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My name is Austin Davis, and I live in Texas with my wife and daughters. Although I am not a hands on "mechanic", I grew up in the auto repair business and have I spent most of my life at the shop my grandfather founded in 1937. I started out doing everything from cleaning up the huge mess auto mechanics make to driving one of the parts delivery trucks around town.

My expertise is looking over the mechanic's shoulder and monitoring quality  control.  Let's face it just about anyone can replace a water pump, or brake pads, or an alternator, but not everyone performs the job correctly and with quality in mind.  You the customer does not get mad or upset becuase the job was performed correctly, you get angry when short cuts were taken.   My job as a shop owner is to make sure all acts of "short cut stupidity" have been caught and removed before you pick up your car....and that is a learned skilled.

After I graduated from Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas with a degree in business, I joined the management team and eventually became president of the company. I have always been curious as to how things work, and I love to take things apart...more so than to put them back together.

I was groomed to take over the family business ever since I was a small boy, and "talking shop" at the dinner table was all I ever heard. I have spent numerous hours attending hands-on training courses from air conditioning repair to paint and body re-finishing. I know a great deal about the business and have a real knack for diagnostics. My wife laughs every time I diagnose a car driving by our house, "that car needs a left outer CV joint."

I started writing this book, What Your Mechanic Doesn't Want You to Know, in 1998 after a lady came to my shop and told me how much (or how little as she thought) money she had to spend to repair her car. She thought she had automatic transmission problems and was afraid it was going to cost thousands to repair. She had just come from a local transmission shop where they told her exactly how much it would cost to overhaul her transmission.

I went for a quick test drive with her to get a feel for this catastrophic problem her car was having. After a very simple and quick test drive, I determined that it was not transmission related but rather some kind of ignition problem (i.e. spark plug, spark plug wire, ignition coil, etc.) She left the car with me so that we could properly diagnose it and determine the problem.

Our conclusion was a bad spark plug wire, but what should I tell her? She was prepared to pay me big bucks to fix her "transmission problem," so would she be happy to pay me $250? Shouldn't I be able to tell her ANYTHING as long as the car was fixed, and I saved her BIG bucks? I would be a hero to her if I fixed the car for only $250, and she would never have to know it was only a bad spark plug wire. No, of course I really didn't do this, but I would not be so sure she would not have been taken advantage of elsewhere.

To read my article on this incident click here: Transmission Article

I realized then that in some cases, it was what the customer said to the repair shop that was opening the door for them to be taken advantage of. If I didn't run an ethical business, I could have made a nice tip for my "expertise" (or my ability to lie). From that day on, I have been writing down all instances that have occurred to me that could have put the customer in jeopardy...and it quickly began to fill a book!

After several years as manager and service writer, I began to feel the need to venture out of my comfort zone and try something new. In 2001, I resigned my position in the family business and went full-time with this Internet venture (adventure). I wanted to make a site where people can go and get real life auto repair advice articles on a wide variety of topics. Most of my readers visit my site because they are unhappy with their current repair shop, don't trust the recommendation the mechanic gave them, or are trying to do their own auto repair and need advice on what-to-do rather than how-to-do.

If you have not spent some time looking around on my site I encourage you to do so. You will find over 48 reader question articles plus much more interesting advice, other auto related links and illustrations.

My ebook will shed a totally new light on how you perform service on your vehicle, how the mechanic will perceive you, how you can easily save hundreds if not thousands of dollars on car repair, and how to build your confidence and self esteem to deal with an insurance company or mechanic.

My articles are featured on many popular Websites, and in newsletters and ezines throughout the Internet. Definitely sign up for my free newsletter.

Thanks for your support

Austin