MAACO Franchise Complaints

86 thoughts on “MAACO Franchise Complaints”

• The concept is dated and the franchisor Driven Brands / Maaco / Meineke has lost site of what the franchisors part of the deal is. Everyone I went to training with was out of business by the third year. Maaco is constantly turning over franchisees. The new start-ups fail the quickest. If you walk away the equipment is usually bought at pennies on the dollar by other Maaco franchisees. By the time you figure out how bad a deal you’ve gotten yourself into with Maaco you have generally lost everything. If you try and cut your losses Maaco will still sue you to put you out of business. They offer no expertise so when the deal goes south Maaco is just washing their hands of you. They do not have company owned stores and their operations people could not save a shop even if they ever were to try. Easier to find the next franchisee to fleece.

  From the rough data I compiled while with Maaco, turnover was about a constant seventy percent 300 turnovers every 5yrs out of 425-450 shops. That is on going for about the past fifteen years give or take. It was funny Maaco’s take on things is they do not have any competition. My take Maaco does not compete there are tens of thousands of body-shops making money and hundreds of Maaco’s losing money. Their entire deal is prices that are cheap. When adjusted for inflation Maaco’s loss leader paint service in 1990 dollars is about 70.00 to paint a vehicle in 2012? When you question their operations people about basic business, marketing, pricing concepts, the overwhelming response is they do not know how it works just lower your prices and paint more vehicles???

  Maaco has a few franchisees that do well most have been in business a long time and bought in for substantially less than now. From one of many failed franchisees of Driven Brands / Maaco / Meineke their business consists of up front fees and then hard core collections from people who will pay and pay trying to make bad concepts work. It is shameful.

• having been in this business as a tool distributor with snap on tools for nearly nine years and with matco tools for 13 years as a district manager and regional manager and franchise development manager I can tell you that the companies make money on turn over……. why we would put into business 330 distributors to end the year with a 30 net gain……… 300 failed????????? failure was built in to the distributorship…… and management was aware of it… i brought to the senior management the reasons these people would most likely fail.. only to be told we cant follow your plan as it slows our growth………….. when they went to out side financing that insured the failure wouldnt hurt the companys bottom line as the financing was SBA in most cases…………. only a few very specially suited people ever made it in this business……….

• THESE MAACO STORES EAT UP MONEY IF YOU WANT TO DO A GOOD JOB ON A VEHICLE THE MATERIALS PAINT AND DRY GOODS WILL COST YOU 10 TO 13 THOUSAND A MONTH ON TOP OF RENT, FEES THEY WANT, AND ADVERTISING NEARLY 52 THOUSAND NOT TO MENTION LABOR COSTS AND YOU WILL ASK YOURSELF WHAT HAVE I GOT MY FAMILY INTO…….. I HAVE LASTED OVER TEN YEARS BECAUSE I HAVE BORROWED OVER 150K TO HELP MYSELF STAY IN BUSINESS CANT BREAK THE AGREEMENT THEY COULD SUE YOU FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT………… PRETTY SOON I GET PAROLED FROM THE MAACO PRISION

• Maaco buries its failure stats by not counting failed re-sales as failures. Also they reuse center numbers so you can not see how many folks they have actually churned through. Further on any given week only about 300 of its franchisees report earnings so approximately 150 franchisees do not report earnings for some it is just a missed week. For most it means they do not have enough to pay royalty fees. The way disclosure is setup for Maaco’s offering circular they are then able to exclude the bottom 100 or so franchisees. You do your due-diligence only to find after the fact that the information is skewed to the top 75% of Maaco’s franchises.

• Maaco is has no business model . The business model is to do volume business . This gives Maaco to make money on paint & materials. They collect adv. fee and don’t spend it properly. They are one of the worst managed company. There are no profits in the business.It is no use to own this franchise or go even look at this company as your business option. Stay Away from it.

• A few years ago Maaco tried a program called manage to own. The program would put a manager in a shop with the idea that the could work toward ownership. The program failed. The managers-would be owners saw how poorly Maaco shops performed. Since they had no real skin in the game they all walked away. Maaco does not keep owners in shops because the concept is good and makes people money, Maaco keeps owners in shops by suing people. The scenario time after time, 98% of Maaco failures are beaten down financially and mentally and just walk away. If you try and salvage your investment Maaco does everything they can to put you out of business ie. lawsuit, come after your home, your business, your equipment.

  http://dockets.justia.com/search?query=maaco&search=Search&stateorcourt=&judge=&lawsuittype=&documentfilter=allcases&after=&before=

  Go to the listing above find and call the people Maaco is suing. You will find honest, hard working people, who believed in the Maaco scam. When they tried to salvage their lives, with no help from Maaco the lawsuits come. Four lawsuits in two weeks. Buy Maaco, ruin yourself, then get sued.

