Hickman Auto & Home of Rote Sau Inc.

05/03/2026

We are quite often to car meetings when you see us, say hello😉, here cars and coffee in West Des Moines, awesome cars, a lot of different stuff.....here some pics

02/10/2026

Its a bit crazy what we have to do to change the rear brakes, here rotors and pads + pads from emergency brakes on an older Jaguar. Makes it not cheap.....

10/04/2025

Bennett is a longtime customer at the shop, he told me that he offers dry ice cleaning, sandblasting and wax under body treatment. We tried it out on two cars, Davids old vw rabbit and on Bennetts Pontiac Fiero. I think its looking amazing, call him up or ask in the shop for an appointment before the first snow hits.

09/24/2025

Studebaker Avanti, something different😉

09/20/2025

Since the tariffs are in place we have been directly effected. We are buying parts for imports from a seller located abroad. Sent from them to us are effected by the tariffs, therefor we receive invoices from the carriers that we have to pay. Most of the time tariffs are not the the biggest part of the bill. We have a lot of smaller parts in the price around 3 dollars, they are usually taxed with about 10%-25%. Its the fees that come with it that are sometimes above the customs with about 15 dollar each delivery. I copied some examples for German transmission filters from Poland and Bilstein H6 Shocks from Canada here they taxed the Items twice 15% as delivered from the EU/Canada and then 25% because its an autopart, with the fees added we end up with about 43-44% more to pay then listed online. Problem is that this invoices come after the car is billed out and has left. We also never know what the sender writes in the custom declaration as value; this value is the base for the calculation off the customs and their fees. Therefor we are not able to bill accordingly to the car that needed that special part.
Further we have to expect from our parts sources in the USA higher prices for everything that comes from abroad, yes this will even effect simple oil changes because we use in Germany produced Mann filter for imports.
We are a shop that offers a service, here we are working on about 70% Imports, we are unable to cover these new costs.
We decided to put an extra 10% on parts and services for import cars excluding the labor costs. We will monitor if this covers the new costs. Everything domestic stays at the old pricing. Sadly the USA itself is not producing many car parts anymore, due that we expect on the long run a spike in prices for the domestic car parts.

Since the tariffs are in place we Hickman Auto have been directly effected. We apologize for this new increase of prices, we do what we can and to use domestically available parts.
Hickman Auto

08/03/2025

Some of you guys know that David is drawing/painting cars and building them out of Lego. Further we both love to take photos from cool cars. Some of the stuff finds its way in the shop and is decoration but can be bought too. I brought some more of the framed photos in the shop. Other stuff that we think is cool found its way to the shop too. We are selling this decoration. So if you have a cool man cave or want a Porsche over the couch check it out.😉

08/03/2025

We had a r230, Mercedes Benz sl500 Generation 2001-2007 with a defective Battery Charging Module in the shop. Beside all the (from us) known problems (hydraulic suspension, roof hydraulic, electric brakes, electrical issues) this was a new one for us. Car was towed in, customer bought car from dealer and tried to bring her home. 1.5h later she stalled and did not start anymore. We found new Batteries, new alternator with starter battery cells burnt out and Alternator burnt not charging anymore. Easy one? After changing Battery and alternator still the alternator inop. We found the fuse between rear (convenience battery) and alternator blown. Awesome we got her to charge but the battery light went not off, no further codes. Over night both Batteries discharged, we found that the trunk smelled like an electric burn, after opening the battery control module, we knew why. Online we could read that this was something that the first generation had. But why this one? 2003 and the module in 2019 replaced?

Ok guys everyone that has a r230 and that does have a battery drain or problems with the batteries let it check or check it. Online are pics from burning cars. The car is one thing, the garage and your house, your life something else. The Battery control unit is in the trunk right side mounted on the wheel well. Open it, if it looks like on the photo its time to be replaced.

07/08/2025

04/16/2025

Something different, 1996 Nissan Gloria, real JDM, yes steering is on the wrong side. Here big brake update front Infinity g35 brembo, rear Infinity m45 oe. Wheels had to be upgraded too from 16inch (215/55r16) to 17inch (235/45r17) Evo 8 drag 31 with an offset of +40.

02/20/2025

We are today at DMACC to a job fair for Mechanics, visit us and ask questions!