Welcome to the Mid-City Auto Service site!

We are equipped to do factory programming/re-flashing on Ford and General Motors vehicles!

Specialties include: Electrical Systems -- Computer Diagnostics -- Brakes -- "Tune Up"-- Internal Engine Repair -- Clutches -- Differential -- Cooling System -- Air Conditioning/Heating Systems -- Routine Maintenance -- CV & U Joints

Service/Check Engine Light Specialists!

Cadillac Northstar Specialists!

Corvette Specialists! 

Ford  PowerStroke Diesel Specialists! 

Company Profile

For newcomers, a little about Mid-City Auto Service. My name is Tony Naquin. I am the owner of Mid-City Auto Service since November, 1990. Mid-City Auto has been in business since 1964, beginning on first street, then moving to 2912 Common Street in 1979. We are a second generation family owned and operated business. (father 1964 - 1990, son 1990 - present) We are a general automotive maintenance and repair facility that can handle foreign or domestic vehicles. Our main business is 1988 thru 2009 model vehicles, but we DO work on older vehicles as well. 

We did not just wake up one day and say "Hey...Let's open up a shop and pretend like we can fix automobiles". We have been doing what we do for years now and do it because we enjoy it. 

Some of you may be thinking "since 1964...I've never even heard of Mid-City Auto Service". Well that may be a good thing since everything I've ever read or heard about business says that if you satisfy a customer they may tell only one person about you, but if they are NOT satisfied they may tell ten or more people about you. I suppose if you look at it that way, it is a GOOD thing that nobody told you about us...we must be satisfying most of the people we do work for!

We do not have a new fancy building, the parking lot gets dusty in the heat of summer, we needed more room, but instead of moving, we built another shop next to the old one...and occasionally you may have to wait a minute or two in the office when you arrive because someone will have to walk over from the other building...There are no pretty flowers or hedges out front, there is no waiting room with coffee and television...if there are three customers dropping off or picking up a vehicle at once, it is quite crowded in the front office. There is no meeting room, no receptionist...but guess what...I have been working on MANY folks cars since I was 15 years old...I'm now 44....NONE of that stuff fixes cars, they KNOW it, so they do not care...they would MUCH rather we continue to spend that money saved on those things on tools and equipment...after all, MANY of them were referred to us because another shop did not do their particular needed repair...most often because of a lack of equipment. Now no shop can afford to spend several thousand dollars on a tool they may use only once every two years, but let's face it....the more money spent on something that does not DIRECTLY fix cars is taking away from what folks REALLY come to you for! No?  

Now, a little about me. I graduated the now long gone LCHS in 1983. I then went to SOWELA technical for Industrial Instrumentation...Ronald Reagan had fired the air traffic controllers prior to this. All those former air traffic controllers from all around were looking to make career changes, and were taking the SAME courses I was, and graduated around that same time. Now....you are a plant manager, or HR guy....you have 10 applicants for the same jobs....you have nine guys ranging from 30 thru 40 something, and one guy (me) fresh outta school and 20 yrs old...all with the SAME qualifications, and all with the same GPA....but the other nine guys with all the SAME everything have SEVERAL years actual work experience....WHO are YOU gonna hire??? Right...NOT the 20 year old kid. That market was SATURATED to say the least at that time! So, being fresh out of Electronics Technology classes, and 1980something being the SAME time automobiles hit the street with ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY, it was a simple matter of me going to AUTOMOBILE SPECIFIC electronics training, and I was better suited to handle the new cars on the street than were the guys that had been working on cars all their lives....so I did....and the rest is history! I did accept a position teaching Automotive Technology at SOWELA Technical Community College for almost three years, but I was not willing to let go of the business and all the customers that I had loved for so many years...and it was simply just too much to run a full time business in the afternoons and night, and teach all day...so I resigned from my position teaching...I was called several times to go back to teaching, and came awfully close at some point, when the budget I was promised came really close to what I needed to teach it right....thankfully I declined, because the administrator trying to get me back and making promises retired less than a year later! So here I am, doing what I do best!

First things first

There are a few things you MUST know about automotive technicians, and the auto repair business in general... 

You need to know that there is no "test" a technician must pass before doing work for the public...

No "internship" they must go through...

No "code" of any kind that applies to an automobile service technician's or shop owner's ethics...

ALL of the certifications are VOLUNTARY and cost money...

All of the training offered is VOLUNTARY and even more expensive...

There is no mandatory "internship" or mandatory "apprenticeship" a technician must go through and pass before doing work for the public...

