tensazangetsu20:
This is a very good idea. I also hope that you or someone else in your founding team is very good with automobiles and very proficient in car repairs himself. With advanced cars, it takes more than just vetting mechanics. Many don't know what they are doing and you could go to prison if you ruin someons car by repairing especially if you don't have liability insurance. Cars are very complicated today. They are getting worse especially since the introduction of CAN bus systems so have someone proficient on your team.

Besides there's an issue with your pricing system so it's gonna be very hard getting reliable mechanics. Cars are very complicated now and require some insane expensive tools to fix. No one is going to buy all those tools and then charge a pittance. You are just starting anyway and you would learn as you go by but be prepared it's not gonna be easy at all.

sooperrescue:


That's a good advice. I get such proposals from a group and they tell me to send a quote. What quote? For a car that you have not seen and even the owner does not know the oil that was used to service the car. Maybe the new start up is focusing on Toyota cars where plugs are sold for 3k but I know that laser plugs are sold for 5k a piece for Toyota. So where do you factor the lowest price from? Plan well before you enter the business if not na panti go be your branch office.

sooperrescue:


That's a good advice. I get such proposals from a group and they tell me to send a quote. What quote? For a car that you have not seen and even the owner does not know the oil that was used to service the car. Maybe the new start up is focusing on Toyota cars where plugs are sold for 3k but I know that laser plugs are sold for 5k a piece for Toyota. So where do you factor the lowest price from? Plan well before you enter the business if not na panti go be your branch office.

CityNGR:

Curious... How many times have you been arrested in the course of your work?

tensazangetsu20:

This guy's don't know that new cars are so complex that even car dealers cant fix. The CAN bus system is the one I hate as it needs a scope to diagnose it has confused my scan tool so many times. It's not about fixing you must know the engineering of cars inside out.

sooperrescue:


And they expect you to send a quote for the job that even the owner of the car does not know what is going on. They will tell you say I dey hear one noise for the engine and I want you to give me quote. Even herbalist wey dey use laptop nor go see that noise talk less of hearing it

danidee10:
Good day everyone!

I'm a co-founder of a new startup company called Oga mechanic. https://ogamechanic.com/ We've been working on it for several months and we're finally confident enough to show our MVP to the public.

We started Oga mechanic because we wanted to fix the "madness" in Nigeria's Auto repair Industry. Basically, we connect car owners in need of repairs to Trusthworthy and Competent car mechanics.
You wouldn't be wrong if you said that some companies have already done this. But they all failed. Why did they fail?
There are several reasons but the major reason is that they tried to include every dick and harry (Or should I say Wasiu and Alabi cheesy) on their platform. Some of them also tried to juggle too many services like Generator repairs, house cleaning, plumbers etc.

We're different because we decided to grab the bull by the horn and build a service that's SOLELY focused on car repairs. We're also trying to build a system of reliable and trustworthy car mechanics. At the moment, we have five mechanics on our platform and all of them have been manually verified by us (We've gone to their workshops to see things for ourselves). We didn't just go to google to get the contact details of mechanics and list them on our platform. Also, Every mechanic that applies through our signup page will have to go through a complusory verification process before they are listed on the search page. We're value Quality over Quantity.

So what's in it for you as a Car owner:
1. A price/cost estimation system: It's no secret that a lot of mechanics overcharge car owners because the car owners don't know the price of spare parts and services (Especially females). To tackle this problem, we built an cost estimation engine that tells you the average price for a car service (e.g Wheel balancing) based on previous jobs that other mechanics have done on similar cars.
Imagine how cool it'll be to know the price of a service before you contact any mechanic. For example, If the average cost (parts and services) to change spark plugs is N3,000, If you contact a mechanic and he's tells you that it's N10,000 then you'll know that he has Inflated the price and he probably wants to cheat you. To be honest, this feature isn't public yet because we'll need data to make it work properly but we've already Implemented it, once we have sufficient data it will be open to the public.

2. Fair pricing: Just like Fiverr and other job sites, We make mechanics compete and bid for your job, when you request for a repair, Mechanics in your area will get your request and then compete for your job by sending detailed quotes that explain how much it'll cost them to fix your car. This will drastically drive prices down as mechanics wouldn't want to lose a customer by overcharging. Since a mechanic knows that you're probably talking to other mechanics, They'll give you the best price for the job.

3. Finances and Car repair history: A lot of Car owners don't keep track of how much they've spent on their cars. A lot of people don't even keep track of their finances (That's another problem for someone to solve wink). When you use Oga mechanic, Every transaction goes through our system so you'll be able to see a complete history of how much you've spent on your car (For the day, week, month and year). You can also see a history of all the repairs that have been done on the car. This information could come in handy when you want to sell the car. Instead of convincing the potential buyer that your car is a "Clean car" that has been serviced regularly, you can simply show them your repair history.

4. Stress-free repairs: No one wants to spend their weekends at the Garage/Workshop, but that's the reality of so many car owners in Nigeria because they don't trust their Mechanics. Most of the mechanics on our platform offer home services so you can easily make an appointment and the mechanic will come to your house and fix the car. If it's a problem that can't be fixed there, They can take it to the workshop and bring it back for you.

We have so many things planned for the future Like Car breakdown Insurance, Emergency repairs, Auto service reminders etc. We already have five mechanics on the platform and 2 paying customers grin. Three of them are in Abuja and the other two are in Lagos. We've started operations in Abuja so It's good news if you reside here smiley

If you stay in Lagos, I encourage you to signup too (We'll send you an email when we're in lagos). Lagos is a very Important city (It's probably the city that needs this service). However, we want to focus our efforts in Abuja and Improve the application before we hit lagos (Our current UI sucks cheesy)

If you have any questions/feedback I'll love to hear them and If you're a Car mechanic that's Interested in our service please send me a private message.

Thank you. Once again, the website URL is https://ogamechanic.com/

LeJeun3:




How do you effectively diagnosis the vehicle before giving a quote??