• Driven brands sold the company to a new company now. The New CEO is from Burger king.The company had major layoffs and moving from KOP to NC. The problem is every investment company which bought the chain made changes at the corporate level to show profits at corporate level and prepared for another sale. Never restructured the Business. No one is interested at the corporate level in listening to the New owners.
  No Marketing, NO Branding approach, NO Profits unless u do more than 800K. There is no value for the hard work. If you are a owner run shop then u have some payroll money u can make.

  PLEASE DON’T EVEN PLAN BUYING AN MAACO/MEINEKE THE MODEL IS COMPLETELY BROKE AND MAACO/MEINEKE LOOKS AT SUCCESSFUL OWNERS FROM PAST 10 YEARS. THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO FIX THE PROBLEM.
  THE NEW CEO WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FIX. HE IS SURROUNDED BY YES PEOPLE…..

• Maaco Location which is for resale sometimes sold for less than 100k because the owner is broke and would have filed for Bank……. . So Maaco makes money out of resale and the equipment is worth pennies.The worst Part is Maaco Corporate employees. They Lie about every thing to get the sale done. They won’t tell the real break even.They have no clue how to fix the problems. The CEO of driven brands has no idea of how bad the name is. He did put some policies which are making shops go broke. There are lot of problems …
  The Adv don’t work. The company has put an cap on AR that will put lot of stores out of business. No margins, if one store increase prices another store does for less all the customers prefer the location. The location thinkss it is making money seeing the business but they are doing work for less price and loose money .The corporate doesn’t spend money which they collect for Adv., This is a company if you are prepared to put all your savings and want to file for bank…. then go ahead and buy it ..

• Bill Is right on money. They are one of the worst companies. The company handles fleet and PHH leasing companies work. They get 17% cut on top of 9% franchisee fee. you lose money if you do the work. The company new CEO is trying but he is not well versed with ground facts.They don’t have solution to fix the problem. They are only few new owners make it through first three years.

  DON’T BUY MAACO THEY ARE SINKING SHIP IF YOU WANT TO LOSE MONEY GO TO CASINO AND PLAY. YOU MIGHT WIN.THE CHANCES OF YOU BEING SUCCESSFUL ARE SLIM.

• After years of cheap prices, no quality standards, no shop building standards I left Maaco. Maaco Corporate has had three owners in as many years and no one knows what’s going on. The new Maaco Corporate business plan go after all the people who have been losing money to this company for years. No improved processes, no new techniques, no price negotiations to benefit the Individual shop owners. Bleed them all dry. You can not get blood from a turnip. Do not even consider this business. Maaco is a money loser.

• I just filled out the request form to purchase a facility in ma for$199000.then i began seeing these horror stories. Thank you all as i was about to invest evrrything in this franchise to fill in the rest of my days as a business operator. I withdraw my offer completely. Guess id have better luck in reno. Thanks

• He this massage for John Wesson, you minsion that you try to purchase facility in ma, i think this the same one i am trying to buy, so you didn’t want to buy this one then now, i like to talk to you, did you talk with owner more on this business, can you please let me know more on this, my email is [request from UnhappyFranchisee[at]gmail.com]

• Why would you buy this place. An established business being sold for less than what a new Maaco without a customer base would cost. The current seller selling because he is not profitable. All you need to do is work harder than him to make it work. Read between the lines. Current owner has figured out after the fact that he was sold a scam. He can not make it work because it Maaco does not work. Rather than complete failure and financial ruin he is will to take a 100k loss or so if he can dump his problems in your lap and still recover some of his investment. Is there anyone selling any good, profitable, established franchises at deeply discounted prices. Maaco operates on this “there’s a sucker born every minute”. Hey look over there someone is giving away a Jack in the Box franchise. All you need to do is work so much harder than the last guy or the other 70% of their franchisees who fail. Get real stay very far away from this Maaco loser.

• The judges in these numerous Maaco lawsuits against franchise owners should carefully consider the message they are sending to the American people when they allow Maaco to mislead and bully hard working citizens. Enough already!

