Blog | Auto King Mobile Mechanics

Mechanics pay attention to little things in a car service

Posted on February 9, 2017 by admin - Mechanical Business

I want to talk about the most important things for a mechanic to pay attention to the most basic stuff in a car Mobile Car Services.

You could be the best mechanic on the entire planet; you can rebuild a performance motor and make a thousand horsepower; you might be an aeronautical engineer and can build an airplane engine, but there are a few simple things that if you do no matter how good you are as a mechanic, your customers will have no faith in you.

The first one happens before you even arrive on sight. If you’re a mobile mechanic and you can’t turn up on time or call your customer if you’re going to be late, they instantly lose a little bit of faith in you. So it’s just say 10% faith lost right there, meaning you’re down to 90% that they believe in your skill. So when you don’t arrive early or call, you do the service and after the Mobile Car Services is done, they come out and they notice that you’ve left just a little bit of a grease handprint over the door handle, they think you’re making a mess. So they lose another 10% faith, so you’re down to 80% of the mechanic that you were previously.

When they drive off and they have no idea what you’ve done to their car, it’s just that they typically think that we’re a bit magical and they’re not too sure of what happens in the Mobile Car Services. But three days later they go to use their window wipers and there’s no water fluid in it, you lose around 20%-30% of their belief in your skills as a mechanic from that one simple thing. They think “if he can’t remember to check the water fluid and fill that up, what else did he forget?” You instantly go from a competent mechanic to an average mechanic; they lose so much faith from one extremely simple thing.

The most important thing you can do as a mechanic; communicate well, turn up on time, be clean and then anything that a customer can see, you make sure 100% that you do it. So if they can see that you haven’t topped up the water fluid, that’s one of the biggest mistakes that we fall in, you won’t get a repeat customer simply because of that, because it’s so obvious they think “if he hasn’t done that most basic item, Has he even done anything at all”

So the moral of the story is “the little things that you probably don’t think matter are the things which are the most important. Pay attention to the little things”

Mechanical Business Startup PART 2

Posted on October 25, 2016 by admin - Mechanical Business

Now, tools and equipment. I’m not going to go into every millimetre spanner and socket set you should have because typically if you’re looking at starting your own mechanical business you should have already been in the industry for at least ten years. Between your apprenticeship and say seven years post trade to really get a strong experience you want to have that ten years and you should have 90% of the tools that you’ll require. The other stuff you want is not that expensive. I’ll list some things that you will need that you may not have for your van. Once again, one of the most important things these days is a high quality scan tool. Now, you can finance that through Repco or Bursons, so you just have a low weekly payment, you don’t go and spend $7000 straight off. Finance that once again, keep your cash in your pocket. Or someone selling one second hand is an option. You can pick one up for $3000-4000 but when it’s new you’ve got the peace of mind that it’s got a warranty.

www.repco.com.au / www.bursons.com.au

So, first thing is a scan tool and then I’ll list all the other big items below after the scan tool. Those following are also essential an air compressor with a retractable hose, a good lightweight aluminium jack (you don’t want a heavy jack if you’re getting in and out of a van all day), a good quality Snap On air rattle gun with enough torque too remove harmonic balances. The other tool you may not have that is pretty critical to a mobile mechanical business is a booster or jump pack, the highest cranking one you can get. You don’t want to be stuck on site trying to start some high compression turbo diesel motor and your jump pack doesn’t have the CCAs to crank it, so make sure you have the best one you can buy and you’ll always be using that. And then there’s just a multitude of other tools you should have over the years, which I won’t go into. I’ll put a list down the bottom there, so you can tick that off.

The next thing you need to is set up your relationships with your parts suppliers. Repco, Bursons, they’re our main two. You’ll have other options. On the Gold Coast there’s Cheaper Auto Spares, Global EFI, Ashdown Ingram, but they are the main two you want to go in and set up an account with as soon as possible. You’ll also need to get a relationship with dealerships. Typically the dealerships treat independents poorly, as they see us as a threat to their own business. They have an internal culture that independents are the enemy and as such they treat us that way. They don’t treat us with respect, their parts are offensively expensive with no margin as soon as you have to go genuine; wherever possible you should be looking at using after market equivalent quality parts as opposed to the dealerships and going genuine.

