Ep 12: The Business End Of An Automotive Diagnostic Specialist with Jason Bowden

In this episode, highly successful Diagnostic Specialist Jason Bowden, from Bowden Auto Services in Torbay, joins host James Dillon to talk about the business end of automotive diagnostics.

Jason has developed his expert automotive diagnostic services business over many years, focusing on the niche. He has invested significantly in both training and tools and is the go-to guy in the wider Torbay area. He has a great reputation within the trade, and for very good reasons. 

In the early years, Jason was coached and mentored by several excellent mechanics and technicians, who help him on his journey to becoming a diagnostic guru. His career has seen him working in independent and dealer garages as well as in motorcycle dealerships.  

Like many successful garage owners, Jason put a huge amount of work and personal sacrifices into building his business. In the beginning, Jason was working full time at a garage, whilst working evenings and weekends laying a solid foundation in building his future business.

Running any business is not without its stresses and strains and Jason talks about the impact and how he manages not to take work home with him. Like many, the pandemic provided an ideal 'pause' for Jason to reflect and refocus on what really mattered to him and his family.

The conversation turns to garages doing what they do best, and where the limitation of their expertise in specialist subjects may lie. How should garages identify where they should refer the job, rather than go deep, past the point of their talent, tools and training? Jason talks about how his business work together with other garages to allows them to not get tied up in deep diagnostics, by offering a referral service. This enables his garage customers to continue to earn on service repair and maintenance, whilst they employ Jason's services to fix the nightmare jobs.

Check out Bowden Auto Services on Facebook for the excellent Case Studies that Jason produces. If you'd like to get a good idea of the day in the life of a diagnostic specialist, this page has just what you need.