• Maaco has tried some new marketing but its going to fail. Just like jc penny Maaco hasn’t and won’t focus on the customer. Now a days customers are harder to please and when a relationship is built, customers hold the key to revenue. Look at the new commercial what a waste of thousands of dollars. The new CMO is an idiot. You have people that have no automotive experience running the marketing and corporate. RIP Maaco. They’ve done a lot a people wrong so it’s all going to come and bite them in the ass.

• My last correspondence with MAACO – “Kevin,
  Good morning and hope you are doing well. A bit of background – I opened a MAACO in Clearwater in 2007. Not the right time and eventually lost $1.2 MM, filed personal and business chapter 7 and have my home in foreclosure. I was able to supply the new owner with a complete MAACO spec shop, the landlord with $600,000 in capital improvements and had the pleasure of painting over 3,000 cars. We were a certified shop, had corporate accounts but two things happened. Timing of the economy and the Garmat Paint Booth. After the first 5 months of being opened and having to redo over 90% of the cars due to “dirt” in the booth, MAACO and Garmat designed a baffle for the paint booth that eliminated the dirt. That was always a situation where it was my fault, dirty booth, bad habits, and all the others standard owner generated mistakes. But after spending well over $100,000 of my money to repaint and have both MAACO and Garmat on site, it was not me but the booth. Sorry, we will fix it. Five weeks went by and I went to spraying everything in base/clear so that I could cut and buff out all the dirt. That was a real money maker at $299 per car. And the clients were upset because it took 4 days to do this.

  I would prefer to go ahead and put a gun in my mouth and eat a bullet than start this all over again. I have never shared all of this with MAACO but I will now.

  Best Regards,
  Tony Ortiz

• 15 years and now the nightmare is over………… all the stories you have read here are TRUE believe me….. its VERY hard to earn a profit in this thing called a business……. all the “regular body shops” around me are making money! i see where they live………. i see what they drive………… i see their toys…… this is a losing business…the marketing is this paint cars CHEAP so if you need “WRITE OFFS” get into this business……. The new people at MAACO corp. e-mail threats about under reporting…. and what they will do to you…. even threats to put the IRS on you….. they should read the book HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE…… all these corporate arm chair generals would fail if they tried to run a MAACO shop for sure…. For the familes they have destroyed they should be reminded of what has been taking place around the country of lately! My Maaco friends keep me up todate on these people and what goes on…….

• Look out for Private Equity. The folks who now own Driven Brand and Maaco get paid first. They get paid your franchise fees at 8-9% and they get paid your advertising 1,200-1,400 per week. So here you go sending them 20% of your gross weekly income. The advertising does not get spent on advertising they spend it however they please. The trade magazines benchmark average shop profitability at 6-10%. You own Maaco and your sending them 20% per week. How do you think you make up for that shortfall? You don’t so after a couple of years of losing everything you try to pawn your Maaco off on the next fool.

  The numbers jsut don’t work. The SBA is not there to evaluate how good a business is. They just guarantee the loans.

• Maaco is a total investment disaster. Do not consider investing in a new Maaco franchise unless you own the building free and clear. As mentioned above you will contibute up to 20% of your gross to fees and totally inept in house advertising group. No one in the advertsing group has a clue as to what will generate foot traffic other than offering your services at a 30% reduction in price over bonified body shops.

  The Maaco business model is based on a churn and burn philosophy….resell failing shops or suckering in new “investors”. Trust me when I say this, you will regret investing in this franchise for the rest of your life, if you chose to do so. In the training class I was in, 6 out of 7 new franchisees went out of business within 9 months to 3 years. the last is holding on only because they are cooking the books as far as reporting to Corporate. Maaco will sue you for not completing the 15 year commitment, so if you can last that long have at it.

• Are there any good things to say?
  What is a good Franchise to get into today
  Any happy Macao owners out there

• I have had a maaco franchise since August 2012. I wouldn’t say it will make me rich, but with hard work and constant hustle, I make an ok living. This franchise is not fur people who want to get rich, but fir prior who want enough. Your can’t be a softie when you run this shop. I haven’t taken home money yet, but I also haven’t lost money, and numbers are in the rise. I made enough money though to buy a license for another shop. Maaco I’d trying real hard with new vision, new advertising campaigns, branding and national drp program that will roll out soon. It is a very hard business to be in. But the key is you have to be in it, and not be an an owner on absentia.