Now that you have your name, your van, all your equipment, your structure and your bank accounts there’s only one thing left to do. That’s to go and find some customers. Now all the stuff we’ve done so far is the easy stuff. Getting customers is the hard part, keeping them happy is even harder. Over the years there’s nothing we haven’t tried, we know exactly what does and doesn’t work. The first thing you need to do is have a website. If you don’t have a website you’re nowhere. Don’t be like all the other new business’s and just put your name up on Gumtree because all you’ll get is cheap, crappy customers that you don’t want. You need to invest money to make money. You should hopefully have a great name and a great brand and now what you want to do is have a great website that presents professionalism to anyone that finds you online. As for the marketing of your website that’s an entire book. We’ll do another blog post on that, but a professional mobile responsive website is an absolute MUST. There a plenty of providers that can assist you with setting up a responsive website with appropriate structure for search engines and all will charge various fees based on how large they are. Look at your competitors sites and contact the agency that built them, They will typically have their brand at the bottom of the page.

The next thing you need to do is networking. The best referral you can have is a word-of-mouth referral so that’s all good. You’ve asked your friends and family, now what? There’s networking groups. Go and join networking groups: BNI, Chamber of Commerce, any group meeting that you can go to with other business owners. Everyone at a group meeting will have got there in a vehicle. That instantly means they’re a possbile customer of yours. Finding a customer that owns a car is one of the easiest things on the planet. You just have to let them know that you’re a professional, can save them money and will do a better job than what the dealership will do on their own car.

www.bni.com.au

So Google’s number one, networking number two and there’s countless other channels and marketing that you can do but they are the first two most important, they are where 80%+ of your customers will come from. Once you get your website up and running and we will talk more about Google I’ll put a link down here for the AdWords and how it works. Click on that. But after your website your biggest source of customers will be referrals, so you have to have a strong call to action/offer for people that you’ve serviced to tell their friends about. So, a good voucher, or a call to action that we’ll talk about in another post.

http://www.google.com.au/adwords

You also want to have Facebook. It’s nowhere near as effective as Google. People go on Facebook to be entertained, not to purchase, but it’s good for branding. People go on there to ask their friends, so if you have a good, branded Facebook page that ties in with your website when people ask about a mechanic or if you’re active you can go on there and answer questions. Another good online source is forums. Go and answer questions for people. The more you give people, the more you get back. The more content you offer, it will come back to you, so try to help as many people without asking for anything in return and that’ll be the quickest way you can get customers.
www.facebook.com/business/products/pages

Now the next thing you need after you’ve got customers calling you and you’re doing work is a way to manage it. How are you going to manage your business? We have an extremely simply system which works to the stage where we do over three thousand customers now. If you’re just going to be a man on your own and you’re going to do twenty five customers a week you know that our system that does six hundred a week will be more than fine for you. We use Google Premier account recently renamed “G Suite”. So it’s just a premium account to your Gmail account. So you have your emails come in, you use the calendar and it sends to your iPhone all the details. You can put all your bookings in there, you can create pop up reminders and it syncs with your maps so that when a job comes up you just click on your maps and it takes you straight there. You ideally don’t want to be taking your own bookings. It’s madness when you’re a mechanic, you’re going to be charging say $110 an hour, every minute you’re on the phone is essentially a $1.50 that you’re losing. If you’re not charging that hour out on a customer’s car you’re losing a $1.5 every minute. You want to outsource the bookings on your work to someone on $20-25 an hour. They can spend five minutes on a call and it equates to the same amount of money as if you spend one. You want to outsource that to your wife or a professional company TRAINED in your industry, you don’t want to do that yourself. As soon as possible you want to be doing nothing but being on the tools and billing out those $110 hours.

www.gsuite.google.com

One of the other things you’ll need is service software for quoting jobs, you should know a lot from how long stuff takes on average but you also want to be able to reference and know straight away how long something’s going to take, so you want a good software program. We’ve put a link to the system that we use below and we found very proficient in helping us with our close to three thousand customers a month.
http://www.repcotrade.com.au/go/html-page/repco-navigator-faster-online-ordering-with-vin-search

And that’s it essentially it. We’re always happy to help if you have any questions about setting up your own mobile mechanic business. There is an abundance of work out there. We don’t feel threatened by anyone else and are always happy to help and we’d love to have a good person on the team with us. If you want your own business and you want help getting up and running and as part of a team with over 250 years of combined experience that assists 3000 customers a month backing you just drop us a line below and we’ll be more than happy to organise a time to have a chat.

