A truly independent auto diagnosis
One thing I love about the internet is that it solves a lot of conflicts of interest that might arise while I’m shopping for a certain product. For instance, 20 years ago if I were looking for a nice tennis racquet I would probably have gone to a few sporting goods stores and taken the advice that I got from each different shop owner. However, there is an inherent conflict of interest - if a shop sells Prince racquets but not Wilson’s, most likely the salesman is going to tell me that Prince is superior. If a shop sells Wilson racquets but not Prince’s, the salesman is going to tout the advantages of going with a Wilson - definitely a conflict of interest.
The internet has changed all of that. Now we are faced not with a lack of information when considering a purchase, but rather an overload of information. I would venture to say that I spend at least 15 minutes researching every purchase I make that exceeds $100. Now I don’t have to rely on information from salesmen that have a vested interest in me buying their products - I can read reviews from people like me who have already bought a product.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the luxury of getting an independent opinion when I go to get my car fixed. I don’t think it’s enough just to get a referral from a friend - my experience with auto service is that it is too inconsistent to be able to gauge accurately based on anecdotal evidence. I thought of this idea when my wife was getting her oil changed at a local lube shop and the mechanic told her that she needed new shocks - the shocks had been replaced less than a month ago! (And yes, we did verify that the shocks had actually been changed).
This is where the opportunity lies - when I am having car problems I would happily pay $100 or so just to have a diagnosis done by a mechanic with no vested interest in me spending as much money to fix my car as possible. I understand that there are situations where some parts need to be disassembled and it may cost more than $100, but the idea is that there is a fixed cost for a diagnosis from somebody whose interests are more aligned with my own - to diagnose the problem with my car. This $100 expenditure could potentially save me thousands of dollars over the life of my car if I could identify what really needs to be fixed. It would be really nice to get a printout showing what is wrong with my car and what the severity is.
So that’s it - that’s my idea. A truly independent diagnosis done by a “mechanic” who doesn’t even offer services to fix my car. It’s a simple idea, but it addresses an extremely inefficient market. Let me know what you think.
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
| TrackBack URI
You can also bookmark
this on del.icio.us or check the cosmos
I think that’s a great idea. But aren’t people still going to want the convenience of having their car fixed in the same location. A reliable third party that rates the reliability of garage diagnostics seems like it might be a more practical model.
Comment by johnny — September 12, 2005 @ 5:27 pm
John,
Yeah, I can see what you mean - however, there are some pretty high barriers to entry with a 3′rd party rating system - there is a lot of legwork involved and a couple of problems with the revenue model:
1) Consumers are not going to be willing to spend a significant amount of money for this information. I really doubt that the model could be profitable for all of the fixed costs involved with getting reviews on a lot of mechanics.
2) If the revenue comes from the mechanics in the form of a finder’s fee, the information is naturally biased and would cause some brand damage with consumers looking for reliable information.
I agree that such a model would be ideal, but without adequate funding, I think this model would be doomed to fail. Also, I’m not sure that people care so much about getting their car fixed by the same person who does a diagnosis - personally I would be willing to pay a certain fee for an independent diagnostic, but then again I am a very skeptical person.
Thanks for your comments, John.
Preston
Comment by admin — September 12, 2005 @ 5:39 pm