In my area, I'm aware of specialty garages for Volvo, Saab, VW and BMW but none for any Asian makes, other than their dealers, obviously. Come to think of it, when my parents owned their Hondas (1983 and 1990), they used the dealer for 100% of their work. They've since joined me in the happy GM family.
When foreign car repair was a specialty
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In the mid-'80s, I recall, you could find "foreign auto parts" shops all over the place. K-Mart and Sears mostly had parts for American cars. Now NAPA, Autozone, etc., all have parts for both, and there are no specialty parts shops here in The Swamp. A couple of independent shops, yes, but they have both foreign and domestic parts.
Co-worker took his acura integra to an independent "honda" shop in 1990 looking to get work done. They were unaware of the connection. (Acura was born in 1986.) He went elsewhere.
There's a toyota-only shop near me, seems especially into tacomas from scanning the parking lot.
One specialty that never goes stale is the saab/volvo guy. There may be some snobbery on the clientele that demands a specialist... in fact, I hypothesize that the "need" for a specialist causes some to get a saab/volvo in the first place. You know the type: middle management, loudly blabs about how they're taking the afternoon off b/c their car's in the shop. Wonder how these mechs like the FWD ford volvos and the saabaru/trailblazer mongrels.
There is still an "autopart international" store near me but they're closed to the public: jobber delivery only.
I was trying to talk my dad into a subaru wagon in the late 1980s, he had a ford fairmont at the time. No way, said he, as he would have to get a metric wrench set.
Who knows, maybe the big 3 going metric in the early 80s helped scare mechanics into the tool investment.
I bet also the 30 MPH crash test requirements of 1980 got rid of the last wierd english sports cars and other oddball freaks, mainstreaming foreign cars enough and shaking the losers out making it was worthwhile to learn the makes remaining.
There's a toyota-only shop near me, seems especially into tacomas from scanning the parking lot.
One specialty that never goes stale is the saab/volvo guy. There may be some snobbery on the clientele that demands a specialist... in fact, I hypothesize that the "need" for a specialist causes some to get a saab/volvo in the first place. You know the type: middle management, loudly blabs about how they're taking the afternoon off b/c their car's in the shop. Wonder how these mechs like the FWD ford volvos and the saabaru/trailblazer mongrels.
There is still an "autopart international" store near me but they're closed to the public: jobber delivery only.
I was trying to talk my dad into a subaru wagon in the late 1980s, he had a ford fairmont at the time. No way, said he, as he would have to get a metric wrench set.
I bet also the 30 MPH crash test requirements of 1980 got rid of the last wierd english sports cars and other oddball freaks, mainstreaming foreign cars enough and shaking the losers out making it was worthwhile to learn the makes remaining.
We've still got a few specialty shops around here: one place that does European cars (lots of BMWs, VWs, and Volvos around here it seems like) and one that only works on Hondas. I think there's a Toyota specialist place nearby too.
Never say any new mechanics that just do one or two types of cars now. Seems like the knowledge starts spreading around today with Michelle and parts suppliers OEM for all major designs. Those with enough businesses as specialist today are those catered for racing, modifications, tuning, etc and not for the typical daily drivers.
The worst case you can always buy parts from dealers, and Michelle usually tell you how to repair anything and how many hours to charge, and in the worst case you quote the customer for replacing the entire system instead of grinding out a piece of custom part (which could do the customer a favor if the labor is high and part is cheap). Usually the price of weird operations or parts scare off the customer first.
What else is so special about any single brand?
The worst case you can always buy parts from dealers, and Michelle usually tell you how to repair anything and how many hours to charge, and in the worst case you quote the customer for replacing the entire system instead of grinding out a piece of custom part (which could do the customer a favor if the labor is high and part is cheap). Usually the price of weird operations or parts scare off the customer first.
What else is so special about any single brand?
There have always been 'specialists' at dealers of any kind.
Still is.
Working on the same vehicles makes you better at them.
Still is.
Working on the same vehicles makes you better at them.
In the Boston area there were foreign repair shops everywhere probably because the college students were attracted to these brands to avoid any buying habits their parents had? They really did need specialists due to the idiosyncrisses of these vehicles such as VWs that need valve adjustments every 3,000 miles, down-draft dual carbs that needed synchronization on British models and the vaguerys of anyone unfortunate enough to have owned the dreaded Fiat, Peugot, or Jaguar at that time! Although I would agree that a talented mechanic can eventually fix anything... these specialty shops may even have been in existence because regular garages didn't own or need a Metric tool set??
Yep, even down here in the backwoods there are still Euro specialists. Sadly, we just lost the oldest Euro repair shop in town. It was run by a couple of old German men. One of them got off into making those stupid stretch limos out of Hummers and other odd vehicles. I think that it probably was a money loser. But right down the street there's a very successful Euro shop and the guy that owns it does great work and doesn't try to stiff you. He even posts on saabcentral from time to time. Thankfully, it's usually to answer questions.....
You still see a lot of Volvo Specialists around, IMO you need them if you purchase those time bombs!
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