• Is there any negotiating on the royalty amount or advertising contribution? What are the average COGS %
  Hiw much are people paying their staff?

• Eric, from your questions it sounds as if you are considering a franchise. Maaco will not negotiate on fees unless you are buying multiple units so forget that. COGS varies depending on supplier base. Do yourself a favor, talk to recently closed franchisees and you will find out the real story. Oh, you have to pay your staff minimal wage to be able to keep payroll costs down….remember you are supposed to be 30% cheaper than BONIFIED shops. Trust me, stay away. Buy lottery tickets instead.

• For any people visiting this site and are considering buying a MAACO franchise read what Bill B, Sal Rocco (both above) and what I have said about the prospect of surviving with this horrible franchisor. All of this happened to me and ALL 6 of the franchisees who went through the lame training we recieved. Oh there is one benifit tho, if you want to get out of a marrige your chances are greatly improved with one of these lame replica body shops.

• i am in the midst of suing driven brands, as the maaco shop closed up shop after a couple of years. the guy who ran the place was a really nice guy and a pleasure to do business with, but the quality of the work was poor, as they welded in patch metal and didn’t treat the backside, with the resulting rust showing a few months later.

  by then, the shop was closed. i called driven, and they put me thru the most excruciatingly slow process over months, sending me to another maaco guy 50 miles away who said is was terrible work and offered to fix it…for $500. then, more time went by before they offered me $50 and a $200 coupon. all this, after 5 months of email hell. i had to keep contacting them, as they would be very busy and apologetic. it was at the very end, that the head of ‘customer’ service told me i had to sue the independent owner, as driven brands had no legal responsibility.

  i took them to small claims. they ignored the summons (of which i had to pay for out-of-state service) completely. i won by default, THEN they wanted to talk to me. they again offered $250. wow. now, they have hired a high-priced chicago attorney, who filed a paper to have the verdict vacated, citing some case.

  it amazes me. if this company would’ve fixed the bad work when i first notified them, it would’ve cost them maybe $100 in material. much less than fighting me all the way as if i was a criminal, trying to put one over them. meanwhile the small rust spots have become a HUGE.

  i did not buy this service from ‘tony’s auto body’, i bought it from MAACO, a decades old company. no where did i see tony’s name on the building, inside or out. no where on the work order, either…just MAACO. i made the check out to MAACO too.

  anyone got any tips before i step up to the plate against a REAL attorney next week?

  i will let you know if i really get justice.

• well, here’s the update.

  maaco’s chicago lawyer asked for the order to be vacated, and it was. i was then given the opportunity to end the case, name another defendant or name the same defendant. i decided to rename maaco as the defendant. maaco told me at the end of our many months of wasting my time, that they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tell me where the owner of the closed shop was.

  now, they are flying out their corporate lawyer to fight this small claims case in a couple of weeks, as i pursue this without an attorney.

  simply unbelievable. i’m sure there has to be some law out there that completely keeps the franchisor from having any responsibility, or why would they fly out their lawyer form charlotte to fight a $2k judgement?

  so, despite the company name on the buliding, all over the inside of the shop, on all forms, and the check made out to maaco, the words “owner/operator” might be what saves this crappy company from having to fix subpar work.

  anyone have any ideas to help me before i go to court again 4/17? after reading all the terrible stories from you owners, i can see how a bad franchisor can cause so much pain to so many, no matter how hard they work.

• If you have not already done so please get an Attorney. Maaco will spend thousands and without an attorney you do not have a chance. Cost should be minimal for an hour or two of their time. Maaco spends hundreds of thousands to “defeat” former franchisees who have little resources after buying their scam of a franchise. If they do not win against you it will show what a bad company they are. They can not afford that. Continue to tell your story. Bad Franchise, Bad Warranty. Maaco is designed to seperate franchisees from their money and customers from theirs. Period. I wish you the best.

• For those searching for a GOOD BUSINESS, this is not it. These people that run MAACO are shiesters, thieves, crooks and mobsters. If you really want to own a bodyshop or collision repair shop, go to work for one first. See how a professional shop works when done the correct way. Then invest in your OWN shop. Six months to one year later, combined with what you have learned from working at a professional shop, you can be successful. Listening to these scammers at MAACO, three years later you will have wasted all of your life savings and have been set back to before you earned your first dime, because you will be bankrupt. Eventually MAACO will go away if enough investors learn of this scam. For those of us that have been scammed, best of luck, you will need it. I have friends at other shops that laugh at me and my pricing. It is a no win game when you are playing AGAINST MAACO.

