DIY Garage: Empowering Drivers to Fix Their Cars

And this is this is the bit that we're all waiting for, So tell us what you're doing now. So because I'm loving what I'm following so far, Mane. The wife and I had spoken about a concept, but it was how do you launch something from nothing? Right?

As you guys are aware, the military is so big on matship and camaraderie and all that when. You leave it just it disappears. It's just not the same. So for me, I'd always been chasing that again, like the matship you had, or the sense of belonging to something, And a part of what I did was I brought that into my workplace.

So I established a business called off Road Expedition. It's a community based workshop where people can come and learn and grow and feel that it's a safe spot for them to come and work on their vehicle regardless of what it is, and you know, and could be guided through different things and learn new things as they go. So we had a concept to do it and didn't. Know how it was going to work, and did all these other research and no one's really doing this, and it just it was hard.

You couldn't really compare it. So I did what every soldier does. Right. You start at one task and you get it done, and you take it off and do another one and tick that off, and then you know, you keep ticking these things off, and eventually you've got a list of stuff done and things start happening in front of you because you've done all this work.

And I used some contacts that I've known when I was in the West to start reaching out and getting bits and pieces and stock and suppliers. And all this stuff. And you know, being five weeks intoday, and it's I've got a showroom full of products that. I can sell and fit and install, and I've.

Got a workshop downstairs with a full mechanics toolbox, all cordless Milwaukee gear, a hoist oil drain, like everything you need is sort of come in and do it, which is great. But the biggest thing in the big kicker here is like there's so much interest, and I'm getting so many people of different walks of life come through the door and ask random questions like you know, can I do this, and can I do that? And how do I do it? And all this kind of stuff.

And to be able to sit there and say, yeah, come on in, we'll have a crack together, Like, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm sure we can learn. So off road Expedition. Where are your base? So we're based in North Lakes, Queensland, so we're sort of at the heart of the full drive community.

We've got Glasshouse Mountains half an hour away, Morton Island, Stratbroke, Fraser a few hours north and everything like that. So really good location, close to everything, Chris. In terms of your concept, how does it actually work? Does a person rend the space for an like an hour at a time and then he has to use your oils and your your excessies or whatever.

So how it works is people can. They can come in and they can either book out an hour, half a day, a full day. They'll come in, they'll book it out, they'll use it. I'll show them everything they need to know if they're using the hoys store machinery, and I'll also put the vehicle on the Hoist Forum so I know it's safe.

In terms of. Parts, oils and consumables, I have most consumables they're free to use. I can get past with a lot of good trade accounts. So if people are doing a service on a particular car.

I can also quote all their oil and parts to get it done. Because I can do it. It's quite competitive because the other part of this is I hear a lot of stories out there of I went to a mechanic and I'm getting an oil change and it's cost me six hundred dollars and it's like, come on, it's not you know, it's not that. You know, all the people out there are putting all this extra expenses on top of things.

It's just yeah, I wanted to sort of make that community thing and try and give back a little bit. For instance, I had a young lady in today. She's doing up a camper van. She was in remote New South Wales and to get two battery terminals changed, which probably cost about thirty bucks, she was charged three hundred dollars and it's like, it's just, you know, it's so wrong, but you know, she just didn't know.

So a part of what I'm trying to do is, you know, help people out and help people navigate these situations where you know they're just not sure and they just want some sound advice. That's what I'm here for. As Australia is such a big, beautiful country and people right now. Just the in thing to do is travel, travel it, you know, And if I can help by giving advice to people as they go before they go, that's.

Good for me. I enjoy that stuff. And do you do some of the work yourself or does a person do all the work themselves and you just give a bus or how do you work it? So?

Yeah, you can either book book the workshop out and do it all yourself, or I can do I can do all the accessory fitting as well. So I'm getting a lot of interest. So I've got a lot of supplier accounts, bullbar, suspensioned recovery gear, winches, all that kind of stuff generally. Hopefully camping bags and beanies and socks sometimes definitely exactly.

So yeah, I'll fit all that stuff if they want me to. Yeah, So I no issues there at all. I think it's such a unique thing. When I saw this initiative John on socials, it was actually an influencer that Chris had employed or was working with him.

