Is workshop innovation better in the West?

PMM reporter Alex Wells heads out to Somerset to visit J Day Engineering to see whether, when it comes to workshop innovation at least, the West really is best.  

ADAS is a massive missed opportunity for garages, Somerset-based garage J Day Engineering has warned, with the multi-award winning independent looking to lead the way in the South West and beyond with a dedicated tyres and alignment centre. 

“Very few garages are doing alignment properly at the moment,” said founder and owner James Day, “meaning there’s a huge gap between what’s required and what’s currently being done.”  

He continued: “DVSA are already looking at integrating ADAS into the MOT, so everyone should be concerned.” His message is blunt: “On modern vehicles, alignment without considering ADAS calibration is an increasingly risky proposition”  

The business has set up a separate workshop for its tyre bay and ADAS centre, complete with a dedicated reception and parking, with the set-up being marketed directly to the public. “A lot of work needs to be done industry-wide to communicate the importance of accurate alignment.”  

Meanwhile, the business, which sits squarely on the Somerset/Dorset border between Shaftesbury and Yeovil, is expanding its electric vehicle offering via a purpose-built EV centre. As well as focusing their EV repairs and servicing, the facility will also be used to support other garages to make the most of the EV opportunity. “We had this unit specially built,” said James. “This will become our EV centre for repairs and a training centre. We will show people how it should be done.” 

Expansion  

This would be a major endeavour for any garage business, but J Day Engineering is already leading the way at scale, drawing customers from across the region. The business first opened its doors in 1999. “I got started because I was a Peugeot 205 lover,” James reminisced. “I was repairing mine, and then I started repairing them for other people. Everything else in terms of expansion and employees just followed. When we started we couldn’t even afford a phone!” 

Still based on the same eight-acre site, the garage opened its current main workshop in 2006, and the expansion continues. Around 25 members of staff work across three buildings, including technicians, workshop and parts managers, front-of-house and more. Behind the reception and visible to customers through a large picture window you can see the main workshop. “We’ve got a Class 4 and 7 MOT bay here,” noted James, “as well as six general service bays.” The workshop also includes a drive-through alignment bay. 

The garage sees all makes, with a few brands being ever-present. “We’re in the countryside, so do lots of Land Rover by default,” laughed James. “We love them.” 

Keeping everything under control 

Between the main area and the second workshop dedicated to LCVs and other large vehicles like motorhomes – complete with its own MOT lane – sits a brand-new administration hub. “We set this up in the last year,” James tells me. 

“We could see the business was getting too busy, too big and too fragmented. There were inefficiencies and areas that were being underutilised, but we could see where the choke-points were. We set this up as our HQ, and we have based the workshop manager and parts manager in here, so they are able to co-ordinate the jobs.”  

All the techs are equipped with tablets, with the business using TechMan to run their operations. “We like TechMan,” observed James. “Parts and consumables come in and are allocated by registration number and date to the jobs. The technician knows where to come and pick. There’s a place for everything and everything is in its place.”  

Parts used to be kept upstairs, but this space has been repurposed as well. “We’re turning that into a staff welfare facility, doubling up as canteen,” said James. This is vital, as their rural location means the techs can’t just pop out to buy lunch: “Staff and customers have to travel to us. We’ve become a destination repairer, which is what I always wanted.”  

Despite their rural location, James said they do not have any issues attracting staff. “We’ve upped our game and this is reflected in the quality of applicants we receive when we are recruiting. That’s due to the culture and the quality of our facilities. Most of our recruitment is via Facebook. We don’t pay to advertise for staff at all. We’ve got varying degrees of requirement as well, so we can accommodate techs at all levels.” The business grows its own too. “We always have apprentices. We will focus on having one or two and take them all the way through.”  

EV-trained and certified 

On the EV side, the garage has been slowly building up its capabilities over an extended period. “We developed a relationship with Drive Green, an EV-only used car dealer based near us. They couldn’t get their vehicles fixed in the dealer network, and we needed experience working on the cars. Within 12 months they became one of our largest customers and we ended up training a number of EV technicians.” 

They were also the first independent garage in the UK to gain Electric Vehicle Approval (EVA) certifying that the garage offers trained EV technicians, on-site charging and more.   

The commitment to innovation at J Day Engineering has meant that the business was named as Independent Garage of the Year at the Motor Trader Awards in 2022, 2023 and 2024, with the business also a finalist for 2025. “Entering this sort of competition is good because it pushes you to continue to try being better than you are,” said James. “It also means there is a degree of accountability.”   

Looking ahead, James said: “We’ve invested a lot in terms of facilities, equipment and our people in the last year and we will be able to amortise that over the next five years. We’ve got demand in all areas and we intend to keep growing, but we are at the point where we can take stock. We could grow exponentially, but if we decided to consolidate our recent expansion and stay at our current scale, we’d be fine. Equally, we could double the size of our operations, and that would work too.”  

On what he credits J Day Engineering’s ongoing growth and success to, James concluded: “Honesty, transparency and consistency in all things are crucial.”