• call me I was President of auto painters association this is a falling franchise [redacted]

• MAACO, 3216 Chelton Circle, Colorado Springs, Co 80909 Do Not take your vehicle here for repairs. they will rip you off and not provide parts that they supposedly ordered. ran down my batteri and I had to buy a new one.
  I took my car to maaco in Colorado springs due to a car accident for repairs. all nice and friendly and anxcious to make repairs on my car because was getting insurance check. got check so called repaired my car. I was called to pick up my car 1/2 hour before they closed, which made me wonder what they did wrong right off the bat. they got the last and handed me my keys. I looked in he ladies eyes and I knew something was wrong. So, I went to my car by myself with no one walking me through what they fixed on my car. 2nd issue. I popped the trunk to make sure it was fixed on the inside. I started my car and it started funny. my battery was fine when they got it now it was run down. next day I went to drive my car and it was dead. called maaco and asked what they did to my battery. lied and said it was time for it to go. I had no problems with my battery when I gave it to them. then the light was cracked. after taking it to them 2 times and cracking another light, they finally realized the trunk was off. The guy who took the shell off the top to replace the light tore it while I was standing right there and when I told him he tore it, he lied right in front of me and the manager who both saw him tear it. took my car back 2 more times and each time the shell they got to replace the torn one was not the right one. so that tells me they just stuck my old shell back on, lying saying they replaced it. They were to replace it the 3rd time and I have not gotten a call in 3 weeks. so, touch shit to me. I hate liers and thieves. Don’t give these as holes your money until you make sure everything is repaired properly. Never will I take my car to MAACO for anything and I have told everyone at my job and my family to not patronize them. As Holes.

• They left all that out of undercover boss..once right with a reliable system, gives you the best opertunity to make money

• DID ANYONE SEE UNDER COVER BOSS ABOUT MAACO… WHAT A JOKE.. THE GUY WHO LOST HIS JOB WAS RIGHT, MAACO CUTS CORNERS ALL THE TIME… CUT DOWN ON PAINT USED, USE CHEAP MATERIALS, BECAUSE YOU CANT SURVIVE ON THE “”MARKETING” FOR LACK OF A BETTER WORD … LIKE I WAS A VICTIM OF THIS FRAUD FOR 15 YEARS… THEY WE CUT BAIT WITH THIS LOOSING THING CALLED “”MAACO”” ITS BEEN SOLD SEVERAL TIMES AND ITS CURRENTLY BEING TAKEN OVER AGAIN… JOSE COSTA IS JUST PLANNING A SALE…. THEN A BIG BONUS FOR HIM TO LEAVE…. WHY DO INSURANCE COMPANIES RUN FROM MAACO…. ITS 42 YEARS OF DO WHATEVER YOU WANT AND TELL PEOPLE WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR $$$$$ . SHOULD HAVE LEFT THEM 10 YEARS AGO!!!!!!!!

• YOU WILL FAIL UNLESS YOU HAVE A PAID UP PROPERTY…. OR RENT LESS THAN $5000 A MONTH….. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN MY LIFE…. BUT THIS WAS A BIG MISTAKE…. NO ONE CARES IF YOUR OUT SIDE THE MODEL….. THEY NEED TO GET THAT NAME OUT … AT YOUR EXPENSE…

  THE FIRST OWNER “TONY MARTINO” HAD A SAYING… PIT THEM IN BUSINESS “”LET GOD SORT THEM OUT”” NICE… YOU MORTGAGE YOUR HOME… GIVE UP A GOOD JOB… TO WORK THE AMERICAN DREAM>>> 60 PLUS HOURS A WEEK… AND WITHIN A FEW YEARS GO BROKE… STAY AWAY……………. BEWARE

• PLEASE DO YOUR HOME WORK…. WHEN YOU GET THE UFOC…. REALLY DO YOUR HOME WORK…. CHECK WITH AS MANY CURRENT WONERS AS POSSIBLE…. AND GET IN TOUCH WITH THE TERMINATED PEOPLE ALSO…. AFTER ALL …. MAACO PUT HEM IN BUSINESS… THROUGHT THEY WERE GOING TO BE GOOD… WERE THEY ALL MISTAKES???? ARE THAT THAT BAD AT SELECTING PEOPLE???? OR IS IT THE $40 THOUSAND FRANCHISE FEE… THE PRFITS FROM PAINT SALES…. AND THE 8% FRANCHISE FEE… NO WONDER HE IS TRYING TO REBUILD THE IMAGE… GIVING $$$ AWAY……. COSTA IS JUST LUCKY HIS FATHER WAS A RICH PERSON AND TOOK CARE OF HIM… BECAUSE HE COULDN’T MAKE IT IN A MAACO CHAIN…

