Mechanic’s Tale: Storage Lot

Mechanic's Tale: New Kid on the Block by Douglas Flint (4/4/2005)
Sometimes it pays to wait.

More Mechanic's Tales from Doug Flint

About once or twice each year the shop parking lot becomes overwhelmed with cars. I know you must be thinking, “More cars? That’s a good thing!” But with rare exceptions, cars that you make money on are on the lot no more than a day or two. The car arrives, you fix it, and the customer pays you and drives away. A car in for a really major job may be there a week or two. These aren’t the cars cluttering up the lot. The cars cluttering up the lot are the unrepairable, the unpaid for, and the unaccounted for.

Ledbetter’s lead

I learned very early in my career that some people believe their local shop is obliged to serve as a storage lot. In the early Eighties I was managing a Precision Tune, and a Chrysler Cordoba appeared on the lot one morning with no note or explanation. We were very busy so I didn’t worry too much. But as days turned into weeks I began to try to find the owner. No tags, no key, nothing in the glove box, but my instincts told me it belonged to Ledbetter, a small-time used car hustler who would occasionally bring cars in when all his shade-tree mechanics were stumped. I couldn’t reach him at any of his numbers so I gave up and turned it over to the shop owner who, after several months, had it towed.

Lo and behold, the next day Ledbetter walked in demanding to know where his car was. After hearing a sob story about how sick he had been and establishing that the Cordoba was his, I turned him over to the owner who told him which impound lot had his car. But I learned a lesson — I realized he had probably been checking on the car every few days, driving by in the early mornings or late at night. That’s why he came in right after it was towed. Why had he left it on our lot? Perhaps he had no clear title to the car and couldn’t sell it, perhaps he had no money to fix it, and perhaps he had no time to deal with it. But he had no moral qualms about dumping it on us.

No hope here

The most common form of car dumping occurs when a car is either towed in or limps in for a diagnosis of its maladies, and it winds up being way more than anyone would put into a car of its age. I have three of those right now. One is a late-Eighties Cadillac with a nice body but a bad engine. The customer has not been seen for months. The paperwork to dispose of such a car is daunting and I don’t have time for it. So one day soon I will “make a phone call” and the car will disappear. If the customer (and I use that term loosely since up to this point he hasn’t paid me a dime) shows up demanding to know where his car is I will feign complete ignorance but point to the $25-a-day storage sign on the wall and mention if the car had been on my lot for three months he would now owe me $2250. And yes, I take cash. I won’t see him again.

Another case is more difficult: a Mazda pickup belonging to my low-rent real estate mogul. He actually put a fair amount of money into it (clutch, brakes, etc.) and then had the bad luck to blow a head gasket. He can’t bring himself to walk away and he can’t bring himself to give me more money. We call him several times each week and he always promises to tow it out but never does. It’s a psychological issue — a combination of wanting to punish me and not give up on the truck. I’ve treaded lightly up to this point so as not to damage a good relationship, but I think the damage has already been done, so I will probably have the truck towed to his house.

A few months ago I made the mistake of repairing a Volkswagen Beetle (a real one) for a customer. He rewarded me by bringing me an even older more decrepit Beetle and an ’89 Mitsubishi Montero, which now both adorn my lot. The VW is too rusted to salvage but he wants to fix the Montero, which means by Route 1 rules I can’t hound him about the VW until the Montero’s done.

No money

The worst cases are when someone authorizes repairs on a vehicle and then, whether through bad planning or unexpected trouble, cannot come up with the money to pay. Now you have multiple problems. You have money in the car. That means the car must be driven into the shop at night to protect it against vandalism or the owner trying to liberate it. You may even decide to immobilize it during the day, as it would be easy for the owner to walk on the lot with a spare key and drive off with it. The police are of no value in this case and would tell you it’s a “civil matter.” I usually try to give such cases a two-week grace period before imposing any storage charges because I know that the higher the storage bill, the less likely the owner will be able to beg, borrow, or steal enough money to pick up the car.

But eventually I have to impose storage charges because every car in your possession IS A LIABILITY. Starting a car and driving it 30 yards a day is the worst thing for it. Something else on it may fail after doing this for 45 days. You will have put gas in it. Every time you move it you may damage it. Someone else coming onto the lot may damage it. It might burst into flames just sitting there. A meteor might hit it. Please come and take this four-wheeled liability out of here!

Best defense

Of course we are not fools. We will not order an expensive part on a car of questionable value without getting a substantial deposit, but where do you draw that line? If a customer has always paid his bill up to this point I wouldn’t want to insult him or her and ask for a deposit on $600 of miscellaneous repairs. Yet these are exactly the cars that wind up in the un-picked up state. I make darn sure I’m covered on a $4000 engine job.

I guess I will have to start being a hard-nose again and ask for deposits on everything. A couple of years ago when the “diagnose and abandon” was rampant I collected the $69.90 diagnosis fee, plus a $25 tow-out deposit up front. That thinned them out. Yep, with the uncollected cars, the hangar queens, and the shop-owner fleet, it’s getting pretty tight over here.

To quote my old buddy Joe, “What this shop needs is an enema!”

Doug Flint owns and operates Tune-Up Technology, a garage in Alexandria, Virginia.