October 2021

NEWS Top Technician 2021 finalists announced MONTH 2017 AFTERMARKET 5 www.aftermarketonline.net The finalists for Top Technician 2021, who will be returning to In Town Automotive on Saturday 9 October, are as follows: Adam Cannel l, Cedar Gar age Sam Gibbons , Eden Vauxhal l Simon P arkinson, WD MDL Electr otech Kevin Toms, FRL Autoservices Andrew West, Erme Valley Auto s This group will face a host of 50 minute technical and diagnostic challenges that have been set by the judges during the day. From this group, a runner-up and a winner will be identified. Who will they be? We will find out on Saturday 9 October, as that night the Top Technician and Top Garage Awards Evening will take place at the Jurys Inn Milton Keynes. At the event, the winners will be announced. The winners for Top Garage will also be announced that evening, as the Top Garage final is also taking place at In Town Automotive at the same time. Here, four groups of garages, classed by size, will compete to be named Top Garage in their class. Congratulations to all five Top Technician finalists, as well as the Top Garage finalists, and thank you to everyone else that has taken part so far. Top Technician and Top Garage are sponsored by Snap-on, VARTA, TechMan, Motul, Philips and LKQ Euro Car Parts, and come to you in association with ABC Awards, ADS, the Garage Equipment Association (GEA), the Independent Automotive Aftermarket Federation (IAAF) and the Independent Garage Association (IGA). To find out more about the Top Technician semi-final that took place in September, turn to pages 18-19 . OCTOBER 20 1 AFTERMARKET 7 How low can you go? Garages that are not set up to service lowered cars could be missing out on a major potential income stream, with interest in lowered car alignment racing ahead across the sector according to Absolute Alignment. Absolute Alignment Technical Director Chris Dear commented: “Although Absolute Alignment is a seller of wheel alignment equipment and not an alignment workshop, many visits to the Absolute Alignment web pages are from people looking for wheel alignment services – and the fastest growing search is for ‘lowered car alignment’, up 40% this July.Many wheel alignment machines cannot cope with modified cars at all, which leaves frustrated owners and a wasted business opportunity.” He added: “Owners of modified, lowered and performance vehicles traditionally spend big money on their cars, and the margins for workshops are enticing. Experience suggests that this is a sector which would be worth targeting in your local area and even beyond. It is a very real USP that could bring you further long- term business as on the whole modified car owners are active on internet forums and good news spreads fast. Speak to your website provider about adding a page on lowered and performance cars, visit local car shows with your business card or add a ‘lowered cars a speciality’ tagline on all your current advertising. It need not cost much and the results could be surprising.” Sponsored by: Venture time with NGK NGK is continuing to plan for the future, with three Venture Labs based in Tokyo, Silicon Valley and Ratingen in Germany working on a range of projects, with many having real-world applications within the automotive sphere. The Venture Labs are focusing on smart health, smart mobility and decentralised utility. According to NGK, R&D from the labs has already led to developments in battery storage and vehicle maintenance platforms, where they are is looking at ways to connect cars to data platforms in order to perform health check s. Pertinently, in the midst of the pandemic , researchers ha ve also looked int o air purifica tion via a s ystem capable o f elimina ting viruse s from contained spac es. Commenting on the projects, NGK Spark Plugs Managing Director Marko Wowczyna said: “NGK has always been an innovator with an emphasis on quality and R&D and this will continue in the future as we look to face the challenges ahead by working to develop new ground-breaking technologie s.” To find out mor e, visit ngkntkventure.com Follow us on Facebook @aftermarketmagazine