Open a Auto repair Shop in BC
 

I don't find anywhere on the internet if you need a licensed mechanic to run an Auto repair Shop in BC.

Is it legal to work on cars without a mechnanic license?

I'm planning to open my own tuner shop in Vancouver.

I don't know about the legalities of not being a licensed mechanic but you'll be severely limiting your clientele if you don't have one on staff. I certainly know I would never go to one...
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I would pay to see your business plan, although I doubt you have one, the laugh would be worth a few dollars.

isn't garage 5 unlicensed mechs?

U need a license to have the business license that u need to renew every year?
I think
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Please remember to have someone who is proficient at English edit your business plan if you make it that far.

You don't NEED a licensed mech to run a shop, but you may need to to INSURE the shop. And you don't want to run a shop without insurance.

Please don't.

I don't think anyone is going to stop you from opening a tuner shop without a mechanic's license.

HOWEVER...when your repairs and installs grenade a few engines, and Olsen on Your Side is in the remains of your shop, he's definitely going to notice.

You don't know enough to do what you want to do.

Anyone can open a shop and work on cars. You don't need to be licensed. However, if something goes wrong you could find yourself in serious trouble (for example, someone at your shop makes a mistake repairing a car and their mistake causes an accident).

As to whether or not people will come to your shop - there are plenty of cheap bastards in The Lower Mainland that don't care if a shop is licensed as long as you're cheap.

For insurance, you will not be able to get proper insurance without a licensed technician. It doesn't mean you can't get insured, just that you can't get coverage for every possible scenario (and you'll probably pay way more anyway).

Insurance is a moot point and this has been discussed on RS before. Most shops (even those with a licensed tech) don't have proper insurance. Last shop I worked at spent $1,500 per month for insurance and had 4 techs (2 fully licensed, 2 apprentices). How many shops would choose to pay $1,500 a month for insurance when they could spend that much and hire some flunky to do basic mechanical repairs and earn the shop some income? Hell, $1,500 would probably cover a major chunk of your monthly rent for a commerical space to run a small shop from.

Several years ago this was discussed (I tried finding the thread - it doesn't exist anymore). I put out a challenge to the independent shops/tuning shops to tell us how much their monthly insurance costs where and what they had coverage for and not one bothered, which tells you something right there. This was in response to someone on RS having an incident at a shop and the shop refusing to cover it. I'd be surprised that things are any different today.

Thanks for all comments.

From my family experience, insurance is a must in any business.

I want to start up my own business. So many things I know how to do, but finding answers to do it properly on Government website is no fun.

It might not be fun, but it's something you need to do. Your other option is to hire a lawyer to deal with all the technical and legal stuff and then have him "dumb it down" into a powerpoint presentation.

Asking Revscene for answers is all well and good if you're simply toying with the notion of opening up a shop. However, if you're truly serious about it, you will have to deal with all the government websites in order to get the proper answers you need.

We pay 6k a year and that is only our commercial policy, add another 1500 for our ICBC shop policy which does not include a repair plate. We have 3 Red Seal certified AST and no apprentices. Our shop has only two hoists and we are covered for 500k in cars at any given time. We were told by our insurance underwriters that we were the first shop they had ever insured with a "high performance category" risks in our policy

^ The ex CEO of ICBC was a customer of ours and we used to talk about stuff like this all the time. I remember him saying there is a "large discrepancy" between the number of shops and those with adequate insurance. Another thing I remember (off topic) was that almost 50% of ICBC's expenses (payouts) were to whiplash victims, which is another way of saying 50% of your premiums go to scammers who think they won the lottery if they get rear-ended.

We obviously agree that insurance is a significant expense, and I think you'd agree that many shops (especially smaller shops) don't buy adequate insurance.
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