Mechanical Business Startup PART 1

Posted on October 18, 2016 by admin - Mechanical Business

Today we’re going to talk about what you need to do to start your own mobile mechanic business. Why should you listen to me? Because I have learnt all the lessons the hard way and know exactly what does and does not work. I currently have 23 vans on the road and service over 2500+ customers every month. We are growing into new markets using our current business model at a rate of around 1 new van every 1.5-2 months. When operated correctly a mobile mechanical business is very profitable

First you need to work out what the endgame is. What do you want to be? If you just want to have a better lifestyle, a higher income and no boss then you may just want to be one man by yourself. Someone that never has any staff, except maybe someone that helps you with your bookings so that you can charge out your labour rate and don’t have get bogged down taking phone calls and the admin stuff. (Note: It is imperative that whoever is taking your calls is highly trained in both customer service and most importantly SALES!!! I have lost count of the number of competitors that i have called to offer work to when we are booked out that can’t even answer the phone professionally or show any hint of a sales path for inquiry). If you cannot convert inquiry to a booking you will be doomed form the start! On the other hand you might want to start a brand and have the goal of being the next national automotive company with the likes of Ultra Tune or Midas in ten to fifteen years. So, that’s the first thing to work out. What do you want to be?

After you work out what you want to be you need to come up with a name that’s catchy and relevant to what you want to do. You don’t want to call yourself ‘Bondi Mobile Mechanics’ if you plan on servicing all of Sydney. You’d want to call yourself ‘Sydney Mobile Mechanics.’ Likewise, you wouldn’t want to call yourself ‘Sydney Mobile Mechanics’ if you were planning on being a national Australian brand. You’d want to call yourself “Australia’s Mobile Mechanics”, or something like that. That said, you actually don’t want to go with a generic name, exactly like that, ideally you want to create your own. For example, Auto King, although not highly original, is original enough and catchy. It’s pretty simple, two words mashed together. So you don’t want to go with ‘Chris’s Mobile Mechanics.’

It also wants to be something that will stand out in search engines like google, something people will remember when they go back in. If you do register Sydney Mobile Mechanics there’s going to be a heap of people bidding on that search temr and potential customers will be confused about which one you are. If your name is something like “Autoxax Onsite Servicing” you’ve got more chance of them remembering your name.

After the name, you want to go and see if your website URL is available. If you’ve come up with a fantastic name but you can’t have a short, punchy URL that directly relates to it you may want to reconsider the name. All new customers these days will find you online. If you can’t be found online you’re invisible. You need to find a URL that ties in with your name, is short as possible, and easy for people to type in. You don’t want to have ‘ZQRSTQQRS Mechanical’ or something silly, which we’ve seen. So once you come up with a name and a URL Google your name and URL. Does anyone else already have it? Are there similar names? Does it stand out? What results come up when you put that name into Google? These are all things you want to check before spending any money on a logo or going down a path of spending anything setting up with that name. Use the below link to search for URL’s that are available:

www.godaddy.com

After you’ve chosen a name and you’ve checked it’s not taken, you then need to check your trademarks. Use the below link so you can do a search on IP Australia for your preferred name prior to registering it:

www.ipaustralia.gov.au

You don’t need to spend thousands with an intellectual property lawyer, this is all stuff you can do yourself and I wish someone had told me years ago. We spent thousands and thousands on intellectual property lawyers and all they do is go and do this stuff that you can do yourself. If your name isn’t trademarked and registered you can register it yourself for $200. A trademark solicitor will charge you thousands. Do not use a trademark solicitor if you don’t have to and it’s extremely important to trademark your name. Our first business, which was called Just Car Loans was Issued a “cease and desist” letter by Just Car Insurance though if we’d got our trademark in that would not have happened. As we were only a little guy we thought it was easier to cease trading and change the name. We changed to Car Loan King where Auto King was born from.