In whatever way. I didn't realize who it was, and I just saw the concept. And I thought, gee, that's such a great idea, Like I'm getting to that age now we're crawling under the bottom of my car when it's on just you know, trolley jackson and little stands and stuff like that. It just kills you.

And I thought, gee, I'd love to install a hoist, but how good it be to have a community hoist? And this concept really resonate with me before I knew it was Chris running it, and I reached out purely because I said, can you franchise and bring it to where I live in Marimbula. So I think it's such a great thing that you're doing. But I think it also resonates well with people because not everyone you know, you spoke about or you touched on the fact that people maybe are getting a bit taken advance anage of you know, cost of living, cost of maintenance is hard, but there's other there's the other side to it, which I feel that a lot of people take pride in maybe doing it themselves or learning about their car a little bit more.

And that's something that you're obviously providing, aren't you, by by letting them come to your workshop, having that expertise there. You know that if they say, you know, for example, I've installed clutches and things like that before. Sometimes you just can't line something up, having an extra set of hands, having someone that maybe knows the little you know technique that you need that that goes a long way, doesn't it. Yeah, it does, definitely, and you're right.

It just sometimes all it takes is somebody at a different angle just to see something that's not going together properly, and you move it a mill one way and it all lines up and one hundred percent. I've seen a couple of times in the short time of being open that, you know, people are just having. A hard day. They can't get it working on their driveway and and they're struggle and they ring up.

They get it here on the back of a tow truck, we push it into the bay, we get it up on the oyst, the transmissions out, oil is everywhere, you know, and then a few hours later it's all fixed up, cleaned up and back together. So definitely, definitely, But. There's a lot of young fellas that will just love the fact that they could just learn that little bit more about you know, because when they do go a bit more remote, they've got a bit more of an idea about their vehicle and that as well.

And young ladies, I'm not just saying men. But but you know the people that are actually learning from this experience that that will just be such a game changer for him. Yeah, and the community of Ford arriving in Australia is starting to really get a cult following. Yep.

And you're right, like more and. More people, which if I wasn't in the military twenty years ago, I'd be doing it as well, traveling around Australia in a car or a rooftop ten or a caravan, you know, doing that thing when you're young and youthful, so you can get out and enjoy a lot of the places where you know you don't you don't have family, so you're not worried about kids' school or daycare or having a stable job for. Being an adult, and that you can get out and have some fun and to.

Teach people, or to give people a little bit more confidence in their vehicle and what they're doing and how they're doing it so they can go out and do those things. Is the other kicker. You know, even if it's. Just half an hour in here or an hour in here and they just want to do a pre trip look over their vehicle, you know, that's what it's all about get it in, get it up on the hoist, make sure all the wheelbearings are tight, and you know there's no massive oil leaks or no oil leaks or quick grees of all the UNI joints and suspension and components and that, and then they're ready to tackle what they're doing.

So absolutely, I was. Going back to this question people were interested in franchisee. Yeah, ready for that yet? Or is it's still too new?

Yeah, it's definitely a question. I think I've been asked probably fifteen times now. I think we're probably a bit new at the moment. We're need to get this one up and running and you know, and definitely, if there's a market for it, it's something we'd look at in the future, but for now and for today and right now, we're just trying to sort of focus on this one site and get it like running smooth from an operational perspective before we look further.

Do you even have to establish you know, semesops and you know protocols and you know, test test the insurances and things like that. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that's something that was a big hurdle is insurance. It's so hard to navigate and figure out how you're going to do it and who's going to cover you for this and that, And right now I think we've got like four or five insurance different insurance policies for different things.

But in terms of that as well, we still get people to sign a waiver when they come on site. That's more of a legal thing just for us. But yeah, nine times out of the ten times out of ten on downstairs with them helping them, working through it, pointing things out, because a lot of like I've said before, a lot of a lot of the people that are coming through a young lads and ladies and they're like, you know, I've just brought this car and I want to do this, but I just don't know.

