that-mechanics-hate-the-most

Why Winworks?

Because Winworks Works!

Learn WHY Winworks is the preferred Shop management Software!

The History of Software

by Jacob Spaans | Jan 19, 2015 | Articles

We have been featured! Check out 1993!

We spend most of our days using computers at work, smartphones when we’re out and about, and tablets and PCs at home. Technology, especially software, has become such an integral part of both work and daily life, it’s hard to remember a world without it. In fact, finding a world without computers might be harder than you think; they have been around now for decades. Software has made the impossible possible, and the laborious and tedious, fast and easy.

On the eve of the software industry’s 60th birthday, and to commemorate Capterra’s 15th anniversary of helping businesses find the right software, we decided to take a look back on this History of Software and find the biggest and most forgotten-about events that impacted the industry. Take a look at our timeline: are there any big milestones that we didn’t include? Where would your company fit into this history?

Congratulations to the thousands of software companies that have already helped to make history. With the software industry continuing to grow, we think there is a lot of history still to be made!