West Valley car shop celebrates 10 several years | Business

Goodyear-centered Litchfield Car Maintenance, an vehicle restore store owned by master technician Phil Pecora, is celebrating its 10th calendar year serving the West Valley.

Increasing up in Lancaster, California — a metropolis that sits a tiny around an hour north of Los Angeles — Pecora started out working on vehicles at just 16 decades previous, suitable about the time he figured out how to generate. He has worked in the market because 1991.

Pecora inherited a 1970 Buick Riviera from his grandfather, and the rest is history.

“There was a ton of operate that desired to be finished to it,” Pecora recalled. “I begun discovering how to execute that do the job. I took desire in it and began performing at a store as the cleanup boy and requested thoughts and went to courses. By the time I was in 11th grade, I was training my vehicle shop teacher how to resolve his vehicle.

“I just state-of-the-art in it really swiftly, and now I’ve been a master accredited tech for 31 years.”

Garnering encounter operating in car retailers in Lancaster and nearby town Santa Clarita, Pecora took his information with him when he moved to the West Valley 15 yrs in the past after the real estate market place crashed. His parents and brother lived in the Valley at the time, so it seemed like a all-natural changeover.

3 a long time immediately after shifting to a new state, Pecora opened Litchfield Automobile Fix. He observed a void in the market and appeared to fill it.

“When I arrived out below, I observed the deficiency of information in my marketplace,” he mentioned. “I could not hold out to get my possess shop started out.”

If Pecora has a person regret, it is that he wished he would have opened his possess store “10 many years previously.” But what began as Pecora doing work by himself has grown into a well-recognised and dependable 18,000-square-foot automobile repair center with hand-picked 12 workers.

“(There have been) tons of growing pains,” Pecora claimed in spite of the success. “I’m an vehicle technician, not a businessman. There’s a massive big difference among the two. The 1st 4 a long time there was a lot of studying to do.”

Regardless of the results, even so, Pecora’s satisfaction in Litchfield Automobile is positioned in its functioning atmosphere. For him, that environment is because of to his business enterprise model.

In an sector that is dominated by commission, Pecora’s workforce are on income and acquire ample compensated time off between vacation and sick days. On leading of that, Litchfield Automobile is shut on weekends, providing the experts time to recuperate from a bodily taxing position.

“It’s an atmosphere that, as a technician, I would want to get the job done in,” Pecora stated.

With Pecora’s prosperity of awareness and top-of-the-line specialists working collectively, guess perform does not exist at Litchfield Automobile. This, Pecora said, maximizes effectiveness.

“You’re not likely to explain to me, ‘Oh, I assume this is what’s improper, or ‘I believe this triggered that,’ or ‘We will need to change this, this and this, simply because I’m not very positive,’” Pecora said.

“They have to answer to someone with know-how compared to a service advisor, a supervisor or someone that is relying on the technician to be the pro. In this situation, the proprietor is also an specialist.”

Any auto repair shop is likely to be high-priced, but Pecora does his best to maintain his store competitive with the rest of the industry. He just lately ran a price evaluation and observed that they were the the very least high-priced store in the region by “10% or far better.”

“I was basically shocked at what the labor costs have grow to be,” Pecora explained. “It’s not abnormal now for a store labor fee to strike $175 or more for an independent restore facility. That (made use of to be) unheard of. We’re at $155, so we’re $20 more cost-effective suitable off the bat just in labor.”

A little something Litchfield Vehicle offers that lots of other retailers may not is a shuttle assistance. There is not a serious radius on the assistance both, as Pecora stated he has picked up and dropped off prospects in Tonopah, North Phoenix and Scottsdale.

This comes down to Pecora’s perspective on shuttle company.

“If you are keen to go 200 retailers to occur to mine, I’m prepared to push you earlier 200 retailers to choose you property,” he claimed.

Thanks to Pecora’s tricky do the job and team, Litchfield Vehicle Mend is a well-oiled machine, and Pecora explained he sees himself getting this shop off into the sunset.

“It’s finding to a issue in which my crew has been with me so long, and they’re so properly versed in what they do that I really do not have to be below on a everyday basis,” he said. “I’m truly lucky to have these fellas.”

Litchfield Car Repair

671 N. 137th Avenue, Suite 106, Goodyear

litchfieldauto.internet