I want to do it myself, but I just don't know. It's like, yeah, Nourri, It's like that's what we're here for. Bring it in, we'll get it up on the hoist. I can point out how to do your suspension kit for you, and then you can just.

Go do it. If you get stuck, yell out and I'll come down and help. Like that's that's the way it works. So, because what's quite interesting in some of the outlying suburbs of Melbourne.

The councils have been trying to put legislation in place where people aren't allowed to repair vehicles in the eye and actually going around checking and finding people. So your concept would be great in those sort of suburbs. Yeah, definitely, that would just solve that whole issue. Yeah, fascinating.

It's really good, yeah, for sure, for sure. And what are your thoughts about, Like you were saying before, I think you before we started the recording, you're saying that you're actually pretty booked out now, like. Yeah, we are, so you know, it's good. This month has been pretty pretty crazy considering we're five weeks, six weeks in, We've only got really one day left for the rest of this month with nothing going on, and even next month is starting to get bookings and get people through the door already, so pretty soon it will be you need to book well in advance, which is great.

How are you handling that, you know, Like I mean, you're pretty much a bit of a one man show. You know, obviously your family's you know, helping you out, you know, your wife, your kids, But you know, do you think that you'll have to expand a little bit, you know, with that, with that support. Yeah, definitely, I think it's definitely on the cards, down the track to expand. It's just we just don't know which way we're going to go.

Because there's a couple of things we could do. We could move more into sort of a fitting aspect and having like employing someone full time to do fitting, but then also have somebody run the workshop as well, or you know, it all depends on where the main work's going to come from. And to be honest, it's already surprised us because when we were planning this and doing our forecast for the accountant, we thought the retail with stuff, the retail stuff we have here on site would be the big, the big like yeah, yeah, the big commercial benefit for the business.

But it's actually not. It's flipped one ad ino what we thought. And a lot of people are just so keen to get in and use the workshop and do those tricky jobs they can't do on the driveway. So you know, we're already talking about how we can expand downstairs and give more things for the community to come and use.

I'm not sure if you've seen, but one thing we did, the kids did is we built a RC crawler track. So we went and got a couple of full. Little remote controls that you play with. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so they went and got We went and got a couple of those, and they've built a couple of obstacles out of cardboard and plaster and clay and whatnot, and people can come and have a bit bit of a play with that as well.

So you know, if you get stuck and frustrated you just need a five minute break while you're working, you can just shoot over and have a bit of fun on an RC forward drive and then head back and get the job done. So, and Chris, evenings and weekends do you offer it, because that would be your concept to people go to work and then they want to do something on their car and the evenings or on Saturday, are you open on those days? Yeah? So weekends are all by appointment only.

And the beauty of it is I can stay back late if I need to to sort of get those tricky jobs finished. You know, we try not to let people run overnight. I'd rather stay back and get the job done that evening and help out rather than letting them have to come back the next day. And it blows into another day and everything else.

So I've got commitments as well. So yeah, that sounds fantastic. Yeah, we love what you're doing, We really do. And you know, I guess you know the purpose of you know, we thank you for your time, but you know you're coming onto this show again.

What we're trying to do is promote small business, obviously a veteran business as well, connecting with veterans, using you know, potentially our network, just to promote what you're doing. You know, I think Off Road Expedition, you know, is a such a unique concept and it's something that's so well needed across you know, all of Australia. So you know, we wish you the best of luck. Mate.

We hope that it's franchised everywhere and I'm pretty sure John and I we're probably buy in to. It, won't we. It's a great concept. Thanks, but mate, you know, congratulations on everything you're doing for you and your family.

You know, we think it is such a cool concept and hopefully everyone just keeps getting around you and you're just light out. You've got to employ more people because you know, you also need a break. As well, yeah, right, and being here all the time and I get to go away and have a bit of fun that I like to do, so definitely would be nice, but this is definitely more more rewarding. Because I get to give back to the community.

So any listeners and viewers you know, get around Chris Brown off Road expedition up up in Queensland, so if you need anything, he's there for you. Chris, thanks very much. It's great to have a chat to you. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to jump on here and have a chat. I appreciate it.