What scanner do you have? Really, for thorough diags including newish
VAG cars you need either a VAS dealer scanner, or a recent copy of
VAG-COM/VCDS with CAN and HEX support.

There's a shop offering fault code read and reset for a tenner that I
noticed in Nottingham, so you might want to look into what else is on offer
locally to compete with. The other issue is that I would suspect that most
VAG cars have blown their coil packs and had them replaced by now, so you
might want to find some other common faults to sort out.

Firstly, I can see at least a couple of weeks research and prep going into
this, checking prices, researching services that you can provide, speaking
to suppliers, and most importantly, learning basic double entry book keeping
and finding an accountant / book keeper. I appreciate that you'll want to
keep costs down, but you'll have enough to chew on without trying to learn
the intricacies of keeping the revenue off your back. Bear in mind that
unless you want to run as a limited company, you don't actually need a
qualified accountant.

I could see it working if you could get a range of simple jobs set up that a
lot of people wouldn't tackle - retrofitting cruise to VAG cars, which I
understand is very simple, fitting new radios (probably only a tenner + the
price of a fascia adaptor, although you could perhaps add value by offering
setups that work with stock VAG steering wheel controls and cd changers, and
buying the VW headunit and punting it on ebay), adjusting body control
settings like total closure (ie, all windows go up when you lock the car
with the key) etc. I suspect you would also be able to offer engine
remapping using the hardware you have, and a cheap, off the shelf remap
retails at £180. Try getting in touch with someone out of your area who
alread does it and see if you can get contacts to buy maps in on a per item
basis rather than paying for a franchise.

The other key thing would be to negiotiate some kind of trade discount with
VW for parts.

TBH I suspect it may be marginal if you can make a living out of it, but you
could quite easily try it without investing a lot of money in new kit. You'd
obviously forfeit a few weeks dole money, but I'd be amazed if you couldn't
make more than £60 a week. And it shows initiative and all that cobblers on
your next CV.

From what I've read, it takes an average of 3 months to find a new employer,
and from experience, a lot of agencies aren't taking people on at the
moment. If you can do this to up your income for a couple of months, it'll
be a worthwhile exercise IMO.