By Rick Popely,Chicago Tribune
Late-night repair shops sell car-care convenience

CHICAGO – Blowing off routine auto maintenance because you don’t have the time may be as lame an excuse as “the dog ate my homework.”

That’s because many auto-repair facilities and dealer service departments are staying open late, doing everything from oil changes to engine swaps until well after Jay Leno has delivered his monologue on the “Tonight Show.”

Most are open Saturdays and some on Sundays, including at least one dealer who will service vehicles though it can’t sell them on Sunday.

But the growth is in night owl service, including dealership departments that are open till 9 p.m.

One operation, All Night Auto, has turned up the heat on the competition by opening three stores in the Chicago area last year. The Troy, Mich.-based chain works on cars until midnight Monday through Thursday, operating 100 hours a week.

President and Chief Executive Nicholas Cocco said the inspiration for late-night auto repair came from a business partner who worked such long hours his car maintenance got lost in the shuffle.

“He was doing the same thing many of us do now. He was working one job, but it felt like three. He was getting out of work at 8, 9, 10 o’clock at night,” Cocco said, and on one of those late nights his car wouldn’t start. “He had no where to go at that time, and we figured he can’t be the only one in that position.”

Late-night service is far from new.

The service department at Village Pontiac-GMC, for example, has been open until midnight weekdays since 1976. Owner and general manager Mike Van Iten said the dealership extended its hours because it had more service business than it could handle during the day.

“We got to a point where we needed to do it to serve our customers. It’s also good advertising that sets us apart from other dealerships,” Van Iten said. “This is a service business. (The) sales (department) always sells the first car, but service sells the rest.”

If someone decides at 11:30 p.m. they’re overdue for an oil change, “we can do it,” Van Iten said. “We’d prefer you come in earlier, but I have guys who can do it then.”

The service department operates on two shifts, and the night crew can do the same work as the day shift. The department is open 96 hours a week, outstripping the national average of 54 hours for new-car dealers.

Van Iten says nearly half his service business comes in after 6 p.m., and many are repeat customers.

“Face it, people don’t have as much time as they used to,” he said. “In most families both the husband and wife work, and they don’t have time to get their cars serviced. People may still work 9 to 5, but they can’t pick up or drop off their car until 7 or 8.”

Traditionally, cars stack up outside of dealer service departments early in the morning, and a herd of customers typically returns in late afternoon to pick up their vehicles. Van Iten says the extended service hours spread that out.

“We don’t have the mad rush at 7 a.m. and the mad rush at 4 p.m. We’re able to schedule things better,” he said.

Others dealers and auto repair chains and dealers have had less success with late hours.

BFS Retail & Commercial Operations, which operates 1,500 Firestone service centers, tried running 24 hours a day in Texas a few years ago, but spokeswoman Victoria Condell said it attracted few customers.

“You have to call folks about what the diagnosis showed and get a go-ahead, and they don’t want to be called at all hours of the night,” she said.

Sears experimented with full auto service until midnight in the late 1980s but discontinued it by the early 1990s. Now, Sears’ auto centers usually are usually open until the closing time of the malls they’re in, typically 9 p.m. on weekdays.

“After a while it became unaffordable. We just didn’t get a steady flow of customers after 9 o’clock,” said Rick Sawyer, vice president and general manager of Sears Automotive.

“A lot of people don’t want to go out at 11 o’clock and then sit in a waiting room while their car is being fixed,” Sawyer said, adding, “But we would love to get back into it, so we continue to look at it.”