by Fixed Ops Mgr » Fri May 19, 2017 11:32 pm
Having held both positions in my dealership, I personally like being parts manager better however I am a relatively new parts manager. I still have to oversee service because our
service manager is relatively young and cannot run service properly by herself so I help advise and I am technically a fixed ops manager. Neither position is easy and service just has
a different set of headaches and problems. I will say that it is easier to make money and be profitable in the service dept. if it is structured properly with pay plans, expenses, etc.
Things you will run into with service is a lot of techs have bad attitudes. They complain when they are not busy, they complain when they have to do warranty repair work, they complain
when they don't have parts to complete the job, they complain when the tech in the next stall has a better paying gravy job than him. The first rule in service is always blame parts for whatever
goes wrong. There is a lot of complaining and negativity in service, at least at my store there is. Technician turnover and hiring new techs can also be a big problem. Good techs are hard to find.
You will probably see a lot more customers day to day in service than in parts so if you are a people person you would like that. Like I said, service is just a different set of problems.
In my location which is rural there is not a lot of competition in service repairs so it makes it easy to be profitable in the service dept and our parts dept is at breakeven or profitable
every month also. I just have found there is a lot of resources to find and buy parts from with today's online/ecommerce age. My parts dept struggles with online competition and a lot of
parts stores in my area but we do good with the service dept. needed parts for customer vehicles, warranty repairs, internal vehicles so our shop is our biggest customer. We do some
wholesale business but not a lot because for us it is to competitive. Can't complete with the big boys. I just feel it is much harder to be profitable in parts because of more competition and
slimmer parts margins then labor sales and labor margins. Accessory sales suffer in this day of LPO's. Discounts and purchase allowances, return reserve all are harder to come by these days. Parts
is just a new set of headaches and challenges for me, I find it all to be a numbers game.
This is just what I have run into in my area however your store may be completely different. All I can say is I have 26 years being a service manager and 6 months being a parts manager, I like
parts better maybe because it is a new challenge for to conquer for me.