Featured Shop: V&E Auto Repair

Vianney and Edwin Abundis are a brother and sister with a 12-year history working in Toyota and Honda. Edwin spent 12 years working as a mechanic at another Toyota shop, and after a few years, Vianney joined the organization as a service advisor and manager of the shop. Edwin eventually left to pursue a different career while Vianney stayed, continuing a strong rapport with customers.

Unfortunately, the owner of their previous shop decided to permanently close at the beginning of the pandemic. It was then Vianney learned the strength of reputation she and her brother had earned with customers, who began calling to ask where they were headed after the shop closed and offering to follow them. In lieu of a shop location, customers asked for service techs to come to their home to handle their vehicle’s repairs.

“Something happened beyond just a business,”
said Edwin.
“It was deep relationships.”

Abundis was working at a large tech company when his sister approached him about starting the business. He saw an opportunity to apply some of his interests, “What I like to mess with,” he joked.

ODD TIMING, GOOD VALUES

Starting a shop in a pandemic, they didn’t know if they would survive. “We never wanted to open our own shop,” he hesitantly recalled. Running a shop is hard even in the best times, but with business closures and supply chain issues ahead, no one knew what to expect. “Our first year was surprisingly profitable. The 2nd year, we doubled our customer base.”

As a female-driven and operated business in a male-dominated industry, Edwin observed that many vendors and industry professionals tried to make his sister feel like she wasn’t good enough. They both love whenever those people are proven wrong.

To start, they use original parts sourced from the manufacturer or dealer. They have invested in the same equipment dealers use for diagnostics and repair. Edwin likes to handle the complex diagnostics, working after hours and into the night trying to figure out problems with vehicles for the technicians to work on the next business day. He enjoys the technology aspect of their business and getting the work done quickly and accurately.

But Vianney is where the business really shines. She handles customer relationships with transparency and exceptional ethics, meticulously keeping all customer records, tracking and analyzing their vehicle’s data, including oil consumption. In one instance, a customer came in for a misfire. They replaced the injector and it seemed to be repaired, but two days later, it came back with the same problem. It was discovered the cylinder had a problem, and the customer decided they would sell the vehicle instead of repairing it. When they came to pick up their car, Vianney had a check waiting for them in the amount of the original repair cost.

FINDING ENEOS

It’s these values that have driven V&E to using ENEOS products.

Within the first year, they were exploring different available oils to use at the shop, testing various brands. They started noticing these vehicles coming back to the shop with excessive oil consumption. At their previous shop, she was strict about using a high quality oil product and didn’t remember having any consumption issues. Vianney suspected the extremely low oil levels might be a result of the oil itself and began investigating alternatives.

During these investigations, Vianney discovered the educational resources produced by ENEOS, including technology white papers and training videos. As she began reading these articles, she went to Edwin saying, “I want to use this oil.” After using ENEOS, their customer’s cars stopped coming back with low oil. As a shop who looks out for customers, earning their return business, they feel the quality of the product is a high value for their customers and the shop’s reputation.

They noticed one other thing: some customers who purchased a certain brand of vehicle were bringing them in with engine problems. As a result, V&E have recommended ENEOS to help prevent the engine issues. So far, it has been helping.

ENEOS is proud to have V&E Auto Repair as a partner and Garage dealer and happy to feature them as a partner.