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by Ed
Attanasio
Berkeley, Calif.—Art
Ratner, owner of Art’s Automotive in Berkeley, said he decided
long ago that if he was going to be in the auto repair
business, he was going to do things his way, which includes
servicing and repairing hybrid cars, being environmentally
responsible, and treating customers the way he would want to
be treated.
Ratner, 57, said he
has been in the business of repairing automobiles for more
than 35 years. His passion for cars led him to become a
muscle-car builder in the late 1960s, he said.
After completing a
tour of duty in Vietnam, Ratner said he traveled throughout
North America and Mexico while meticulously maintaining
several Volkswagen buses. When he heard about the
automotive trade program at the College of Alameda, he said he
talked his way to the front of a waiting list of 250.
After completing all
of the required courses, Ratner said he was offered a job by
an instructor who owned a shop in Berkeley called Motor City
Automotive. It was there that he learned the auto repair
business inside and out, he said.
In 1980, Ratner said
he opened Art's Automotive and worked in his backyard in West
Berkeley for the first four years. During that time, he said
he fell in love with Japanese-made cars and vowed never to
work on any other kind.
In 1984, Ratner said
he was offered the chance to become a partner in a piece of
prime real estate in Berkeley, where the main building of
Art's Automotive now stands. “We hired employees and purchased
equipment,” he said, “and hit the ground
running.”
After two years,
Ratner bought out his real estate partner, which led to the
first of several expansions including building a new workshop
in 1989 and adding an annex in 1993, a new office building in
1995, and a second annex in 1997, he said.
In 2000, Ratner said
he bought the property next to the main shop (then Smith's
Garage). A third annex for car storage and tire installation
was built and the building next door was leased to a collision
repair shop, La Loma 7, he said.
Ratner said he employs
12 people--three full-time managers who are also Master Techs,
seven ASE-certified technicians, an environmental specialist,
and a bookkeeper. The shop is 3,400 square feet, including the
front counter area and an upstairs office, he said.
Art's Automotive has
won the East Bay Express's "Best of the Bay" award seven
times, the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s “Best of the Bay”
award twice, and the San Francisco Chronicle's "Best of the
Bay" award in 2000, Ratner said.
The shop offers
bumper-to-bumper service, including maintenance, engines,
cooling systems, electrical diagnosis, brakes, tires,
alignment, transmissions, fuel systems, and driveability, he
said.
Art’s Automotive
repairs nine brands of automobiles: Toyota, Scion,
Honda, Nissan, Infiniti, Acura, Subaru, Lexus, and Mazda. The
shop also works on every type of hybrid vehicle on the market,
except for the Ford Hybrid Escape, Ratner
said.
Art’s Automotive
purchases the majority of its parts from local new-car
dealers, Ratner said. “We’re extremely picky about the parts
we use,” he said. “We use only genuine OE parts except on rare
occasions.” “We’re always striving to be technically ahead of
the curve,” he said. “We’ve always been a green shop
interested in all things environmental. Our EPA registration
number is 000000100, which means we were one of the first
hundred shops in the state to hop on board.”
In early 2005, Art’s
Automotive went completely solar, Ratner said. After working
with Sun, Light & Power in Berkeley for more than a year,
the shop unveiled its grid-tied solar-power system, a
development that Ratner estimates saves him $4,000 a year in
energy costs.
“The system is
warranteed for 25 years and will pay for itself in 15, which
means we’ll be getting free power for at least a decade,” he
said. “Not to mention all of the tax credits and rebates we
receive for running a solar shop.”
Paul Cortes, 36, is
the shop manager and IT coordinator, as well as a Master
Technician and a numbers whiz, Ratner said.
“By having the luxury
of so much work space in a good location and great employees,
we’re able to continue to offer a good blend of high-quality
service and low prices,” Cortes said.
“Paul has been
with us since 1989 and has really had an incredibly positive
impact on the shop,” Ratner said. “He’s a natural-born
computer-oriented person, and that’s great because I’m not. I
believe our Web site is one of the very best in this industry.
Other shops look at our site for training, so we must be doing
something right.”
Art’s Automotive has
gained a reputation for being knowledgeable and reliable in
the maintenance and repair of hybrid vehicles. “Once we
started to dabble in hybrid maintenance, we realized hybrids
were not too complex for us to fix,” Ratner said. “So we began
to invest heavily in equipment and training. Our goal is to
eventually become the No. 1 independent hybrid repair shop in
the Bay Area.
“It’s sometimes hard
to meet flat rate times when learning to do a new type of
repair, but we wanted to build our hybrid experience, so we
offered our customers repairs for less than it cost us to do
them,” he said. “By doing this we got to do some of the more
complex repairs, normally done only at dealerships; our
customers got a really good deal, and we gained valuable
hybrid experience.”
“Forty percent of our
business right now is service and maintenance,” Cortes said.
“Forty percent is general repair, and 20 percent is diagnostic
work.” Five percent of that total workload involves repairing
and servicing hybrid cars, although that figure is sure to
increase, he said. The shop has increased its business every
year and Ratner said he sees no reason that this shouldn’t
continue, especially in the area of hybrid automobiles.
“Folks in this area,
especially in Berkeley, are buying more and more hybrids all
the time,” Ratner said. “People are really concerned about the
environment around here, and they’re also into saving money,
and by driving hybrids, they’re achieving both.”
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