My brother in law who is my tech at the MB dealership said that they had slowed down drastically in the last two or three weeks. Go figure.

pmckechnie,

My Dad opened a good sized independent shop right after world war II. His shop served, independently, as the service department for the Kaiser dealership, but that was a small portion of his clientele. He was just out of the military, so opened up with a bank loan. After a year or so, he hit a bad winter and business totally dried up in January. His banker, who is a long time family friend, begged and pleaded with him to hang on through the tough times and said that the bank would see him through financially. My Dad was only about 26 or 27 and was afraid of going deeper in debt and bailed out.

Later, he opened another independent shop on a smaller scale and made a living for a number of years with it. To this day, he says that if he had gutted it up and stayed with it in his first shop, he would have come out in much better shape.

I only tell you this so you can reflect. People that drive MUST maintain and repair their cars sooner or later unless everyone decides to start walking and I don't see that happening anywhere in the US anytime soon.

Best of luck,