How many lube bays????

[PARTSPHIL]

We are a small town dealer. We have 4 certified techs, 1 lube guy, and 1 tire guy. We have 1 lube rack that works by appointment only. No appointment, no oil change. After the oil is changed in the lube rack, the vehicle is moved to the tire guys lift in another location to rotate the tires and MPVI. This is causing many people to be upset at the service dept because it takes a while, and appointments are 2-3 days out. I have been trying to get the dealer to open another bay for these services and am finally getting some traction. I am the parts guy/cashier and have nothing technically to do with the service dept, but I do get to calm all the customers down while they wait/pay. How are some of you smaller dealers handling the recent increase in oil changes, due to the first two being free?

[PartsPlant81]

Why in God's name do you have more than one person doing the LOF, Rotate, MPVI?
I have never heard of something so ridiculous. One vehicle per lift per technician for quick services. You need to do away with the "Tire Tech" ASAP in my opinion.

[PARTSPHIL]

I agree with you 100%. The lift in the oil bay is a drive on lift and not suitable for rotating tires. The tire guy also installs all our tire sales, so he is not going anywhere!

[PartsPlant81]

I agree with you 100%. The lift in the oil bay is a drive on lift and not suitable for rotating tires. The tire guy also installs all our tire sales, so he is not going anywhere!

Drive on lift or not. If you are doing anything other than a LOF, the vehicle should not be on the drive on lift. It is a total waste of productivity and resources.

[Bearster18]

We have a drive on lift for oil changes, tire rotations, and tire changes. It has 2 lifts built into it so we can raise the vehicles off all four corners easily

[PARTSPHIL]

As I mentioned above, I am not the service manager. They actually replaced this lift about a year ago. I lobbied hard for a dual lift, but the service manager shot me down. He was afraid that the lube tech would damage cars. Now we are stuck where we are. I am growing very tired of consoling customers about something as simple as an oil change/tire rotation. I am about to go to the dealer/owner about a solution and was mostly wondering how many lube bays most small dealerships have. We actually have a convenient place to put a second bay, but not sure I can justify the extra expense.

[PARTSPHIL]

Let me ask this in a different way. How many oil change / rotations does your bay do in a day?

[PartsPlant81]

I understand. Not blaming you. Just trying to offer some suggestions. We currently have 2 hourly "lube techs" and they both use regular lifts.
We have 8 lifts a heavy duty drive on truck lift and an alignment rack.
We average 15 LOF's a day.

[gmsubparts]

We have two lube techs running one lift, makes for quicker lof times. It's a lube techs job to rotate tires, seems like a waste to move to another rack to have a tire changer do them.

[Newdude]

We have 2-3 "lube bays". One has a drive on (formerly our alignment rack), the others a two post. Two techs are pretty much lube/rotates/filters, one of them gets some of the services (fuel/trans/diff/etc.) the other pretty much dedicated lube/rotate. The third guy is a C/B tech that seems to get some if we are busy, but he is slow as molasses and tends to run some cars through the wash for things they don't need. If we are really busy, the other drive on gets used. Both drive on have center rolling jacks.

Sounds like to me at your shop, there are a couple of options. The tire guy sounds like he needs to be doing the LOF/Rotate combo jobs, rather than splitting the LOF to one guy and rotate to the other guy. This way, the other lube guy can run those that are just oil changes with no tire rotation. Another option, if the drive on had two center mounted jacks, the lube guy should be doing rotates, and if the lift doesn't, it should so he can do them.