Bottom line: when a job runs past your tooling or your credentials, you've got three moves — turn it away, send the customer to the dealer, or sublet to a specialist. Two of those cost you the ticket or the relationship. Here's how we'd decide.
The three outflows — and what each really costs
- Turn it away. You lose the ticket, the customer finds someone else, and they may not come back for the next job either.
- Send it to the dealer. You lose control of the visit, you eat the dealer's lead times, and the customer starts seeing the dealer as the place that fixes the hard stuff — not you.
- Sublet to a specialist. You keep the customer and the ticket. The specialist handles only the piece you can't, and the car comes back to your bay to finish and deliver.
When the dealer genuinely is the right call
Don't fight these — just route them: warranty work, recall or campaign work, or a brand-new platform where the secure data and procedures simply aren't out to the aftermarket yet. That's the dealer's lane and it's fine to send it there.
When to sublet instead
Programming and coding, ADAS calibration, all-keys-lost and immobilizer work, secured-gateway functions, bench and EEPROM repair — the specialized-tooling or credentialed jobs you don't see often enough to justify buying into. This is the bulk of what would otherwise walk over to the dealer, and it's exactly the work you can keep by subletting.
A 10-second decision framework
- Warranty / recall / campaign? → dealer.
- Secured, credentialed, or special-tool job you rarely do? → sublet.
- Routine for your bay? → keep it and do it.
How subletting to us works
Three lanes, depending on the job:
- Mobile to your bay — within our dispatch area
- Remote programming — US and Canada
- Mail-in bench — from anywhere
You keep the customer and the ticket; we handle the specialist piece and hand it back ready to finish. Call (210) 439-7905 or reach out through the site to get set up.
4715 N Stahl Park, Suite 105, San Antonio, TX 78217.