Next, you need to pick a structure, which brings us back to the very first thing I said. Are you going to be a sole trader? Are you going to take over Australia and be the next big thing? (So do you need to be a company?) Do you have a partner? Are you going into it with a mate with two of you running round in vans? Or is one going to be in a workshop, one in a van? Are you going into it with your wife, a spouse? These are all questions you have to ask. If you don’t know what structure you will need get an accountant to give you advice. We’ve got a link down the bottom. There a very good accountant. You can call them and have an initial talk as to what your plans are and what they think is the best structure for you.

www.ips.com.au

Now depending on where you operate and what you plan on doing you’re going to need licensing. Make sure you apply for the relevant licence and you comply with all government legislation. This is extremely important. If you don’t comply they’ll shut you down and there’s nothing like spending thousands of dollars getting up and running and being excited about your new business just starting to get customers and then having a government department tap you on the shoulder and say you haven’t done something correctly. So make sure you check that. Once again, if you don’t know what you need to do, seek professional advice.

Now that you’ve got your business name, your structure and all the legislative side of things sorted out the next thing you need to look at is making sure you’re insured. You don’t want to go and work on someone’s car and then find yourself liable in the event of an accident; so you need to get appropriate insurance. That’s also for all your own equipment. You want all the equipment in your van insured, as well as the vehicle, and then your public liability and then professional indemnity. Once again, insurance is a very specialised thing so I’ve put a link below you can click on to talk to a professional and they’ll be able to give you advice on the appropriate policies that you will require when conducting a business.

www.oib.com.au

Once you’ve got your business registered and your certificate of registration and asset registration you then need to open a bank account so that everyone can pay you. (We’re starting to get to the exciting stuff). Once again, all banks have their pros and cons but are ultimately the same. We’ve banked with three of the big four and found Westpac to be the easiest and most business friendly to deal with. I’m not saying that will work for you but we definitely prefer them over the other options, so you’ll need to take in the paperwork they want and open your bank account. You’ll also need to get a payment gateway; either an online one or an EFTPOS terminal for you to process credit cards. About 70% of people pay with credit / debit cards these days. Most people are using card and credit cards, so if you don’t have that facility from the start there’s a lot of business you’ll be missing out on. There are also a lot of third party providers in the way of Stripe and PayPal that offer that service as well, so you’re not forced to get a bank. If you have issues with the bank facilities, because sometimes they do set up some barriers, there are other options. Stripe and PayPal, Vend are listed below as some alternate alternatives, But be aware they all have higher fees than the banks solutions:

www.paypal.com / www.stripe.com / www.vendhq.com

Now that you’ve got all that boring stuff that I know no tradie likes out the way, you’re getting to the fun stuff. You need to start getting your logo designed, your feel. What do you want your business to feel like? What do you want people to think when they see it? Get your logo designed and then get your branding tied in. It’s very important that you get your branding and logo right from the start because that’s going to speak to customers when you’re not speaking to customers. If your van is pulled up somewhere, that’s your mobile billboard. What does it say? Is it an old, crappy E300 Mazda that’s about to fall to bits with some terrible stickers up the side? Or is it a new, shiny, well presented, recent model that instantly gives them confidence when you pull up in their driveway? In regard to what vans we choose and recommend, firstly we don’t recommend buying it. You want to save as much cash as you can for your business. Cash is king, so finance your van. Two reasons. You want to keep your cash and the payments on the van and van depreciation are tax deductible. I’ve put a link below to someone who can help you finance your van. They’re specialists in all asset finance and insurance, so they’ll be able to help you with your van:

www.clickoncarloans.com.au

Now in terms of van choice we really only recommend two, you can’t go past the Toyota Hiace. A current shape, ‘05 plus HiAce. They are a fantastic billboard with nice big flat panels and they just look amazing with good sign writing. The other vehicle that some people like is the Hyundai iLoad. We are aware that they have some maintenance issues. Given the difference in price we recommend that you get the Hiace. It’s a little bit more, but a turbo diesel with very low running costs and you can’t kill them. As you know, they’re a fantastic vehicle and that’s what we advise everyone to look at for commercial use. We search Car sales for all our fleet:

www.carsales.com.au

PART 2 to follow.

Pre Purchase Vehicle inspection – What it contains

Posted on October 5, 2016 by admin - Roadworthy Certificates / Safety Certificates

Following our post about why you can’t trust a safety certificate as a reason that a car is a good purchase, now we thought we’d talk about what we do in a Mobile Pre Purchase Inspection Service.

