Local Automotive Shop Celebrates 40 Years

Dale and Sharon Anderson established A-Automotive out of the back of a pickup truck 40 years ago. They traveled to customers’ homes and repaired their broken-down vehicles, with Sharon maintaining the finances and Dale getting his hands dirty fixing the vehicles.

Dale retired from his company 12 years ago, but A-Automotive is still a family business, with Sharon juggling human resources, accounting, and office management, and their son, Aron, applying his knowledge of mechanics in the back end.

“Dale’s dream has always been to own a service station,” said Sharon. “In 1986, when he was finally tired of working at the dealership, he made his dream come true. After three years of operating out of the back of the pickup, we moved to a central location at the old Save-All gas station at the south end of town. In 1990, we moved to our current location that was just a small lot with a house on it. We removed the house and built a three bay shop with a small office.”

Sharon added, “Back then, we did preventive maintenance, brakes and oil changes. Over the past 40 years, we added tires, wheels, alignments. We do complete automotive repair, air conditioning, computer diagnostic and electrical work.”

Aron said, “We also do key cutting and programming for key fobs. And we fix problems with ECU’s (Engine Control Unit) Modules. These are the computers that run the engines and transmissions on all of the modern vehicles. We reflash and program false diagnostic codes according to dealer codes.”

“As the years go by, we update and add new machines for servicing vehicles,” Sharon continued. “Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of changes. One of the big ones is vehicles going from carburetors to fuel injection to electric vehicles.”

“Electric vehicles are both a blessing and a curse,” added Aron. “Electric vehicles have high voltage batteries, and it’s hard to get the equipment to service them. The industry mandated scary stuff like safety equipment on us, but it turned out not to be so scary after all. We have to be compliant with the regulations.”

A-Automotive is a three generation family-owned business. “Early on, we hired Dale’s father, Leroy Weisz, who was the service manager at Family Ford and stayed on with us until he left to take care of his wife,” said Sharon. “And now, Aron is with the business.”

A-Automotive maintains a busy staff of four back-end employees, including Aron, and two front-end employees, including Sharon.

“We’ve seen a lot of growth,” said Aron. “The business started off with one lot and three bays to four lots and eleven bays. Right now, we don’t plan on expanding more.”

“We provide general repairs,” said Sharon. We can service all makes and models. However, we are limited in some ways. For example, we are limited as to what we can do on certain European vehicles.”

“In the next 40 years, I’d like to see the kids graduate, go to college, and work for me,” laughed Aron. “My 8-year-old son is already interested in what we do here. But it’s hard to tell with the other two kids.”

“When Aron was 6, he would dress up in his daddy’s service clothes and tell us that he wanted to be a mechanic,” said Sharon. “As a teenager, he learned about the business and started working for us in 2001. Dale still does building maintenance, but I love that Aron wants to take over. I hope to retire myself in 10 years”

“I will make this my career,” Aron said. “I look forward to the next 40 years of A-Automotive.”

A-Automotive is located at 361 W. 5^th Ave. They can be reached at 509-684-6945.