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Since China overtook the United States as the world's largest  car market earlier this year, investors  have been competing for a slice of the lucrative after-sales and car servicing and repair market on the mainland.
Do Hong Kong workshops stand a chance of benefiting from the booming market? 
The after-sales market - including car repairs, insurance and accessorising - is regarded in the industry as the pot of gold at the end of the sale transaction, with profit margins that can reach 50 per cent. 
With mainland car sales about to hit a record 18 million by the end of this month, demand for  maintenance services will be huge  once the new cars require inspections and parts replacements.  
On the mainland, there are about 30,000  authorised car dealerships, known as 4S car shops for sales, spare parts, services and surveys. 
'After the first two years, repair and maintenance in the so-called 4S shops becomes very costly. Still, you probably won't want to leave your Audi or Mercedes to just any roadside mechanic, and that's where we kick in,' said Ringo Lee Yiu-pui, the chairman of HKS Auto Holdings, which  owns  car repair and beautification chain Challenger in Hong Kong. 
Apart from car sales, the 4S shops also cover most of the after-sales market for middle-range and high-end vehicles. But while they charge up to 1,500 yuan (HK$1,750) for replacing a bumper, Lee said he  charged only 500 yuan. 
'Capital investment in a 4S repair shop could amount to some 60 million yuan, while a roadside mechanic's shop, even with some scale, costs just  4 million yuan. This is why we can charge much cheaper than them,' he said. 
In Hong Kong, between 2,100 and 2,300 private  workshops serve about 400,000  vehicles, which amounts to  one workshop for every 180 vehicles. In Shenzhen, the  ratio is about one in 433, and up to one-third of the repair workshops operate without a  licence. 
'Even if we  look only at quality licensed workshops and middle to high-end  cars - which make up about 30 per cent of the 1.3 million private cars in Shenzhen - the ratio is still one workshop for every 216 vehicles,' Lee said. 'The opportunities are huge.' 
In the lead-up to a battle with the capital-rich 4S shops, HKS Auto has opened five outlets in Shenzhen and says there will be five more in the next few months.  By 2015,  the company hopes to  have about 200 outlets across the country. 
Major  car dealers and repair workshop chains in Hong Kong started investing in the mainland two decades ago, but at the time they  could only enter the market through joint ventures.  Many retreated because of changes in the market environment, government policies and disputes, but circumstances  have since changed for the better especially now that Hong Kong-owned workshops can  enter the mainland without a partner under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement. 
Hubei-based car dealer China ZhengTong Auto Services Holdings,  which recently listed in Hong Kong, said it expected turnover in the mainland's  car after-sales market to double from 240 billion yuan last year to 490 billion yuan in 2012.
In a move to help  workshops enter the mainland, the Hong Kong Productivity Council imported the first international standard of accreditation for the vehicle mechanics' industry from Germany - VDA 6.2:2004. 
'It is the ISO for the auto mechanics industry. The recognition could help local workshops boost not just their image, but also their operations, and is certainly beneficial to those who wish to open the mainland market,' said Lee Kwok-keung, the council's principal consultant on manufacturing technology. 
HKS Auto is the first Hong Kong workshop to gain such accreditation under a pilot scheme, and Lee said it helped facilitate quality control work for its future line of branches. 
The group built a mechanics' trade school in Jiangyin  to nurture talent among people who can support the company's ambitious expansion plan as franchisees.
But the vice-president of the Hong Kong Automobile Association, James Kong Yat-hung, said launching  a car maintenance business  on the mainland was easier said than done. 
The cost of acquiring  accreditation, which includes training and administration fees, amounted to between HK$150,000 and HK$200,000 for the first year. 
But Lam Hing-cheong, the chairman of the Hong Kong Vehicle  Repair Merchants Association, said the accreditation scheme was  more for established repair shops than the small-scale roadside workshops that made up more than  80 per cent of Hong Kong's car repair industry.
Opportunity knocks
There is money to be made working on mainland cars
By 2012, China ZhengTong Auto Services Holdings expects mainland after-sales revenue to reach, in yuan: 490b yuan



Huge mainland car sales open up prospects for servicing and repair