What’s included, what’s not included and how it works.

So typically a customer will call up and let us know there’s a car they are interested in purchasing either through a private sale or in a car yard. We will get all their details down and then we’ll get down the vendor’s details and then we will give the vendor a call and confirm a time on the buyer’s behalf that works for both the vendor and our inspector that serviced the area.

We will go out and perform the inspection on site, generate the report and then send the report via e-mail and we’ll also give a phone call and discuss the report with the customer.

What’s in the report you ask? Well the report will state the name, model, the VIN, the registration, the current odometer reading, the engine number, the purpose of the inspection and then that will be the first page. The first thing we start the inspection with is the interior. We check the seats are all secure, there’s no tears, the seat belts are operative they retract, they work, they will check the trim, they will check that the radio is operative, the rear window, the washers and wiper fluid fires and functions as they are supposed to, the horn, the doors, the locks, the hinges, all the windows are operational, warning lights on the dash, the gauges are all operative, then they will report if all those items are working.

The next section of the report is the exterior so we will go around looking for any evidence of rust or body repairs, we look at the glass and make sure there are no stone chips and report that, is the sun roof aerial, is it working, under the frame, across the fenders, all the underbody parts, is there any damage, is there any evidence of any impact damage, the front suspension, the rear suspension, the steering components, no evidence of exhaust leaks, the differential is not leaking, theres no play in the drive shaft.

The next section of the inspection report is the engine bay. We look for any evidence of noise indicating that the engine is tired, or that there is any indication of valves or lifters, the timing belt we check the fluid levels, We check for fluid leaks, We check the engine mounts, We check all the hoses, the pipes, the water pump, the fan, We check the ignition system, the fuel system, the battery, the radiator, all the drive belts and the pulleys, the break booster, the master cylinder and the ABS.

The fourth section of our report is the tyre, and brakes. We go and inspect all the tires, see if theres any indication of them needing replacement, where they are at in their life cycle, the wheels, is there any damage, have they been ran into the gutter, are they buckled, spare rim, brake hose, calipers, the brake pads, the discs, the brake linings, the wheel cylinders, the brakes and the drums, park brake, the wheel bearings.

On the fifth section what we do is a road test. We try to get the vehicle on 80K’s, this isn’t always possible. On the road test we try to get up to 100K’s but more often than not we’re not able to do these if it’s in a residential area we can only typically get it up to about 60K’s. But sometimes you need to get it above 100 to see if any evidence of a wheel alignment or balance. We also check out the ease of starting, if it idles, if theres any rough idling, evidence of engine noise, engine performance when it’s under load, is it missing, is it smooth, exhaust smoke and emissions, seeing if there’s more smoke coming out the back of the car than there should be, is there any reason for a concern, is the gearbox automatic or manual, is it shifting all gears as it should be, is it crunching, is it making any noise, is it sticking, the differentials, the whining, are they operating as it is supposed to, the steering and the suspension, that theres no noise coming from the suspension, when you go over things it’s not clunking, the brakes operation, the brakes are not spongey, they do have feeling and feed back and they are gripping as they should, the speedometer is reflecting a true speed.

Where possible we try to put it in 4 wheel drive, however if it’s in an urban environment once again it’s hard to test that. It really is something that needs to be tested, if its an imperative part, it needs to be taken and tested. We advise to meet the vendor at suitable location to put the 4wd through its paces.

That’s what’s included in the Mobile Pre Purchase Inspection. You then get a copy of the report with the inspectors details, so if you want to discuss the report with him or ask him any specifics, his details are on the report and you can give him a call and discuss anything.

What is not included in the report. The report is a visual, non-invasive report. What does this mean? It means that we don’t remove any part of the car for our inspection. We can’t remove anything from the vendors vehicle and then put it back on. So it’s a visual, non-invasive inspection. There is no warrantee with the inspection. We can’t offer a warrantee. A lot of people ask if we offer a warrantee, there is not a business in the automotive industry that will offer a warrantee on a pre-purchase inspection.

