I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying cars
that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my spare
time and selling them.

Others have suggested I should just rpair cars but I work during the
day and I am admittantly slow. I just thought It would be something I
could work at my own pace.

Any advice?

I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying cars
that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my spare
time and selling them.

Others have suggested I should just rpair cars but I work during the
day and I am admittantly slow. I just thought It would be something I
could work at my own pace.

Rent out your pole barn to someone who works at a faster pace.
walt

On 23 Mar 2004 05:34:15 -0800, (Don) wrote:

||I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
||I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying cars
||that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my spare
||time and selling them.

You can make this work if you are savvy enough to know what you can fix
inexpensively. You also need a good eye for a bargain, and also know what is
resellable. You can do pretty well buying cars for under $500, doing a repair
for $100 - $200, and selling it for under $2000. As long as it's clean, doesn't
smoke, and most everything works (A/C) you can find a buyer. Best season for
that price range is the month before school starts.

||Others have suggested I should just rpair cars but I work during the
||day and I am admittantly slow. I just thought It would be something I
||could work at my own pace.

There are plenty of people who can do without a car for a week at a time to save
a little money. You will make more money with less pressure with the first
scenario - buying/fixing/selling
Rex in Fort Worth

On 23 Mar 2004 05:34:15 -0800, (Don) wrote:

I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying cars
that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my spare
time and selling them.

There is quite a bit of trickery involved in buying cheap cars at auction
and fixing them up to sell. There are also a lot of pitfalls. The biggest
pitfall is getting stuck with a bunch of junkers. The next biggest pitfall
is car storage at your house. Most municipalities have antijunkyard ordinances
that will make your eyes pop they're written so tightly. Check *before* you
start. The final pitfall is buying too damn many cars. I know several guys who
have learned the hard way that this is a slippery slope and before they know
it they own 7 cars, 4 trucks, 2 motorhomes, 4 motorcycles, a car-hauling
trailer, and they have to spend half their waking hours just moving cars around
so they don't get tickets for being parked in a city over 24 hours.

Here are a few tips I've picked up:

1. Never fix anything you don't have to, rather tell the buyer how easy it
would be to fix. It *always* costs more and is a bigger hassle than it returns.

2. Try hard to do the minimum amount of title-changing. Try to buy it and sell
it without ever becoming the legal owner.

3. Don't fall in love with *anything*. If a guy has money sell him the car. Turn
over your money to make money -- the goal is to own the car for a day or less.

Grant Erwin

(Don) wrote in message om...
I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying cars
that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my spare
time and selling them.

Others have suggested I should just rpair cars but I work during the
day and I am admittantly slow. I just thought It would be something I
could work at my own pace.

Any advice?

In many places, this would require you to take out a mechanic's or
dismantler's license and a dealer's license. Your property would also
have to be zoned to allow this sort of work. And beware of local
junk-vehicle ordinances; a diligent inspector could have your
work-in-progress confiscated.

If you do this casually once in a while, it's no big deal. As soon as
you start doing it regularly to make money, it's a business, and you
need the appropriate permissions. What these are in any particular
case will depend on where you are located.

--
Chris Green

"The best way to make a small fortune in the used car business is to start out
with a large fortune." Anon.

Richard Coke

Grant Erwin wrote in
:

On 23 Mar 2004 05:34:15 -0800, (Don) wrote:

I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying
cars that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my
spare time and selling them.



A couple of stories from my past regarding your idea.

1) My roommate bought a Honda 450 motorcycle basket case for $50. He put
it together over one weekend, and it ran! So, he sold it for $500!

2) A few weeks later he took the $500 and bought an Impala that he figured
he would sell to some lowrider. It had a little miss in the engine, but he
figured it was a bad spark plug or something simple. Well, it turned out
that there was a hole in one piston the size of his thumb! Bye, bye $500.




--
John Snow
"If I knew what I was doing, I wouldn't be here"

On 23 Mar 2004 05:34:15 -0800, (Don) wrote:

I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying cars
that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my spare
time and selling them.

