Aftermarket February 2023

FEBRUARY 2023 AFTERMARKET 57 www.aftermarketonline.net “Obviously, almost everybody here can charge at home,” noted Andrew, “so the lack of public charge points is not going to be a drawback. We are even looking at getting one for ourselves.” While Andrew is moving with the times, his son Joe is keeping it real, by which we mean keeping it internally combusted. His current passion project is a Peugeot 205 1.8 diesel, which he is upgrading to a 2.0 litre through an engine swap-out. Back to Andrew though. Promotion So, the business continues to develop, and we wondered if winning Top Technician has led to Andrew promoting the diagnostic side more: “We've been here for nearly 30 years now, so I already promote what we do, quite a bit on Facebook for example.” The business has a local reputation for being the garage where problems will get solved. As the best diagnostic experts and trainers will tell you, getting to the heart of an issue is often simply a matter of paying attention to the details, and following the process. Andrew had an example of that on the day we visited: “This morning, we had a vehicle in for an MOT, and Joe made an advisory note on the fact that there was play in the offside upper inner rear arm bush. It turned out that the customer had recently taken the car to three other garages in an attempt to establish where a knocking noise was coming from, but none of them could work out what the source of the noise was. After receiving the MOT, the customer then asked if the inner rear arm bush issue could be the cause of the knocking, which it was. That’s where it was coming from, and the other three garages had missed this.” Being known as the place that will find the problem has its downsides: “We have a reputation for doing what we do, but people end up coming to us last. Some say we are expensive, but usually it's because we end up doing complex repairs when they have already spent a fortune somewhere else before they called us.” He ruefully added: “But if they brought it here first, it wouldn't cost as much.” Skills This reputation is partly a result of the skills Andrew has accrued over decades, that have led him to win the Top Technician trophy. One of the reasons Andrew participated in Top Technician in the first place was to test his existing skills, and to see what he could learn. This was part of an overall approach, which included undertaking training with the likes of James Dillon and Frank Massey. While winning in Top Technician rules him out from competing again, Andrew will still be looking to keep his skills up to date, but also pass them along: “I'm hoping to step back a bit and let the son take on more of the more challenging work. He doesn't get the chance to do a lot of the diagnostics, because I'm doing it all.” Will we see another West taking on the Top Technician challenge? Only time will tell. www.aftermarketonline.net