One thing I forgot to mention is that we take photos of the vehicle and all the items that we have listed as needing attention that we can take a photo of and represent. So if it’s an impact damage we’ll take a photo of it, if theres any wheel damage we’ll take a photo of it and that will be on the report. Typically we find that you can get at least four times the cost on average of the report off the price of the car after you know the repair items that need to be done and most importantly it gives you peace of mind prior to purchasing.

Why Roadworthy Certificates Can’t Be Trusted For Buying Decisions

Posted on September 23, 2016 by admin - Roadworthy Certificates / Safety Certificates

You should never trust a road worthy or safety certificate as part of your decision to purchase a used car.

One of the big things we have found at Auto King is customers coming back to us because we’ve issued a safety certificate or roadworthy on a used vehicle that they have purchased.

The way it plays out is that they will be interested in a car, typically in a private sale or in a car yard, more often than not in a private sale. They’ll go look at the car and everything looks okay too their untrained eye, and then they will proceed too buy it. Straight after their purchase they will take it to their mechanic to get it serviced and checked out.

This is absolute madness! If you’re looking at buying a house you don’t buy a house and then get a building and pest inspection report AFTER to make sure that everything is the way it’s supposed to be, you get it done first. We don’t understand why people go and continue to purchase a car then get it checked out after they’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars. Just because it has a safety certificate or roadworthy doesn’t mean that it is in good condition. Safety certificate and a roadworthy isn’t a warranty either.

They are just certified as at the time of inspection there was nothing illegal on the vehicle. If a vehicle has leaks of any description and they are NOT dripping from the vehicle onto the ground, that is still a PASS. You could drive it for another 500km and it could be pouring out, it’s not a perfect system by any means but that is the legislation that we work with.

If you’re thinking of buying a used vehicle (especially a private sale because you have no come back) it’s imperative that you go and get a PRE PURCHASE VEHICLE INSPECTION first to ensure there’s no surprises after the fact. You can use these to negotiate the price but more importantly you can have the peace of mind of any repairs that may be required.

A roadworthy inspection can be issued on a vehicle that is still working but has a blown head gasket. A roadworthy can be issued on a vehicle that has a gearbox which is still operating but is about to seize because it hasn’t been serviced ion 100,000k’s. A roadworthy certificate gives you no idea of the condition of the motor, the oil, if it’s been serviced it is literally a pIece of paper saying that the brakes aren’t under sized, that there’s no cracks in the wind screen and about 20 other things. You cannot rely on that when you’re spending your hard earned money.

Never trust a vehicle with your money based on the fact that it has a roadworthy certificate. For $200 you can get a pre-purchase inspection done on most vehicles which will give you peace of mind. If you’ve purchased a vehicle and then taken it to a mechanic and believe it has issues that were covered under the roadworthy I’ve put a link to the legislation below to reference:

QUEENSLAND TRANSPORT CODE OF PRACTISE

Click on that link and you can read what is or is not a fail or a pass. A lot of mechanics aren’t licensed to do safety certificates and they aren’t up to speed with the legislation. They will give poor advice on what is or is not a pass for a safety certificate.

Make sure your armed with this information before you go and look at a vehicle, don’t learn this after the fact.

Gold Coast Mechanic Checklist

Posted on December 25, 2014 by admin - Mobile mechanics

By Peter Hill

The question of how often you need to get your car serviced is one that attracts many differing opinions, says Gold Coast mechanic Auto King.

Some manufacturers recommend a major, comprehensive service every 12 months, many are recommended every six months and a number of service centres will ask you to bring your car in every three months for a minor service. So who do you listen to?

In general, it’s best to be guided by your Gold Coast mechanic and service log book or owner’s manual. These will set down clear service schedules based on the recommendations of the manufacturer of your car’s make and model. They are based on time frame or mileage, whichever occurs first.

There are, however, some very clear warning signs that indicate your car needs immediate attention, regardless of where you are in your service schedule and even if you are between regular services. Call a reputable Gold Coast mechanic right away if you experience any of the following:

● Smoke coming from underneath the bonnet This is a sign that the engine is over-heating and continuing to drive if overheating can damage the engine irreparably. Be aware of the temperature gauge on the dashboard. If the car is heating up, pull over until it cools, and call for assistance right away.

● Excessive exhaust smoke Indicates an oil leak. There may also be a black residue at the bumper area near the exhaust pipe. Ask your Gold Coast mechanic.

