when is a Chinese gas tank --not a chinese gas tank

watch --some suppliers are mentioning their gas tanks are Canadian Made ...when they have been selling Chinese for some time. It may be that they are ordering the upper and lower shells and assembling in Canada. SPI is Cdn shell and Cdn assembly ...fyi.

See a price that just looks wrong -- Kingdom has a list of clear out parts - your store manager has a copy - whom ever might be selling something off of that list --it is truly ONE BIG list and some really low prices on parts that fit semi-obsolete or slow applications .... FYI

LandnSea accounts for Auto Barn and Petes

Petes Paint and Auto Barn now have 'LandnSea' accounts -- e are asking you to try this option out. They are a major player in Marine. See you store manager for details ( or Neil at Petes ). D&T has had an account for some time.

Staff Meeting for March and April at Auto Barn ....

PLEASEEZZZ mark you calendars -- the staff meeting for BOTH March and May will be held at Auto Barn. Managers - please confirm attendance for chair and food planning. So -- who will forget and show up at the wrong store? Not you I hope - you are better organized --aren't you? Write yourself a note right now --yep - that's a good idea.

April is at D&T for monthly CARQUEST staff meeting

Tech-Net council meeting set for Monday March 26th

Ken and Neil are planning a regional Tech-Net council meeting for shops Monday March 26th. We whole heartily support the extra effort that these guys are doing. Good job and good luck with plans - for it to be good will take effort -- good things do!

LCS 10020 vs 10003 --wht do we do the dumm stuff?

Robyn - our Lucas oil rep - wants to know why we sell so much of the small Fuel Treatment ... 155 ml $3.99 --when we should be selling LCS 10003 - it is 946 ml for 12.99 -- you get 6 times the item for only 4 times the price ....doh ... as Mr Simpson would say .... can you upsell your customer so he saves money ?

redeem Web-Link spiffs

Abe at Petes Paint might have the first redemption for the $1.00 coupon for Web-Link orders during our in-house promo period.

I have shown Abe how to run a 8-18 report ( which is cleared every month) and sent him a Jan 8-18 report that I send all managers. If this is all 'greek' to you --see you manager and ask him to train you on how to understand what I just said.

Perhaps the managers might consider standardizing the part number-- we have XXX YPS-SPECIAL in the system priced at $1.00 -will this work for using for the credit when they buy the iPod or tools? managers -- comments?

remember to view the sister BLOG

There are some new posts on the sister blog Essex County CTI blog -- check them out ...lets keep our CARQUEST trade accounts up to date - remind them to see it as well

Dorman 615-200 gasket

We had a failure on this part number after 2 weeks.We have discountinued to stock it.I talked to Dorman and Bill says they are aware that there might be issues.I sold both sets to used car lots because of price but that is not always the right chioce.Use GSK MIS16259.
Greg Guyitt

CTI course change

see the CTI blog for details do you remember the site URL? Did you bookmark? ( hint cqcti.blogspot.com )

check this out

Check this link out - it shows on Web-Link - and has several new CARQUEST programs listed

click here

Daylight Savings Time -- starts earlier this year

Daylight saving time starts earlier this year - March 11, 2007 and runs LONGER -- changing at Nov 4th ....we will see how many computers get this right ...:-)

Be Ready

see this link for more info .... daylight saving time changes

Payroll

I will be doing payroll on Tuesday, February 27th. Please make sure that all time sheets and sick/vacation days have been reported before then.

KYB

Just a reminder that Gerry is here (Auto Barn) Monday night for a KYB clinic.
Greg Guyitt

We can;t solve your problems --if we don't know of your problems

One of several points I wrote down at the last staff meeting chaired by Rhonda -- poor pick up of battery cores at Petes Paint -- now has been resolved ( or so say Gary from East Penn )

Moral of story-- if we don't know of your problems -- we can;t fix your problems ... or ... you could also try fixing your own problems ( for practice, of course :-)

PLEASEZZZ -- if you have something you think you could make better in our CARQUEST stores -- PLEASEZZZ -- lets try our dammest to do it.

OK --so I have 7 more to yet check off as fixed ... hmm .... Greg from another hotel

Will this one be better than the others ?

Have a look at this -- there have been others on the market and results seem to be mixed to poor --will this kit be better - we won't know until we TRY IT. I have asked Pete to add both and give us some feedback ... If you can't wait --your store can test this new CARQUEST product by setting levels on
SYM 750 100 10 C
SYM 750 100 30 --both are on promo ( does anyone know in what promo ... sure wish CQ made it easier ...hint ... )

This item is described on track #3 on the Feb Driving Force CD -- s your store manager letting you listen to it? Another hint - eh? Your manager won;t share ??? ....click here ..... mp3 of Driving Force - need speakers to hear ....doh ...

