Tour blog 20

Tour blog 20

04 Nov 2008

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On tour van visits Dollar spreading the BEN message while celebrating a special birthday 

Tuesday 4th November . . .

9:45am – Aftermarket On Tour is in a fun-filled mood today because Aftermarket salesman and On Tour driver extraordinaire Simon Gardner is celebrating his 22nd birthday! Hooray.

Anyone that wants to send him a birthday message should email ontourvan@googlemail.com.

The countryside up here around Stirling is beautiful and every town or village is nestled in the grip of bleak, towering hills on all sides.

Anyway, back to the task in hand and our mission to find out what’s going on in the garage trade while spreading the BEN message to 100 garages in 10 days.


Mobile technician Jim Watson from Tune Up in Dollar
We visit Jim’s van outside his house in what we later discover is probably central Scotland’s most affluent village. It shows. The houses here are beautiful and probably come with price tags to match.

Jim has been running a mobile service for about 30 years. He started in the days of the Home Tune mobile network, contact breakers and carburetors.

His van advertises his specialism in fuel injection and exhaust emissions testing.
“It’s difficult keeping up with the technology now,” says Jim. “I do diagnostics and come out if people have an engine or airbag light on.

“I used to do timing belts but it’s getting more difficult now. I only do the easier ones these days.”


Ian Dixon at Cross Keys Garage in Dollar
Ian’s garage is a real traditional village garage and I suspect Ian knows more or less everyone with a car in the area.
He says many customers have still not got the message about Block Exemption Regulations.

“One of my customers said she wouldn’t be seeing me again for three years because she’d just bought a new car. “She said the dealer told her she had to bring it to them,” he says.
Ian doesn’t do MOTs on site but, instead, takes them down the road to the next workshop on our hit list.


William McLellan at Brook Street Autos in Alva
William is the owner of perhaps the best known independent in the area. It’s one of, if not the only, garage in central Scotland with two MOT test lanes.

That means garages throughout the area use it for testing their customers’ cars. It’s the busiest place we’ve seen by far in a region where garage staff haven’t been over-enthusiastic about how business is going.

This being a pretty affluent area, William had a Ferrari in yesterday and there's currently a sparkling Porsche in the corner of the busy workshop.

The company is run by William, his wife and eldest son James. William thinks about recommending we visit a garage down the road. He changes his mind at the last minute. "They're competition," he says. "Although, we don't really have any competition," he laughs.

Partly through his involvement with local training organistaions that he uses to keep his staff up-to-date with technology, William knows all about BEN and is set to attend a BEN ball soon to help raise money for the industry charity.

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