11/15/2025
The average customer coming in our door has been a repeat customer of Mid-City Auto Service for 5 years, 7 years, 10 years and as many as 30+ years.Mid-City Auto Service was started in 1961 by my father. I started hanging around the shop at a young age – most likely 13 or 14. I’m now 60 years old.
My formal training was in in refinery instrumentation technology and process technology. Considering computer controlled carburetors were common and electronic fuel injection was in it’s infancy around the time of me being in high school and graduating in 1983, during my instrumentation and process technology training, in 1986 I decided to stay in the automotive technology field. After all, electronics on automobiles is nothing more than a process control and I was better at diagnosing and repairing the modern vehicle than were all the folks that had been in the industry forever.
I bought the business from my father in 1991 and have been owning and operating Mid-City Auto Service ever since. Being “into” all things electronic and geeky and gadgety I was the first small shop with a website. That said, back to the geeky/gadgety and electronics – Mid-City Auto Service was also the first auto repair shop to acquire dealer level diagnostic equipment – initially for Ford products first, then later General Motors products and currently have Ford, GM and Chrysler product dealer capabilities along with aftermarket diagnostic equipment for imports.
Mid-City Auto Service has undergone many different models during my 35 years. At one point along with routine repairs and service we did a large amount of hotrod work, we did a large amount of diesel truck repairs and performance, we did a large amount of carburetor to electronic fuel injection conversions, we did a large amount of swapping late model engines into older vehicles. At some point during all this I began getting a higher and higher volume of people who were being referred by other shops and other customers for technical, complex, highly diagnostic oriented and time consuming work as well as for repairs and diagnostics that have been attempted often times by a few others with no success. It was at some point 6 or so years ago we let all of the really time consuming work like cab-off diesel work and custom wiring/efi conversion and one-off type work go to focus on the routine diagnostics, routine maintenance, service and repair of the average daily driven cars and trucks.
I also have had employment changes – I had a fella work for me for 27 years – around the time of hurricane Laura recovery he passed away from cancer at 46 years old. Also during the year the shop was closed for Laura recovery/rebuilding another employee moved on to a different industry entirely. I worked alone for nearly a year, then picked up another guy, then later picked up another – and now, having one make a move into working strictly on hotrods, which was always his passion and another moving on to the faster paced hustle and bustle and high volume of bigger business, I once again work alone. I don’t have anyone to sell the business to like my dad did me and at 60 years old I have to decide if I want to continue to scale the business down more and more every year for the next 5 to 10 years before retirement or if I want to pick up another couple guys and stay full-blown for the next 5-10 years and then just abruptly close up shop one day randomly out of the blue when it’s no longer enjoyable. Stay tuned and follow along as I make that decision in the coming weeks/months/years. I’m not saying I won’t hire one or two guys but they would have to fit a SUPER tight qualification/ethic/character model – anyone off the street or high job swap rate folks won’t do. They just won’t fit. Maybe some talented individual with decades of work history without changing jobs like underwear who has recently retired but has a huge arsenal of tools and knowledge built up doing this type work as a hobby or in a different but related field. We shall see.
But for now anyway Mid-City Auto is even more so the small scale and personal “you are dealing directly with the owner in every transaction” than before and back to that model I ran alone for that year after Laura.
Many NEW folks are contacting me in high numbers who have never been to the shop and I’m getting people that reach out and ask, “How does it work with y’all to get a vehicle in?” Also even though many folks are long time repeat customers, things have changed. I am back to not manning an office and not dealing with any “drive up to discuss it” type business and back to that “contactless” not manning the office model when working alone.
SO…this is how it works: You reach out to me via text message at 337-274-4260 and you give me as much information as you can. That text message should NOT say, “This is so and so call me back at this number.”
Your text message should include the year, make and model vehicle you have and your first and last name as well as what type of routine service you need done or what symptoms you are having if you are in need of a diagnosis and repair versus just a routine service.
You may also call the shop at 337-436-0755, however, scammers, spammers, telemarketers and solicitors have gotten out of hand considering both the office and the cell phone numbers have been available on the entirety of the World Wide Web for decades. The phone could ring 200 times a day and literally 150 of those calls or more would be junk calls. If text message is just absolutely not an option for you then you may call the office and leave a voicemail but it likely will not be returned until later the same day or even more likely the following morning.
If you can, please include a picture of the license plate or VIN number. Doing so often times saves a tremendous amount of time because before I even return your text message many times I have already been able to look up various different things that matter, like what size engine, what options the vehicle has, whether it’s Two Wheel Drive, Four Wheel Drive or All Wheel Drive. That type stuff absolutely matters when discussing a diagnosis you need on a vehicle or discussing needed routine services. If I already have that information in that initial communication you send then things can move along much quicker.
Once we have that initial communication I will let you know when you can drop the vehicle off – for your convenience we have a 24 hour key drop box that contains envelopes and pens and you can drop your vehicle off before we open, after we are closed, nights, weekends, it doesn’t matter – even if it’s during business hours, I won’t be manning the office – you will do like all my customers did after Laura when I was working alone – drop the vehicle off using the key drop box. Once the vehicle is ready I will email or text a link for you to click to pay online without having to pay in person.
The key drop also has combination lock pick up bins. When your vehicle is ready I will send you that secure payment link to click on that will take you to a secure site and you can pay the bill online. Once the bill is paid I will change the combination on one of the pickup bins, put your key in a bin and send you the new combination and just like you dropped it off, you pick up the vehicle at your convenience day or night. The lot is well lit and there are security cameras literally everywhere.
That said if you absolutely do not want to drop off the vehicle without personal contact or pay the bill and pick up the vehicle without personal contact, OR if you want to pay with cash, we can make arrangements to do that in the office, HOWEVER, we will have to do so within a narrow window of time that we agree upon that will work for both of us. If you arrive unplanned, you WILL arrive to a locked office because I’ll be deeply engrossed in something really technical or time consuming in the shop.
We are not the “you drive up and I walk out and take a look at something” type shop. We are not the “someone paid just to answer every phone call” type shop. We are not the “there is always someone in the office” type shop. Again, when I’m working alone you will in fact arrive to a locked office if your visit is not planned ahead with me.
MANY THANKS for considering us for your service and repair.