● Flashing “Check Engine” light This is indicative that something is amiss in the vehicle’s computer system – and flashing is a sign it is a major problem and requires urgent attention.

● Leaks Any leaks under the car need diagnosis by a Gold Coast mechanic quickly. In summer, water from air conditioners drips from under the front passenger side; this is normal. Abnormal leaks which need to be checked quickly include coolant (green), and transmission oil, brake fluid, and engine oil (brown/black or dark red).

● Changes to operation of the car Does the car feel strange to drive? Are there dramatic surges, or is there difficulty achieving speed? Does the engine cough, chug, vibrate or stall? Does it feel like it’s labouring? Get it checked promptly.

● Strange noises while driving These include droning or dragging from the wheels, grinding or squealing when braking, or other abnormal noises for your car.

Call Auto King – the Gold Coast mechanic specialists – to come to you for immediate or emergency servicing of your car, even if you’ve only recently had it serviced.

Addressing issues as soon as they arise is not only safer for you and everyone else on the road; it will cost you less in the long term.

To book an appointment with a Gold Coast mechanic at Auto King call 1300 09 29 49.

Mobile Mechanics

Posted on December 11, 2014 by admin - Mobile mechanics

By Peter Hill

Today, we will be discussing the importance of choosing the right mobile mechanic in order to save you both time and money. Few things are as frustrating as having your vehicle out of commission for any length of time: even more agitating is paying ridiculously high prices for shoddy work that took far longer than necessary. But we didn’t have to tell you that! If you are looking for quality mobile mechanic services that is headache and hassle-free, we have the mobile mechanics you need!

At Auto King, we know your vehicle is an essential part of your life. Our mobile mechanics are highly qualified individuals who will get the job done right, and fast! You will be hard-pressed to find a better mobile mechanic service anywhere else! With our quality mobile mechanic services, you know your vehicle will be in good hands and in working order as quickly as possible. You’ll be back on the road in no time at all! And if that wasn’t enough, we’ll beat any other mobile mechanic repair quotes.

We are the people you can go to if you want to save time and money, because our mobile mechanics are highly trained and certified individuals who take pride in getting it right the first time. We understand that you have a life to live, and that life requires mobility: so don’t allow yourself to be grounded by hiring someone less qualified to do the job…someone who will not get it right the first time, and also charge an arm and a leg in the process!

We have many satisfied customers who can tell you just how good our mobile mechanics are at what they do, as we have saved them time and money. So the next time you need repairs from a friendly and certified mobile mechanic, you know exactly who to call. Auto King!

What is log book servicing?

Posted on November 18, 2014 by admin - Mobile mechanics

By Peter Hill

When you purchase a car, particularly a new car, on the Gold Coast, log book servicing will be a requirement.

The service log book contains all pertinent information from the vehicle manufacturer, relating to service requirements particular to your vehicle for up to the first 200,000 KM your car operates. It represents a broad service schedule, which is guided by the specifications set down by the vehicle manufacturer.

According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), in order for a car’s warranty to remain intact, motor vehicle dealers are allowed to insist that servicing on vehicles sold by them is undertaken by qualified mechanics (on the Gold Coast, log book servicing is carried out by Auto King), and in accordance with manufacturers’ specifications. These specifications are outlined in your car’s service log book.

The service log book specific to your vehicle provides clear guidance for your Gold Coast mechanic as to exactly what needs attention at each service and what interval is recommended between servicing. A logbook service is comprehensive and ensures the car is examined to the standards that the manufacturer has recommended.

Many purchasers of new cars believe (and are told by the dealer) they must have the vehicle serviced at that manufacturer’s service centre to comply with warranty conditions. This is, however, not the case.

Vehicle owners are entitled to have all servicing of their car carried out by any professionally registered and reputable mechanic of their choice – as long as the service complies with log book requirements.

Why is log book servicing important? Completing vehicle servicing in compliance with the manufacturer’s specifications is helpful in not only keeping your car working smoothly and safely; it is crucial to preserve the statutory warranty provided by the vehicle manufacturer.

Choose Auto King for all of your Gold Coast log book servicing needs. Not only do we offer a premium level of professionalism and expertise, we also come to you – so that wherever you are located on the Gold Coast, log book servicing can be undertaken without interrupting your day.