• The Undercover Boss show was absolutely ridiculous. What supervisor would allow a guy who admitted he never held a sander go to work on a customer’s car?
  Worse yet, let the same dumb guy (CEO Costa) grab a paint gun that he had no knowledge about and had obviously never seen before. And let him paint? This program did not help Maaco–quite the opposite. Formerly of Burger King? No wonder the above stories are so interesting. And Costa wants to double the store count. Oh well, reality TV.

• Maaco has there issues like all companies but overall they do have the top name in the business and a profitable business model IF franchisees are disciplined and manage to the model they can make good money. I own multiple centers and am profitable with almost all of them. The margins on $500 paint jobs is very good but you must approach the business using the proper proformas for labor, cogs, and fixed cost. There is a lot of failure out there but I have multiple stores and continue to put my money into these stores.

• M. Waldrop?? What business does Maaco have the top name in? The crappy $500 paint job business? “am profitable with almost all of them”? How did you come by your multiple centers? Did you start by running a couple of unprofitable centers? What is your definition of profitability? I had a Maaco that generated over $1M gross with a profit of 3.5%. I now have a real collision repair and custom paint shop that generates 800K with an 8.5% profit. Since you are sitting on big ole’ piles of money have you looked into any profitable businesses? Or are you one of the yahoos that dumps buttoads of money into Maaco and when they stroke you at convention you feel good about giving them thousands a week for doing nothing? Or do you look at all the people who have lost their butts in Maaco and stroke yourself because you were able to “beat the odds”?

• 20 years ago I did not know what a paint booth was. I did desire to own a business and choose MAACO believing it was the best. Shortly I learned this franchise was not what it was cracked up to be. Within 3 years, all of my classmates (11 of them) were out of business, some bankrupt, some broke, one did not even open and some just too beat up. None of them were out because they made it rich. Over the years the number of MAACO centers has declined, I made it through 18 years and the day I was free of them is when gained control of my life again. Although I was profitable i had to work my ass off to get there. I worked 6 days a week and took 2 vacations in the time I was with them.

  I have moved on and own a collision repair facility. It generates over 20% profit on sales around 2 million and I work about 40 hours per week, I do not consider MAACO a top name in my industry. I would be inclined to stay the are the lowest in our industry feeding off the scraps with their $99 bumper specials and $250 paint jobs.

  I strongly recommend you do your due diligence before you make the leap into this franchise. All of the comments in this forum are very accurate. I would not take one of these if they gave it to me.

• Chairman – Ireland,
  Maaco shops in Ireland – zero.

  President – Venezuela,
  Maaco shops in Venezuela – zero,

  Marketing – Mexico,
  Maaco shops in Mexico – tried, failed oh well?
  New marketing camping #Maaco -failed.
  New-new marketing campaign Uh-Oh better get Maaco we will paint your car for 1980s prices.

  Lawsuits against franchisees 70+.
  Failed franchisees 700 every 5 years.

  Number of franchisees 450 give or take.
  Franchises sold who knows? They hide those statistics reusing shop numbers.
  Rock star franchisees 5-10%.

  Good Luck!

• This entire thread was wellllllll worth the 10 minutes i took to read to its entirety. I spent/wasted two years running, operating, and even opening these shops.

  Well, I shouldn’t say “wasted” because I actually learned a lot about why the system isn’t designed to last—unless you have multiple stores so that you can “rob Peter to pay Paul”.. But even then it’s a waste.

  Everyone on here is on point when it comes to the corporate level of Maaco?. I enjoyed the pleasure of meeting these so called “directors of operations”, especially the ones dealing in franchise operations. With my extensive knowledge in the collision repair industry, I could always read through the lines of their BS. These guys make money off your supply orders and will sell you anything to line their pockets.

  Being a certified center has no perks for the individual shop/owner, especially if you have a good manager… Most, if not all of Maaco’s trade and fleet agreements with other corp chains can be easily be attained without their assistance, because in reality there never really is any assistance.. To even pass their “certification” you’re required to use different methods to perform the work; which in turn wastes more TIME (labor) and run up your supply costs (you’re required to buy and use specific products that are significantly higher).