Others have suggested I should just rpair cars but I work during the
day and I am admittantly slow. I just thought It would be something I
could work at my own pace.

Any advice?

My dad did that big time and was up to 65 cars when he died. Now days
I don't think that would be a good idea with history searches. But we
where getting cars that had been in a flood or 1/4 smashed. The most
important thing I learned was to detail the car. My dad would have a
import rug rat wagon that ran just fine and lots of people looking at
it. He told me to really clean it (didn't use Zep BTW) , so I cleaned
everything , under the hood , door jams, light Ajax, wax, armoral, and
you name it. The next people bought it in a heart beat. I think it's
because they don't want to be ridiculed when they get it home , so it
looks nice to who ever they show it to , in other words.

I started doing it and had 5 cars in high school with only makings $58
a week working for my dad. The only thing I got free was to live at
the airport alone with lots of tools and space. My plan was to amass
enough to sell and buy a J-3. I read the Trade A Plane all the time
and you could get a fixer upper for like 5-6 grand back then. I was
even holding back then cause I really wanted a 180 , but then
everything went to hell. To bad that would have been cool to own a
plane at 18.

Best to know how to work on these computerized cars if you try it.
This state sucks cause they take 8 weeks to do the paper work and you
can't double sign the titles like you used to be able to do. I still
have a nice Caddy after a year that both people died and willed it to
each other that I'm just about to get the ok from the state. Look
before you leap.

Don wrote:

I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying cars
that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my spare
time and selling them.

Others have suggested I should just rpair cars but I work during the
day and I am admittantly slow. I just thought It would be something I
could work at my own pace.

Any advice?

Yeah! Have a good look at any regulations relating to being an auto
dealer, and the liabilities thereof.

Here in Alberta, Canada, if more than a certain number (not sure of
number) of vehicles pass through your hands (tracked through vehicle
registrations) you are considered to be a dealer, and are liable to
provide at least a minimum level of warantee and other benefits to your
customers. There is also mandatory membership in dealer
assosciations,and mandatory training that must be dealt with, mostly
relating to the afore mentioned liabilities.

Cheers
Trevor Jones

You don't say how old you are, but if you are over 30, then most likely you
do not have the natural talent for buying and selling cars. I say this
because if you did have this ability, you would have recognized it long ago
and would not be asking these questions. If you are a competent, but slow
mechanic, then you would be better off to do repair work for family and
aquaintences ( but be firm about getting paid for your work.) If your work
is good you will soon have all you can handle through referrals. I started
at age 15 by borrowing 35.00 from my Dad to buy a 53 Mercury which I sold
the next day for 75.00- this was in the day when my Dad - a machinist earned
100.00 per week. It took some begging and whining to get the 35.00, but
after that first deal he never questioned me if I asked for a short term
loan. I knew other guys who tried it, but they often fell victim to the
tendency to fall in love with a car and not want to sell it at a reasonable
profit- or spend way too much fixing it up and ending up losing money on the
deal.
"Don" wrote in message
m...
I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying cars
that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my spare
time and selling them.

Others have suggested I should just rpair cars but I work during the
day and I am admittantly slow. I just thought It would be something I
could work at my own pace.

Any advice?

Buy and repair motorcyles. They take up less room and are easier in my
opinion to fix. Older bikes are becoming popular because they are good
for beginners.

Neighbor bought a jet ski for something like $50. I went over and said
"man, looks like a dog chewed that thing!". It had. He bought grips and I
think a throttle cable and repainted it himself. Maybe not something you
can make money at, but certainly saved money over buying a nice, used one.

Joel. phx

I tried the repair scheme with bicycles. Couldn't find nice enough bikes to
make any kind of money. If one needed tires there went all the profit.

"Hitch" wrote in message
. ..
Grant Erwin wrote in
:

On 23 Mar 2004 05:34:15 -0800, (Don) wrote:

I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying
cars that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my
spare time and selling them.



