About
For newcomers, a little about Mid-City Auto Service. My name is Tony Naquin. I have been the owner of Mid-City Auto Service since November, 1990. We are a general automotive maintenance and repair facility that can do handle dealer level diagnostics and repair on Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, and generic diagnostics on most Asian vehicles. We also service and repair Ford, General Motors and Chrysler diesel trucks up to 1-tons. We do basic services on European vehicles. Our main business is 2010 thru 2022 model vehicles, however we service a few older vehicles, depending on make and model and overall condition. We no longer do any work on classic vehicles or any race/hotrod vehicles, time no longer permits.
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.
We have pretty much made our mark and developed a huge customer return rate by dedicating our resources to only those thing that fix cars, that’s why you are here, not to see flowers and have a snack. We do not have a pretty, attractive building, and you can’t even SEE the larger newer shop from the road or coming up the driveway, you only see the smaller old shop…the parking lot is gravel and gets dusty in the heat of summer. We have been getting busier and busier with every passing year and we needed more room, but instead of moving to another location, in 2007 we built another shop next to the old one…then in 2012 we added another 1800 square feet to that shop. It works. There is no receptionist in the office, 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 is a buzzer that goes off when someone walks in the office. The office may even be locked during business hours if I’ve had to go chasing after parts – it’s best if you make contact via phone/text versus just driving by. Text message is best.
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 crowded in the front office, however, I have been working on MANY folks cars since I was 15 years old…I’m now 57…my customers are QUITE AWARE that pretty flowers, service writers in Polos, concrete parking lots, and nice spacious waiting rooms DO NOT fix cars, so they do not care…they would MUCH rather we continue to instead spend that money saved on those things on tools and equipment…after all, MANY of them were referred to us because another shop could not do their particular needed repair, or failed in the attempt…most often because of a lack of equipment or know-how. Now, no shop can afford to spend several thousand dollars on a tool they may use only once or twice a year, but let’s face it….the more money spent on something that does not DIRECTLY fix cars is taking valuable resources away from what folks REALLY come to you for…FIXING CARS. No?
Now, a little about me. I graduated the now long gone LCHS in 1983. I then went to SOWELA Technical Community College for Industrial Instrumentation. This was shortly after Ronald Reagan had fired the air traffic controllers refusing to end their strike. All those former air traffic controllers from all around this area were looking to make career changes, and those guys were taking the SAME courses I was, and graduated around that same time. Now….let’s say you are a plant manager, or HR guy….you have 10 applicants for the same job….you have nine guys ranging from 30 thru 40 something, and one guy (me) fresh outta school and 20 yrs old. Consider all of us had the SAME qualifications, and all graduated with the same GPA….but the other guys 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 1980-something being the SAME time automobiles hit the street with ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY, it was a simple matter of going to AUTOMOBILE SPECIFIC electronics training, and I was BETTER AT repairing the new cars recently hitting the street than were the guys that had been working on cars ALL their lives….they TOLD me so….so I did….and the rest is history!
I did accept a position teaching Automotive Technology for almost three years, but there simply was not NEARLY enough modern equipment or required budget to teach the program to my satisfaction, so I resigned from my position teaching…I was called several times to go back to teaching, and then several requests to go back as an adjunct, and I came awfully close at some point when the budget I was promised came really close to what I needed to do it correctly….thankfully I declined, because the administrator trying to get me back and making those promises retired just a couple months later!
Many people could not understand how I could “give up that gravy train”. Taking into consideration the monetary value of the health benefits paid by the employer annually, the retirement contributions by the employer, the value of accrued annual leave, the value of accrued personal leave, the value of the prescription drug savings, and the value of all the other things that would have accrued over the years until retirement, my leaving and refusing the requests to come back, I basically turned down the equivalent of half a million dollars between the actual money of accrued time and the employer contributions to heathcare and retirement….I don’t know too many folks that would have turned down that job on principle…they’d have gone back and kept their mouth shut and played the paper game…maybe I’m crazy, but I could not stay and “teach” knowing I did not have the needed resources and continue to turn students out in the industry that did not know what they should….so here I am, still doing what I love to do.