Put the Second Floor to Work

Paying the mortgage (or the rent) on the bricks—the actual shop itself—is an expense. (A fixed cost, if you want to be particular.)

But that building does more than keep your tools and techs dry. It provides room to work and house equipment. And if you’re like most shops, not every square inch is spoken for. If you have overhead storage, an outbuilding, or even enough flat land to drop a storage container, you have a way to make your bricks (and your asphalt, gravel, or dirt) work harder for you.

Tires are placed on the tire storage rack. Photo: istock.com/Chonlatee Sangsawang.

You can store items for customers who don’t have shops. No, you won’t compete with the local storage facility. And no, you don’t want customers to show up with hand-me-down infant clothes that might be pressed back into service. But your customers know you for the service you perform on their vehicles. Why not store their spare tires?

Think about it: it’s perfect on so many fronts. First, they’re already thinking of you when it comes to wheels and tires. They know you take care of them! So, who needs this storage?

If your shop is performance-oriented (probably not that likely) or performance-adjacent (probably more likely), there is the potential to store track tires, dragstrip wheels, and warmers. There are also mud tires and wheels for the off-road crowd, and if you have collectors or enthusiasts in your midst, careful storage of OE or rare aftermarket wheels is desirable. This might not be your shop, and that’s reasonable. But we’ve buried the lede here: The heavy hitters needing storage (sorry, Florida!) are customers with snow tires and wheelsets. If you live in the north, some of your customers will have snow tires. Summer tires and wheels need to be tucked away for the winter, and once the snow stops falling, those Blizzaks also need to be shelved

Tire storage within a shop. Photo: istock.com/Lorado.

And guess what—you have a leg up on the storage facility. Why? Because you service the vehicle! Especially for a vehicle without a bed, owners generally aren’t looking to transport tires four times a year. (Winter ones on, summer ones off, summer ones on, winter ones off). Tires and wheels are dirty. They ruin interiors. And clothes. And they’re heavy. Wouldn’t it be convenient for them if they could just leave them at your shop?

And now you can monitor the tires for the customer. A simple tagging system allows you to put the tires in the right spots for even wear when they go on the car, and honestly, what customer wants to try to keep track of that?

Charge a modest storage fee; it’s cash in the till and almost purely profit (unless you have to pay off the sea container you order to throw on the back forty). You can ask for a little more money if you bundle storage in with something like free swaps on and off the car or rebalancing every time a set gets stored; that’s great work for a lube tech on a slow Saturday morning.

Or go the other way: offer free storage to customers who buy a set of summer or winter buns from you.

But before you write off that modest income (or non-existent income, depending on how you structure your storage scheme), think about all the downstream sales that can come from this program. You now have a reason to cold-call customers twice a year. And they’re the best type of customer! You already know that they spend on their cars—and even more so than an average motorist. If your techs are worth their salt, finding additional needs on a vehicle on the rack for a seasonal tire swap should be no sweat at all.

Tires on a rack. Photo: istock.com/cihatatceken.

Some automotive manufacturers have built-in automatic braking routines that apply the mechanical brakes during certain situations to help prevent problems later on. For regenerative braking-equipped vehicles, it is critical to follow the OEM brake inspection and maintenance procedures. A typical EV or hybrid brake service may include a complete disassembly of the braking components, cleaning, inspection, lubrication (where necessary), and reassembly. Techs, make sure to apply the friction brakes while test-driving a hybrid or BEV. That ensures that the system sees some engagement and can also alert you to an issue that can be relayed to the customer.

Regenerative braking delivers clear benefits in efficiency and component longevity, but it also shifts how technicians need to think about brake system health. Reduced wear doesn’t equal reduced responsibility—if anything, it means inspections must be even more deliberate to catch corrosion, sticking hardware, and degraded friction surfaces before they become safety concerns. By staying proactive with maintenance and following OEM guidelines, techs can ensure that hybrid and EV drivers get the best of both worlds: the energy‑saving advantages of regenerative braking and the reliable stopping power of a well-maintained conventional brake system.