An auto repair shop in Mandan, ND that services diesel pickups and light trucks can finance shop equipment such as a DPF cleaner or an A/C service machine with an equipment loan, and carry core charges on remanufactured parts with a line of credit. This post prices each with invented figures. A funding partner sets any terms.
Diesel and light-truck work adds equipment and parts costs a car-only shop may not have. Invented examples price a diesel particulate filter cleaner, an A/C machine and a month of core charges; the county counts come from Census tables.
A DPF Cleaner and Diesel Diagnostics
Diesel pickups carry a diesel particulate filter that fills with ash over time. A shop can send filters out for cleaning or clean them in-house with a machine that bakes the filter and blows the ash out, which keeps the pickup in the bay for less time and keeps the cleaning charge in the shop.
In this invented example, a cleaning machine with its ash collector costs $23,960. Spread across 48 invented monthly payments of $611.03 at a 10.29% annual rate, the cleaner costs $29,329.44 in all, $5,369.44 of it interest.
The machine works for years, so equipment financing can follow its working life. Electrical service for the machine, and any venting through a wall or roof, is property work outside this site.
Before asking, a shop can count the filters it sends out in a typical month and what each outside cleaning costs, then set that against the payment. Diagnostic software subscriptions for diesel engines are a yearly operating cost rather than equipment, so they sit better in the monthly budget than inside the machine loan.
An A/C Service Machine for Newer Light Trucks
Newer pickups and vans use R-1234yf refrigerant, and servicing them takes a recovery and recharge machine built for it. A shop with an older machine for R-134a may need a second one rather than a swap.
In this invented example, the R-1234yf machine costs $8,415. The invented machine would run $397.54 a month for 24 months at a 12.36% annual rate; that is $9,540.96 paid back, including $1,125.96 of interest.
Stretching the same invented $8,415 to 36 months at the same invented rate lowers the payment to $280.95 and raises the total to $10,114.20, so the longer term costs $573.24 more in this invented example. A machine of this size can carry a short term because the payment stays modest while the balance is gone in two years.
Recovery machines also need yearly filter changes and software updates. Those are running costs, and a shop can price them with the dealer before choosing a term.
Remanufactured Diesel Parts, Core Charges and a Line Draw
Remanufactured injectors, turbochargers and other diesel parts are sold with a core charge: a deposit the supplier refunds once the old part comes back and passes inspection. The customer pays for the repair, but the core charge sits with the supplier until the refund posts.
In this invented month, the shop installs 4 remanufactured injector sets at $2,935 each, and every set carries a $1,147 core charge. That ties up $4,588 in invented core charges until the refunds arrive.
Drawn from a credit line for 33 days at a 13.74% annual rate, simple daily, the invented $4,588 costs $56.99 in interest before the refunds pay the draw back. A technician's pay in a week when refunds lag is a different cost, one a working capital loan can cover.
A core that fails inspection is not refunded, and the charge becomes a cost of the job. Logging each core with its return date and the supplier's credit memo shows how long the money is out and how much of it comes back, which is the record a line request leans on.
Shop Records That Support an Equipment Request in Mandan, ND
Morton County had 101 employer establishments in Other Services (except Public Administration), the sector that includes auto repair, and 65.3% of them had fewer than five employees (County Business Patterns 2023).
For a shop that size, a funding partner may ask for records that show what the new equipment will do:
- The equipment quote, with the machine, accessories and delivery on separate lines
- Business bank statements for recent months
- Invoices that show diesel or light-truck work already done in the shop
- Supplier statements that show core charges and the refunds as they post
- Payments already owed on other shop equipment
A shop adding diesel work can also show where the new jobs come from: pickups it already sees for brakes and tires, or customers it now sends elsewhere for filter cleaning and A/C service. Repair orders that name those referrals, with dates and amounts, connect the equipment request to work the shop is already close to doing.
The auto repair trade page prices other shop costs, from fluid service carts to a frame machine.
By Thistlepine Capital · Updated
