dbltap wrote:

> With the enormous cost of new diagnostic equipment and highly specialized
> and ever changing skills needed to service more and more technologically
> sophisticated electronics and advanced power plants (read hybrid and the
> hydrogen fuel cell) there will be no chance for the small indy shop to
> survive. I don't think that a shop can make a go of it even as a brake shop.
> At some point the manufacturers will devise a brake system that is so
> reliant on electronics that you will need a dealer out of necessity to do
> the service.
>

Perhaps, but people have been saying that for at least 30 years now.
Fuel injection, body control computers, etc. were all supposed to be the
end of the independent. So far the aftermarket equipment suppliers have
managed to keep the indy shop going, at least those shops with the
ability to invest.

John