Comment by tyjkot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tyjkot | Hacker News Reader

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In my 50k population town in Minnesota, I notice a lot of headlights, taillights, and turn signals are out. Our roads (outside of the Twin Cities) are often bumpy which causes vibration in the vehicles, leading to many bulbs failing.

I drive a 21 year old Saab, and in my 2 years of owning it, I have replaced every single bulb in the exterior of the vehicle except a turn signal or two.

I decided to create a mobile service for vehicle lights. It's a simple website that even technologically-disadvantaged people can use. The website is nearly finished and I will likely come back here to write a post on it for how the website works.

Oh the best part, I get texted and emailed for each service order that comes in, and using my service is only $10 more than what it would cost you to go buy a bulb yourself at OReillys, AutoZone, etc.

I programmed everything myself and developed the idea as well. This is my first real-world project/solution I am bringing into this world that has been verified by others, to be a needed service. Pretty excited about it and I love changing bulbs or replacing light housings, it's fun and simple.

**Update: I perform the install.

Lots of cars make it easy to change out bulbs. But some cars are a massive pain to change certain bulbs, and/or require special tools. Do you exclude them? Or upcharge them? (E.g. the left headlight bulb on a Subaru Outback is an absolute nightmare.)

Unless you are doing this purely as a public service, $10 seems VERY low. Many independent mechanics in my area charge a minimum of 1 hour of work for anything they do, and bill at $90/hr and up. And they won't come to you for that price. (Nor are mechanics a highly paid profession in general.)

I really do wish you all the best, maybe I'm just not seeing the whole picture.

Edit: Something else to think about: when I replace bulbs in my cars, I always do it in pairs. Reason being that if one side burned out, the other is likely not far behind, especially headlight bulbs. The headlights also have another quirk: if you replace one and not the other, you usually end up with the new one being much brighter than the old one.

I have all the tools to replace headlight and taillight housing and bulbs for probably most vehicles including semis.

For my Saab's headlight bulb replacements, I have to remove my front bumper and then the headlight housing unit itself, just to replace turn signal and headlight bulb. I am fairly mechanically advanced.

It's not quite just $10, it's $10 more than a single bulb would cost you at your local parts store. If you lookup how much a headlight bulb is these days, it's about $20. My service will be $30 flat for bulb replacements in my area with a small mileage fee for out-of-towners.

The great part about Minnesota, is most of us hate the cold. I however do not. Many people get lazy and will Doordash or find other convenient ways to have things delivered. Not many people want to change bulbs in the cold or bring to a mechanic to be over-charged. What my population is looking for is a service exactly like I am providing.

Again, the pricing of $30 per service is perfectly sustainable for me and I have no issues replacing most parts in vehicles, lights are a walk in the park for me.

*Will correct typos later, at work ATM.

What I really care about, is moving the world forward. This is a service that the area I am in, is lacking. I don't need to make excessive profit, I just need sustainable profit and I am happy to provide this service as it's well within my skills.

> But some cars are a massive pain to change certain bulbs

This weekend I did this with my 18 year old Mitsubishi. It seems you need child sized hands to be able to change them. In the end I had to take off the bumper and remove the whole light housing to get access.

Suggestion: Costco sell car batteries for ridiculously low prices, because they don't include installation. I recently got one for my Kia Telluride and it was $100 cheaper than any competition (because all competitions include the installed price). Installing is as easy but can feel intimidating to people: Could be another source of income for your app.

Please please please strongly discourage people from using those super-blinding lights so many cars seem to have these days!

Lol I will only be replacing bulbs with OEM parts. Some vehicles come with xenon, LED, or HIDs and that will have to be replaced with proper bulbs.

As blinding as they are, if that's what the vehicle has I gotta put them back in.

I live in San Francisco and a few blocks down the street from me is a street that always has a bunch of Saabs parked out on it. I don't know if it's one person that owns them or fixes them for others but I thought it was pretty random and interesting.

Probably someone repairs them and sells them.

For an individual, it can be easier to focus on one model. You get to use parts and knowledge from past cars.

There's many people doing this with certain models, like hardbody trucks, Jeep XJs, Honda civics

I find it interesting because this seems to be information asymmetry - and there is nothing wrong with that.

AutoZone, O'Reilly, Advance advertise that they do things like replace batteries, change light bulbs, add washer fluid, wiper blades.

It's arguably imperative for their brand that they offer (and advertise) these store services when compared to Amazon or Walmart (without a car center). It's even clearer when they offer 20% off codes for online ordering 12 months a year. (Also interesting because basic bulbs for tail lights and turn signals are often also sold at gas stations and grocery stores)

They're not ASE certified techs, but I'm under the impression that staff receive some training related to it.

Contextually; yes, I have relatives that ask me to get their battery changed at Autozone, even though Autozone will do it for free -- and relatives who don't know that Autozone sells (and will often perform) a refrigerant top off if your AC isn't cold.

Neat! Do you pick up the bulbs as needed from an auto parts store? Or do you keep a supply on hand?

I think you want to keep this as simple as possible, but I see headlight restoration (which can be done in 30min) and wiper blade replacement complementing this nicely.

No bulbs at auto stores are inflated far too high to be a profitable parts for me. I have to order through a supplier and keep supply on-hand, which is honestly fine and more profitable for me.

Hey thank you for that idea! I am going to be adding in headlight/taillight housing replacements as well, but I do like the idea of wiper blade replacement, I may keep that on the back-burner for some time until demand approaches.

However, the headlight restoration idea is a fantastic one. Definitely will add this to my list of primary services after launch.

> it's fun and simple

Not sure if it was mine or my friends car, replacing one of the lights was neither fun or simple :). Some manufacturers really seem to prioritize style over repairability!

You just deliver the replacement bulb or install as well?

I perform the install.

This is really awesome.

Thank you, when the idea struck, it felt pretty dang cool that there isn't other competitors or similar-services in my area.

I figured, hey I could do this; and now I am in the process of doing it.

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