  Even though I lost pretty much EVERYTHING working under a former owner, I’m extremely blessed to not have invested into one of these shops. If you do it the Maaco way, you’ll never win. The only way to win in this game is to sell a dream to young/aggressive managers who are willing to bust their asses 70+ hrs a week to bring home kibbles-n-bits…

  Then just drop em like 3rd period French class for a quick flip and enjoy sleeping at night.

• A Juxtaposition:

  Driven Brands, owner of Maaco, acquires a second automotive collision repair and automotive paint franchise. With the acquisition of Carstar they have added an additional 240 Body shops to their Maaco network of 450. However the Carstar network has an initial franchise fee of 5,000 to 15,000 and pays royalty fees of .75% to 2% of weekly sales.

  Source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/roark-capital-portfolio-company-driven-brands-inc-acquires-carstar-auto-body-repair-experts-300164488.html

  The initial Investment in Maaco is 250,000-350,000 with ongoing royalties of 8-9% weekly and additional weekly advertising contributions of $850-$1,500.
  Source: http://www.maacofranchise.com/

  Further they have just added an Initial Public Offering Executive to their team: Brian Nicholson

  http://www.drivenbrands.com/about.html

  After being bought sold and “invested in” by three private equity firms in the past 5 years and no member of C-level executives with a tenure of more than 4-years is this a Company worth investing in? Or just another pump and dump?

• M Waldrop, I understand you have dumped most of your shops on to someone else. Please let us know why you have dumped your stores when “I have multiple stores and continue to put my money into these stores”??? you no longer are invested in this wonderful business?

• My wife had her car fix at maaco after she hit a dear, the car looks bad and the guy at maaco in Augusta Ga had a very bad attitude, we took the car back over and over but it was the same out come. You talking about a rip off we paid lots of money to get our car fix but what we got was a mess, even when we took it back to the appraisal guy they had us to contact other people to try and get our money back that’s just how bad the job is. Can any one tell me how to make contact with the coo of maaco because we don’t have money to give away

• I don’t know where to start. I am not a writer so bear with me.

  Paint on the windows, carpet, inside the doors, tires (driver front and rear), wheel wells, brake caliper (driver front) and for the life of me I can’t figure out how the door sill trim got cracked it must have been hit with something.

  This is a 1996 BMW Z3 painted at 1650 Silas Creek Pkwy in Winston Salem, NC. 336 939 6474

  The project was wrote up by Alex Mabe. The job was to install an after-market bumper cover, address the driver side door for a dent and paint the car. I delivered the car on 1/15/2016. After 2 weeks or so (02/02/2016) I decided to call to see what was going on since I hadn’t heard a word. I talked to Alex and enquired on the progress of the vehicle.

  Alex said that he had called me 2 or 3 times to let me know the vehicle was ready. I never received a call from Alex. I asked him if he had left a message; Alex stated that with the type of phone that he had he was incapable of leaving a voice message……….

  WHAT the hell is that? At that point I knew something was wrong. Alex said that the car had been ready for a few days. I asked him about the bumper cover and he said that it was ready for pick up. I told him fine I would be there shortly. I live about 20 minutes away. I arrive at MAACO and see the car. The bumper cover was hanging off of the front of the car and had been PAINTED!

  I head inside to talk to Alex and the owner informed me that he had sent Alex home sick and that he would take care of the matter. So I informed the owner that I had just talked to Alex 20 minutes ago and he told me the car was ready for pickup. The owner explained to me how they tried everything to get the bumper cover on and that they could not do it. So why did you paint it? He blew up told me my vehicle was a piece of a crap only because he couldn’t install the bumper cover. I did not deserve this. I did nothing wrong.

  When it came to the point that there was nothing else that could be done all work should have ceased and I should have been contacted IMMEDIATELEY it never happened. Now I have to find someone else to install the bumper cover hope and pray it can be done without a respray, clean the carpets, fix the cracked sill trim and clean the paint off my tires, windows and brake caliper.

  This was by far the most unprofessional service I have ever had. I have had vehicles painted by MAACO before and never experienced such rude and disrespectful individuals in my life. I’m 59 years old.