All of our Gold Coast mechanics are experienced and qualified, and all services are carried out to the letter of the manufacturer’s specifications. We also use quality parts where needed that are appropriate to your vehicle’s make and model. We always quote our fee upfront and our prices are fixed for routine servicing.

There is no more convenient way to ensure your vehicle servicing is up to date and compliant with your service log book.
To book an appointment for a Gold Coast log book service at Auto King call 1300 09 29 49.

3 Reasons Log Book Servicing is important

Posted on November 12, 2014 by admin - Mobile mechanics

By Peter Hill

Are you wondering what all of the fuss is over log book servicing? Can’t figure out why it’s so important and why you should be putting your hard earned money towards it? Well let’s have a look at 3 reasons why log book servicing is important.

1) Warranty Staying on top of your log book service schedule keeps your warranty intact. If anything goes wrong with your car as long as the log book services have been up kept then you’ll be covered by your warranty. Also according to the A.C.C.C. (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission) “In relation to general servicing, motor vehicle dealers are entitled to insist that any servicing performed on cars they sell is carried out by qualified staff, according to the manufacturer’s specifications, and using genuine or appropriate quality parts where required. Provided these conditions are met, regardless of where you choose to get your car serviced, your warranty will remain intact.” This means you can shop around for the best value mechanic you can find to do the log book service.

2) Resell Value Selling a car that has had its log book servicing completed properly will mean you can command a bigger price for your car. Having a log book service summary adds value to your car when it comes time to sell, any prospective buyer can look through your log book and see the pure fact that what they’re looking at purchasing has been looked after. Having a record of your log book service history is proof that you’ve been responsible and done the best by your car. This will make it a lot easier to get the price you’re after, being able to see proof that the car has been maintained means they’ll be more likely to agree to the price you want.

3) History This is simple, but it can be very handy in saving you time and money should any problems ever arise with your car. Having a history of what has been done to your car makes the mechanics job quicker and easier, saving you time and money. It ensures that defects are found and addressed before they become a problem and thusly reduces the cost of potential repairs in the future of the vehicle.

Looking at these 3 simple yet important points you can see why log book servicing is an important thing to stay on top of. So organise to have AutoKing come to you for a log book service that is the best money can buy you, just give us a call on 1300 09 29 49.

Factors to consider when you need a mobile mechanic

Posted on October 28, 2014 by admin - Mobile mechanics

By Peter Hill

So your car is on the ropes and you can’t even get it down the street to a garage for some help. In this day and age that’s no problem! There is an option that’ll come right to you and get you back on the road, you just need to hire yourself a mobile mechanic to head out and fix up your ride. But when hiring a mobile mechanic you have to consider a couple of things…

1) Price Some mechanics will charge you an arm and a leg for a mobile car repair. Just because your car needs a hand getting healthy doesn’t mean you should have to starve to pay for it. Shop around and find the best priced mobile mechanic… And when you find them keep in mind (if it’s not Auto King) that we can beat ANY price!

2) Honesty Everyone has heard of someone having a mechanic that does a lot of extra work on a car and then expects the owner to just pay for it without any consultation. Make sure you hire an honest mechanic that’ll give you a quote straight up and won’t charge you more than that quote. If something else comes up that you need to pay for then you should be made aware of the problem before it’s slapped with a price tag.

3) Speed How fast can they get out to you? Will you be waiting days for them to get out and see you? At Auto King we can come out on the same day, your time is just as precious as ours and we don’t want you wasting any of it stuck at home with no car.

4) Experience You don’t want some kid that barely knows what he’s doing working on your car. Whilst everyone does need to start somewhere, you’re lowering your chance for further problems by hiring a mechanic that knows exactly what they’re doing because they’ve done it a hundred times before. Auto King Mechanics have a minimum of 10 years’ experience under their belt so you can rest assured that they know exactly what they’re doing and can do it in a quick and cost effective way.

So keep these 4 factors in mind when choosing a mobile mechanic to come out to you. Price. Honesty. Speed. Experience. It can be hard to find a mechanic with all 4 qualities, but at Auto King you’ll find we tick all four boxes every single time. For any questions or a quote, please call us on 1300 09 29 49.