Henry Woodbury, owner
Woodbury Garage
Athens, VT
Atlas PV-10 Lift — Without a lift, very little, if any, meaningful work would get done, but this unit is so easy to work with, versatility has a new meaning.
Hewlett-Packard Pavilion Slimline S7320n Computer — This tiny unit takes up almost no room in my crowded one-man shop. I can’t imagine going back to index cards for keeping track of inventory, hand filling work orders in triplicate, and what did we all do before online parts ordering? Remember trying to describe parts over the phone to a parts counter employee?
iATN — Just reading the horror stories on some of the vehicles out there is a form of education. I may not remember all the details when one of these less familiar vehicles shows up (quite likely on a flatbed), but I am more likely to cut myself some extra slack to allow for a difficult diagnosis, and to work more carefully and methodically on vehicles I have had less experience with. And when I can’t figure it out myself, a quick request for help usually puts me on the right trail to a proper fix.
Real Time Labor Estimator — The first year I got this little gem, my shop’s gross income DOUBLED. Before, if I gave a customer a rather wide or open-ended guesstimate as to the cost of a needed repair, the usual answer would be “I’ll get back to you.” Now I give them one figure, and the response is “When can you do it?”
Craftsman 16-Gallon Wet/Dry Vac — My shop is cleaner than ever. I have used this for cleaning gravel out of tractor cabs, mouse nests out of air conditioning systems, water off the floor, and even used it to clean and patch a leaking engine oil pan that couldn’t be replaced without pulling the entire engine and transmission by drawing a vacuum on the crankcase so the leak could be cleaned, degreased with solvent and epoxied without any oil constantly seeping out to spoil the bond.