A couple of stories from my past regarding your idea.

1) My roommate bought a Honda 450 motorcycle basket case for $50. He put
it together over one weekend, and it ran! So, he sold it for $500!

2) A few weeks later he took the $500 and bought an Impala that he
figured
he would sell to some lowrider. It had a little miss in the engine, but
he
figured it was a bad spark plug or something simple. Well, it turned out
that there was a hole in one piston the size of his thumb! Bye, bye $500.

--
John Snow
"If I knew what I was doing, I wouldn't be here"

Christopher Green wrote in rec.autos.tech

(Don) wrote in message
om...
I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying cars
that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my spare
time and selling them.

Others have suggested I should just rpair cars but I work during the
day and I am admittantly slow. I just thought It would be something I
could work at my own pace.

Any advice?

In many places, this would require you to take out a mechanic's or
dismantler's license and a dealer's license. Your property would also
have to be zoned to allow this sort of work. And beware of local
junk-vehicle ordinances; a diligent inspector could have your
work-in-progress confiscated.

If you do this casually once in a while, it's no big deal. As soon as
you start doing it regularly to make money, it's a business, and you
need the appropriate permissions. What these are in any particular
case will depend on where you are located.

I used to work with a man who did that about 4 or 5 times a year. He
specialized in some 80's ford model. He would buy a decent car for
under a thousand, put another 500 to a 1,000 into it, and the sell for
about 2500 to 3000. He only did it a few times a year. But in the process
he built a car for him and his wife. Plus repaired a few for friends.
Plus, gas station/garages will sometimes do the same thing.

On a related note, in the late 60's a machinist owned a BMW motorcycle,
which at the time were known to have very heavy flywheels. Smooth running,
but very slow accelartion. He decided to machine a few pounds off of his,
just to see what it was like. His friends liked it so well that they asked
him to do it. And word got around so that he ended up doing it full time.
He ended up with quite a business.

--
Dick #1349
Damn it . . . Don't you dare ask God to help me.
To her housekeeper, who had begun to pray aloud.
~~ Joan Crawford, actress, d. May 10, 1977
Home Page: dickcr.iwarp.com
email:

dann mann wrote:

Buy and repair motorcyles. They take up less room and are easier in my
opinion to fix. Older bikes are becoming popular because they are good
for beginners.

Toss the couch and move the TV to the kitchen where it belongs, and
you can fix two at a time in the living room.

On 23 Mar 2004 05:34:15 -0800, (Don)
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:
remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Watch out for local laws. For reasons that I am not sure of, but about
which I have my suspicions, you need a dealer's license if you want to
sell more than x cars per year where I am.

I would like to find a side income where I could work at my own pace.
I am building a garage pole barn 24 x 30 and thought about buying cars
that had something mechanically wrong with them, fix them in my spare
time and selling them.

Others have suggested I should just rpair cars but I work during the
day and I am admittantly slow. I just thought It would be something I
could work at my own pace.

Any advice?

************************************************** ** sorry

..........no I'm not!
remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Does Bill Gates dream of electronic sheep?

If you are a competent, but slow
mechanic, then you would be better off to do repair work for family and
aquaintences ( but be firm about getting paid for your work.)


Since I used to be a professional certified auto mechanic, I used to do this
on occasion to help out friends etc after I changed careers. But no more.
I once helped a "friend" replace the brake pads and shoes on a Honda Accord.
No hydraulic work or turning involved. The guy let me know the next day that
his wife was mad at me. She drove the car to the store that evening after I
worked on it. She told her husband that she almost rear-ended someone
because the brakes felt different. Obviously the self adjusters for the rear
shoes changed the pedal feel. If she had hit someone I could have been sued.
I don't want or need those kinds of issues in my life. I haven't worked on
anyone else's vehicle except my own since then. If you are a business you
need to have the appropriate liability insurance. I'd be leery of buying
cars, fixing them up and selling them just for this reason. You have to
protect yourself these days from the lawyer types, well as much as you can
anyway.

Lane