There is no law that sets a MINIMUM REQUIREMENT as to the amount of experience you must have AS A TECHNICIAN before opening up a shop...

Anyone can wake up in the morning and decide to work on cars or decide to open up an auto repair shop! Yes ANYONE can...and YES there are some that did just that...

MANY have little or NO training...

MANY have little or no prior experience...

MANY have few or no voluntary certifications...

There are MANY shops that the owner or manager cannot oversee the repair quality because he has NEVER worked on an automobile himself, so he has no clue if his employees are doing the job CORRECTLY, and if you have never worked on a car (the right way) there is NO WAY you can be sure your employees are doing it the RIGHT way...

Just because someone CLAIMS to have worked on cars for years does NOT under ANY circumstances mean they know how to do it the RIGHT WAY...

MANY have absolutely no diagnostic equipment or service information...

There is no such thing as a "license to practice automotive repair" that you can ask to see like there is for most service type or technical fields...all you have is their WORD that they know what they are doing, and MANY are far from honest...

A real-estate agent is REQUIRED to complete training before he can call himself a Realtor...But ANYONE can wake up tomorrow morning and decide to call himself an automotive technician... 

You must complete training and be licensed by the state of Louisiana just to give someone a $10 dollar HAIRCUT, but there is absolutely, positively, NOTHING that separates the first rate auto repair facility from the guys that have little or no training, no certifications, and few or no repeat customers...

Plumbers must be licensed...Electricians must be licensed...The bug killer dude has to be certified...You must have a license to own a used car lot...But automobile repair...NOPE, Nada, Nothing...You can go from shade tree mechanic to opening a shop in the time it takes the phone company to hook up the phone...

I have customers that ask me all the time how and when I decided to do this for a living...in the course of the conversation they ask what kind of studies are required and what kind of license you must obtain to work on automobiles for the public...THEY ARE APPALLED when I tell them that neither is REQUIRED, that it's all voluntary...Then they say "Well what about to own a shop?" They are REALLY blown away when I tell them that there is no REQUIRED training or "policy" you must adhere to in order to open a shop...

EVERYONE, probably even YOU just always ASSUMED that all shops were alike because they all had to pass the same "TEST"...Well there IS no "TEST", and all shops are NOT alike, and to try to judge them by looks or location will cost you dearly in one way or another...either monetary or your very safety...

If you are one of those folks that cannot understand WHY you had to take your vehicle to 4 or 5 different places before someone FINALLY fixed it you NOW know why...because there IS no test, there IS no mandatory training, and there is no license...

Never make the mistake to think that you can tell by looking at the size of the place or by how nice and tidy it is either.This would be a HUGE mistake. BEHIND THE SCENES things that are not visible to the customer, like equipment, experience, service information, training and know-how fix cars...

There are many different shops out there and no two are alike, they all have different morals, knowledge, ethics and skill, BUT their FIRST responsibility is to use parts of sufficient quality and strict labor procedures that will ensure that every car they touch is returned to factory specifications.
MANY shops fail to do this, either by using parts that are not of sufficient quality, or by employing technicians that are willing to work for significantly lower wages than a first rate technician demands... 

I did not take the time to count how many auto repair shops are listed in the phone book but I did however think back over the last 25 years I've been in this business. I counted fifteen...yes, fifteen auto repair shops that I have seen open up since I've been in the business, and I did NOT count the "quick lube", "quick tune", "fast stop" or specialty shops, that do only low tech, low skill needed work......and I'm SURE there are a few shops that I did not think about. I lost count years ago how many shops I've seen open and go broke in the twenty five years I've been in the auto repair business. Some lasted only one year, others flopped along for four or five years before their incompetence caught up with them, and there are some that their days are numbered as you are reading this, but you have no way of knowing who they are...

When I started in this business back in the early eighties, there were only five shops that I can distinctly recall. There could have been more but only five of them that were considered to be quality shops...

Now there are more than five on COMMON STREET ALONE, and most likely 20 or more in the Lake Area.....

The bad news for YOU the CUSTOMER is that there are only about THREE now that I would allow to work on my wife's vehicle if I suddenly could no longer do it, and YOU are left to your own judgment to HOPEFULLY pick one of these THREE, out of the masses, and you cannot tell who they are by location, size, cleanliness, what the sign looks like or says, (even if it sports a popular corporate name), nor by how many times you saw that cool commercial, or some "vote" that only a miniscule amount of the population "voted" on.... and price has never been an indicator either...well unless it's dirt cheap...then you can rest assured they are just trying to bait you in...