Note the Motor Mag TOP 20 award ... I think that adds a HUGE amount of creditability to this product .... let us know how you find the tests with your customers ( and maybe your trucks ... ? ) Here is their web site .... ----Symtech headlight aimers & lens cleaners ----

Read CTI course PDF's

Neil mentioned that he could not open a recent CTI course. I notice that on my Mac the quick program will NOT open - but the full version of Adobe 7.0 or latter should open. Adobe seems to have an update every week ...so if oyu haven;t update lately -- you have a 15 minute job.

Let me know if you still have problems on your computer. PLEASEZZZ note -- you are NOT to share this with non-CTI participants

Plaxo is a shared Internet address book

Hello - we have been testing the Plaxo internet based address book. Why do we need an address book -- well - our older Autologue computer had a handy way to make supplier contacts - but the J-Con is anything BUT user friendly to do this. In fact - ,many of you are using a 2003 export copy of the addresses from the Autologue.

Well - time to put something into place that we can UPDATE and improve as we go along. I haven;t seen much effort from the managers to ADD new contacts - but I am hoping that as one comes across a name that needs to be in the book - it wil be added ( try to NOT DUPLICATE existing names ... pleasezzzzz )

Additional tip - your store manager will give you the user name and password .... we are offering a prize for the first person who by accident 'clicks on the UPGRADE NOW button ...that person gets to PAY for the extra service ... so you have been warned ...

Comments and feedback to Greg H appreciated.

Tool meeting for Tue Feb 27 at Auto Barn

A tool & Equipment meeting is confirmed for Tuesday Feb 27th at Auto Barn for 6:30 pm. Come for 6:00 and have a pop and pizza and chat - meeting starts at 6:30 -- please be on time

We have Dev-Air Compressors and Hennessy Coats for Tire Changers and Balancers. Meeting for staff only and is open to all area CARQUEST jobbers. Please confirm that you can ( or can't ) attend with your store manager. Area jobbers are asked to confirm the number of staff with Mike Parker who will in turn tell the guys at Auto Barn so they can have enough chairs and food.

This is the only one scheduled for 2007.

Gates RBR - send a picture contest

Gates RBR has a contest -- have our accounts take a photo and send it to Gates on how they used the Unicoil - they have several categories of prizes --see your stores salesman or Greg H for more details. Promo runs from now to end of June 2007. Just one more handy part from CARQUEST.

RBR 25510 is 1/2 RBR 28511 is 5/8 and RBR 28512 is 3.4" --- have you held one? Go now!

ps - The address for the Uni-coil contest is e-infocanada@gates.com

Battery cores

CARQUEST tells us to look for a new part number to soon be added to our system - BAT-CORE it will be an innovative way to handle cores that --the more I think of it - the more I personally like like it.

We could suggest that they add 2 additional numbers ( one for small batteries like U1's and one for 8d's and smilar ) - but the one part will cover most of what we need.

A customer comes in and buys a batter - we bill the battery and the CORE part - we have to remember to do the CORE - but after a could of reminders and a few 'inches of string wound on your finger as a reminder (well-that part could be optional and only for the really hard to remember staff :-)

The Customer brings the old battery back with the bill and we credit the core ... we get the cores back to recycling and the environment is better for it all.

Watch for this part to be announced. The core price will be $5.95 -- in between Wal-Mart's $8.00 and CTC's $5.00 core

one things leads to another

When we posted the image for the reminder on the severe duty rotor for the 2004 Crown Vic -- we noticed something that perhaps we should have noticed before ... this is IMPORTANT ... PLEASE follow this and tell your web-link customers -- even better -- show them this VERY EXAMPLE ... or they will think we don;t have it and will LOOSE SALES for both us and CARQUEST.

This bug has been mentioned to Activant for more than a year - the help desk guy tells us and Activant in their typical arrogance has stonewalled the solution. The problem is the PER CAR QTY ...in this case is TWO and each store has ONE. Once we have the new e-cat this problem will go away -- but for now we have to learn how to handle the training.

USE THIS EXAMPLE with your customer - 2004 Crown Vic front rotor

PUT one into the cart

Click the CHECK P/A button ( P/A = parts & availability )

Then you will see that the single rotor shows at the store - remind our customers that we will get the 2nd part from our sister store rush for them

PLEASE --if you do NOT follow this -- call Greg H for more details

Rotors for Police Dept's and others with Hi Standards

Remember the sub-line # 7 parts in Drums & Rotors BDR ---theGold (composite exact OEM made in N/A ) and the HD cross drilled ...are an option and available from Toronto CARQUEST

"Free brake spec books"

We have been in the habit of giving away"free" brake spec books.Part numbers 42181bpi and 3511cq.There is a cost attached to these.My viewpoint on these is since all that info is now available free with Weblink we should no longer give out the books but should instead direct these guys to use Weblink.If anyone does not know how to get this Web based info feel free to call me and I will show you.
Greg Guyitt