  If you guys condone this type of behavior it is really sad. I did nothing to deserve this. If you guys don’t want people of color in your establishment just put up a sign. This is the only reason I can come up with for this treatment. I did not deserve this……

• I can not tell you what a miserable experience it has been to be in business with this rip-off operation. Franchising as performed by Driven Brands/Maaco is just a criminal enterprise. Go into business with these professional thieves. You will figure it all out ounce you have lost everything and they have sold your franchise to someone else without paying you a dime. Good luck, I am sure you are smarter than the other 500 folks who have lost their life savings to this rip-off in the last 7 years.

• I’m considering going into business with MAACO…I’m not sure if it’s a WISE decision. Any body any one with information????? PLEASE

• Big issue 1. You do not go into business “with” Maaco, you go into business “for” Maaco.
  While you are working 80+ hours a week trying to get their tired, outdated, under-priced services, concept to earn you a living Maaco always gets paid 8-9% of your weekly gross, plus 1,200 in weekly advertising contributions. These royalties plus advertising is 20% of your gross, if you are pushing one million in annual revenue.

  Issue 2. Maaco churns through franchisees. In the past 10 years they have turned over 600+ franchise owners. They only have 450 shops. People keep trying, and failing. “Maaco Corp.” doesn’t fail, but plenty of people who own their concept fail. What you find, once you open, is that you are mostly on your own. They have practiced and practiced the legal angles of how little they have to provide to fulfill their end of a very lopsided contract. Opening assistance will mean someone with no shop or Maaco experience, but someone who worked in sales for a year and came to work for Maaco a couple of months ago. That person will have left Maaco before (if) you make you first year, but oh-well, churning Corp. personnel is not anything they can control. They did fulfill their part of the contract.

  Issue 3. You are in business for yourself, and with Maaco by yourself. Their pricing and public persona is “cheap”. How do you make their price concepts work? Always a battle. Sacrifice quality, many Maacos franchisees do. Their shops, pricing, quality, owner philosophies are very inconsistent. Remember though, the other Maaco owners in your immediate area are your de-facto business partners. You are in competition with other Maacos. Legitimate body-shops are making money. With Maaco you will be scrambling for Maaco customers. You can only be as good as that run-down Maaco who has been in business for years, has low overhead costs, and can crank out horrible work at low costs and still make a living. Not you, your overhead is huge and the high fees Maaco gets from you you can not afford.

  4. Inconsistency is not a “franchise”. Look at the Maaco shops, reputations and quality of work. Franchising is supposed to be about standards. Maaco only cares about Maaco Corporate revenue. Look at the Maaco undercover boss episode. It begins with the Maaco president claiming he has 7,500 employees, that is a fib. Each Maaco is independently owned and the employees are the individual owners. Corporate Maaco may have 100 employees. Further the employee of the franchisee who told about the cut-corners philosophy is the only one to get fired. The Franchisee was not reprimanded and no-one from Corporate Maaco responsible for oversight of the Franchise shop were reprimanded. So the Maaco undercover boss lies, or misleads, typical of these swindlers, does nothing to fix the problems at the high level they should, but runs off the shop employee who tells him the truth.

  I can go on about this poor concept for ever. I, like so many others figured I could overcome all these problems and establish a good Maaco with a good reputation and hopefully help the concept. It worked for three plus years. However the folks at Maaco just saw my success as something they could sell to another franchisee right down the road, without paying me. They just don’t care about what makes sense for individual shop owners, only the contributions to their own bottom line.

  I wish there was a stronger way to get you not to make the same mistake that I, and so many others have made, buying into this outdated, overpriced, in-consistent concept called Maaco.

• You are “considering” buying into a franchise group of the “best” automotive aftermarket companies – there are no there’s others – that exist. Yet if you question the executives and financiers, they all have their vehicles maintained and repaired at the Mercedes and Lexus dealerships. Having them repaired at the franchises they sell would void the vehicle certification. Guarantee these MBA executives do not use the franchises they sell.

• I have done nothing but lose money to this franchise. $299 to paint a car? 7.00/hr for labor? where else can you get 1980s prices and a 1970s business model? Great franchise to lose your ass.

• What do all these Maaco executives have in common?

  That they are all from countries other than the U.S.? YES
  – That they all have advanced college degrees paid for by their Poppies? YES
  – that they have grown businesses that they own or they are executives of? NO
  – That they have made others successful at growing their own franchise business – NO?
  – That they are all well paid for churning through folks who buy businesses from them? Yes
  – Who do not ever leave their well paid, executive, frat boy jobs, to own and work at, the franchises they pedal – Yes.

  Good Luck