Amy’s Garage

by Amy Mattinat

Move it outside!

We technically have 5 bays in my shop - Auto Craftsmen. But we have only been using 3 of them on a regular basis for the last 11 yrs. Bay 1, 2 & 3 are our working bays. Bay 4 was turned into the machine room. It’s full of the tire changing machine, parts washer, spring loader, grinder, computer, etc. But bay 5 has sat empty for 8 months of the year and was used for 2 months in the spring and 2 months in the fall to change tires.

Why would we have a bay, with a lift (that was not cheap) sit idle. Well, no one wanted to work back there. It was noisy, dark, and cluttered.

The compressor lived in the bay, making it uber noisy, and because it didn’t get much use, it was the home to all “stuff” that needed a place to go.

Well, the boys built a fine little insulated house and have successfully moved the compressor outside. They cut a large hole into the shop for air / heat flow in the winter, and will fill it with synthetic oil so it won’t freeze up when the Vermont Winter Temperature dips below zero.

After the compressor was moved outside, the next step was to hoe everything out of of it and clean it up. Next comes some major reorganizing!

Yea Me! I have been moaning about this bay for 11 years, and finally have got everyone in motion to make it good. Yea Team!

I left for a road trip to Rhode Island today, and the bay was completely empty. I’ll be back into the shop on Friday and can’t wait to see it all sparkling clean, neatly organized and being used. Right Boys?

We had a beautifully taken care of 1980’s Volkswagen Vanagon GL come into my shop Auto Craftsmen the other day. What was remarkable about this old camper van was that it was born and raised in Vermont.

Now for those of you that have never lived in Vermont, you need to understand that vehicles just don’t last a long time in the Green Mountain State. The road crews of VT in their attempt to keep the snow off the roads during the long 6 months of winter dump tons and tons of salt all over our roads. The salty snow clings to the underbodies and sides of our automobiles and rusts the heck out of them. Every vehicle I have ever owned I have lost to ‘Rust!’ The engine would have gladly kept running, but the body of the vehicle was rusting off the bare bones of the frame and it wouldn’t pass the yearly state inspection that takes those old rusty buckets off our

roads.

Well, this van has been truly loved. It’s owner must have given it a bath on a regular basis for the body to be in such fine shape. The van came to the shop for an oil change and a new battery. The battery lives under the passenger seat. The seat flips around slips forward to give access to the battery compartment. Typical Volkswagen. Those Germans love to make working on Volkswagens interesting, amusing… keep you guessing where things live. Oh, and of course you need to have special Volkswagen tools to even think about working on them.

This van has over 300,000 miles on it.

Seriously… 300k. Remarkable! No it’s not the original engine. It was rebuilt by my tech Jim. But it has driven over 300,000 thousand miles of the highways and byways of this country, Canada and Mexico. It’s traveled to every state in this huge country of ours and has been to Alaska and back.

What is so cool about this van is the interior. It is a camper van. Contains a very comfy bed, really cool kitchen set up and the top pops open so you can stand up in it. There is even an awning that connects to the side so you can have a porch to sit under once you have set up camp.

It would be such fun to take this old van on a road trip. Was a treat to see such a fine old van taken care of so well, and enjoyed so much!

Anyone out there have a Vanagon to top this one?

This Saturday my shop Auto Craftsmen, Pleasant Street Auto, Mike Martin’s Auto Repair (all NAPA AutoCare repair shops) + First Class NAPA Auto Parts stores from Waterbury and Morrisville all worked together to put on a Car Care Safety Fair at the Copley Hospital in Morrisville Vermont.

The Hospital was having their 13th annual Health Care Fair and the Hospital and I thought that a Car Care Fair was a perfect match for a Health Care Fair.

Seriously. If your car is not healthy and it has an accident… your body could end up at the hospital.

We had 13 NAPA AutoCare helpers to work the car care safety lanes. It was very easy for the motorists. The motorist would pull up to the first station and two auto technicians would check the tires to see if they had the proper air pressure and make sure all the lights were working. They would check over the windshield wipers to make sure they were working correctly and to make sure they were not worn out.

Then the vehicle would pull up to the second station and two more technicians would open the hood and check the belts, hoses and the fluids. (oil, coolant, brake fluid, transmission fluid, windshield washer fluid). They would hook up a special tool that would tell how well the battery and starting system of the car was working.

All this information was marked down on a special inspection sheet that was given to the driver and explained. Folks were given a free vehicle safety kit and in less then 10 min. the driver had a very clear understanding of how safe their vehicle was driving down the road that day.

Number one problem we found on the vehicles we inspected was that they had incorrect air pressure in the tires. This went for older vehicles and brand new vehicles. Some had too much air in them and some were under inflated.

If you have the wrong air pressure in your tires you are loosing gas mileage (money) and wearing out your tires way quicker then you need to (more money!). Takes just a bit of effort on the part of the motorist to check their air pressure… and if you just don’t want to, then swing by my shop and one of my techs would be glad to come out and make sure your tires have the correct amount of air pressure.

We also found a lot of worn wipers. Windshield wipers are relatively cheap for what they do - keeps the windshield clear of water when it rains so you can see the road. Very important to be able to see where you are going when driving a car.

There were also too many vehicles that needed oil added to the motor and a couple that had too much oil in the engine. Having too much oil is also very bad for your engine.

We checked over 62 cars in less then 3 hours. The crew was very efficient and the motorists were thrilled with the great FREE service advice on their cars.

Big thanks to Bo, Raechal, Mike, Charlie, Gary, Jill, Scott, Marc, Kevin, Chip, Mark and Nina for taking time out of your weekend to make this Car Care Safety Lane so successful!

Yes, the slab got poured and now we are waiting for “Overhead Doors” to give us an estimate for a insulated roll up door before we can continue our project of moving the compressor.

So, while waiting for the new compressor room to get built, we have moved on to giving the outside of the shop a face lift.

This is a before picture of my shop Auto Craftsmen located in Montpelier, Vermont. Notice how plain and boring the beige and black are. Very easy to drive on by and not even notice.

The beige has been repainted and the black trim is slowly being repainted blue. The rest of the shop was not exactly thrilled with my color choice, but it’s growing on them, and we are getting great feedback from our clients.

The job is still in process. The front window has rotten sills and needs to be replaced and my window box is going to be painted blue, put back up and restocked ASAP.

What do you think about the color blue I chose for the trim?

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I last posted. I have been so busy that I just haven’t had any extra time to sit at my computer and write. My business partner needed 2 weeks off to move to a new place of residence, so I was riding solo running our auto repair shop, Auto Craftsmen.

When the cat is away… the mice will play.

• I hired a new employee… that I have wanted for over two months
• I hired an electrician to move one of our electric meter boxes so we could build a room outside of bay 5, where we will put the compressor so bay 5 won’t be so noisy you need to were hearing protection to be in that room. Hopefully soon that bay will actually get used and make us some money!

It have been raining pretty much everyday all summer in VT. So even though it was coming down at a pretty good clip, these boys got the job done in 2 hrs.