It was MUCH EASIER back then for the consumer to decide where to have his/her car repaired. Now days with SO MANY CHOICES how does one choose which shop to take their car to? 

Location? Reputation? Recommendation? 

If you are unhappy with the repair shops you have had experience with, it is quite probable you chose that shop for the wrong reason. 

If you have been to a FEW repair shops and are unhappy with all of them, you definitely chose them for the wrong reasons AND you probably have a few misconceptions of the workings of the automobile repair business in general also.

Consider this:
Let's say you drive by a shop every day...you've been seeing this place for months...they are always busy. One day the need for auto service arises so you choose the shop that you pass by every day...it's convenient, you were going to drive right by there anyway. 

Do you know what the chances are that you will be satisfied with this shop? The answer is SLIM to ZERO. Why? Because the ONLY thing you considered was location. You have no clue as to the competence of the technicians...no clue as to their reputation...no clue as to their knowledge...you do not know anything about the owner's experience or reputation...he may have been a bag boy at a grocery store last year for all you know! I could go on and on. There are shops all over this country with a really, really bad reputation that are still in business and making a lot of money ONLY because they are on a very busy main road and almost all of their customers pop in one day because they were passing by anyway. These shops have very little or NO repeat business, but they are able to thrive due to the massive influx of unsuspecting customers, whereas conversely MOST of the customers that walk through our door have been doing so for five, ten, fifteen or THIRTY years. 

You see, you cannot pick a shop by only one factor such as price or location...you must consider MANY things when choosing a shop! And location & price should be the lowest on the list for sure!

Consider this:
One of the best ways to choose a shop is to ask a friend or family member who they use or recommend. This can however cause you to choose the WRONG shop! How is this possible? Easy...they may be looking for something different in a shop than you are.

Let's say for instance you drive a really nice car or truck and you are looking for a shop that will do the job RIGHT. Now if your brother-in-law has a car that he uses just to go back and forth to work at the refinery and he just wants it fixed cheap and fast, then HIS recommendation is USELESS to YOU because you are looking for something more than that. His advise will only cause you to choose a shop that is NOT what you are looking for and you will never be happy with them. 

So you see if you ask someone, or if someone offers you a recommendation, you MUST ask WHY they go there, and if it is NOT the same reason as what YOU are looking for, don't even waste your time going there! 

There are VERY FEW people that are 100% satisfied with the auto repair shop they go to. These very few lucky individuals are satisfied because they are aware of all the things that I mentioned on this page.

If you are looking for an honest, and ethical auto repair company that is willing to take the extra time needed to do the job right, then I invite you to give Mid-City Auto Service a try!

Contact Information

Most of our service is done on a first come-first served basis. When you get into the technical end of vehicles as we do, it becomes VERY difficult to estimate how long each job will take to diagnose and complete, so scheduling becomes very difficult. We take in a number of vehicles per day based upon the type of repair they need. Vehicles are dropped off to us in the morning, or the night before and we get to them in the order they are dropped off. Once we get a preliminary look at your vehicle, you will be called and given an estimated time and cost to diagnose, and then after diagnosis you will receive a call giving you an estimated cost and time to repair. Naturally, if your vehicle needs a repair of a non-technical type such as a routine brake job, it will be much easier to give you an estimated time of completion. 

Employees are one of those things that add to the operating costs of a business, unless they contribute to producing the actual product or service....service writers and secretaries are just like fancy waiting rooms and nice landscaping....they do NOT repair vehicles, so we chose to do without and spend that money on tools, equipment and equipment updates...one of many reasons we get so many customers referred to us by other customers AND referrals from other shops that do not have the specialized equipment for certain jobs. This means phone answering, scheduling, parts sourcing, invoicing, payment receiving, etc is a one man show...ME! If you give us a call and get the voicemail, then I am on another line, or have a customer in the office...please leave a message! 

MANY regular customers handle appointments and other communication via Email. Email goes to my cell phone, so I am happy to communicate that way if YOU prefer it...many folks do....many choose to send text messages as well....I will handle communication however you prefer.

Due to the complexities of the repairs we perform and the subsequent scheduling difficulties, we simply CANNOT take walk ins, all work MUST be scheduled ahead of time...we may be able to take you tomorrow...or three days from now...it just depends upon the nature of your repair and also the type of work we currently have in the shop, so please give us a call ahead of time for scheduling.

Landline Telephone

337-436-0755

 

Cellular phone

337-274-4260

 

Electronic mail

 midcityauto@suddenlink.net

 

Postal address

Mid-City Auto Service, Inc.

2912 Common Street
Lake Charles, LA 70601