By Robert Bravender
History is where you find it. Take Browns Mill Auto Tech and Towing. This auto repair shop’s very name can be a mini-history lesson of a community’s activities and people. Now located along North Roan Street in Johnson City, Tenn., the shop originally was an Esso service station about a half mile farther south, at the corner of Browns Mill Road. A century ago it shared this corner with the silos of Joseph Brown’s milling company, back when grinding grain was a crucial industry.
Today the crucial industry along this corridor is automotive, anchored with various dealerships. The current incarnation of Browns Mill Auto Tech began when Jim Davis bought the old gas station back in 1971. Under his ownership he added crucial services like towing and diesel repair, as well as getting approved as a AAA repair center. Davis also oversaw the move to the current facility in 2008, before selling the company to the Dwyer family in 2014.
“Then we took the ball and ran with it,” said Rich Yeager, the company’s general manager and service writer. “Kevin Dwyer runs the diesel shop, and I run the gas side. We try to split the responsibilities. I’ve got Allen Warren, who’s my main guy, and Kevin has Neal LaFollette, a 30-year master tech from Ford who specializes in diesels.”
The big, five-bay diesel shop at the back of the property is the latest addition to the complex. The original shop is for car repairs, while the remaining two-bay is used for overflow.
“Sometimes we use it for quick jobs,” Yeager added. “Otherwise if we have a long teardown job, and we’re going to be waiting on parts and things like that, it’s a great place to take a vehicle, because it doesn’t affect our flow in the gas or diesel shops.”
Yeager estimated the shop’s workload roughly breaking down to 35 percent towing, 65 percent repair, of which 70 percent is gasoline related, the rest diesel. Commercial contracts account for about 20 percent of their business. On the diesel side they can handle anything from German cars to heavy-duty commercial vehicles, RVs, tractors, even semis.
“We don’t have an ego here,” Yeager said. “If an over-the-road truck has a problem, they know us. If it’s something we can address, we will. We don’t have a pit or anything that will lift a big truck like that. We’re not going to be re-sleeving a Cat diesel in the frame of a truck at this shop, but if we can work on it, absolutely. We’ve done it before.
“We once had a drilling company with an auger powered by a huge Cummins,” he recalled. “We took the housing off and rebuilt that motor, sleeved it and all. I thought it was neat because [the techs]had some lines stuck down into buckets to run it before we took it back to them. But the majority of our diesel work is pickup trucks.”
Obviously this range requires a big investment in diagnostic tools.
“The techs have their individual scan tools, like Snap-Ons’ Solus,” Yeager noted. “Meanwhile the shop’s got a Snap-On Zeus, a whole work station. This has a wireless pickup that plugs into the OBD2 port so it can pick up any car in the shop. The Soluses are very useful and 90 percent of the time that’s all the techs need, but sometimes you need to go deeper, and this machine is capable of performing more tests.”
A key ingredient in the mix is the fact they’re a AAA service provider for the area. For this they have a fleet of seven tow trucks: five rollbacks, one tow-behind wrecker and one backup truck.
“We’re getting ready to purchase another one,” Yeager said. “We’ve also got five drivers right now, and we’re getting ready to hire a sixth.”
Overseen by Wrecker Manager Rusty Poss, these trucks are on city and county rotation, as well as servicing companies with fleet accounts. Per AAA requirements, stranded motorists are supposed to be reached within 45 minutes of receiving the call. They’ve gotten so good at it that Browns Mill Automotive received AAA’s Top Towing award in 2017 as a Service Provider of Excellence.
“[AAA bases their ratings on] how often you hit their ETAs and the customer feedback they get,” said Yeager. “As long as you do everything you’re supposed to, you make Tier, and AAA gives you bonuses, which we give directly to the drivers. There are some months where the drivers get a couple extra hundred dollars.
“The flow of a tow truck company still amazes me,” observed Yeager, shaking his head. “These guys run 24 hours a day on their shifts. They can be on the other side of the county and then have to come over here and grab another one — that’s Rusty’s job as dispatcher to make that all work. But you’re going to get behind; you might go hours without a tow then get six within 15 minutes. We have a backup system where we can call one of the other carriers in the area to get that customer for us — but it’s very rare that we have to do that.”
What they deliver sometimes goes beyond mere service. As Rusty Poss notes, even when the weather is bad enough to hinder their trucks, drivers will venture out to retrieve stranded motorists.
“We can retrieve the car later when it is safe to go out,” he said.
Last year Browns Mill Automotive sent one of their newest rollbacks to assist with recovery after Hurricane Florence passed through North Carolina.
“In the towing industry it’s a very tight-knit community,” Yeager explained, “and the brotherhood put the call out for trucks to come and help, so we did. We loaded up a 2019 Hino with extra oil, fuel and air filters, grease, the whole nine yards. We packed up the driver like he was going to be living on the road, and he stayed down there for about two weeks picking up flooded cars.”
They also know how to take off the cars themselves, like the time they towed in a 1923 Buick.
“That was over on Bristol Hwy,” Yeager recounted. “He had pulled out of a car show and broke some wheel studs. Our driver Tony was able to skid it right up on the truck without damaging the car at all. We’ve got some really good drivers.
“We’re all about customer service,” he emphasized. “We’re all about being family” — a sentiment Yeager tries to convey to customers “as quickly as possible” with his engaging personality. Moving to the area in 1991, his background was in car audio sales before the original owner asked him to join Browns Mill Automotive.
“When I came here in 2014, I basically had no training as a service writer,” he said. “Most of it was on-the-job, and I’m still learning today.”
He picked up the basic check-in procedure in about five days, but this system required him to be on the phone a lot, constantly calling with appointments, estimates, approvals, pickups. Now, however, the company uses AutoVitals, software tweaked for 21st century customers.
“With AutoVitals, if the customer’s not in the systems yet, they’ll get a ‘welcome to Browns Mill’ text on their phone,” Yeager explained. “If they’ve been here before, it sends, ‘thanks for dropping your vehicle off.’”
Armed with tablets tied into the system, technicians do digital bumper-to-bumper inspections.
“If they find a problem, they categorize it in green, yellow or red,” he said. “Red of course means needs immediate attention, yellow means okay for now, but we need to keep an eye on it. With this system I can actually send customers the inspection sheet with pictures. If you explain to someone that they’ve got a bad wheel bearing, you can take a video of the tech demonstrating the problem by moving the wheel. It’s just another closing tool.”
Yeager nodded at the duel screens on his counter.
“The NAPA Tracks system is tied together with AutoVitals,” he said. “When the technician is done with the inspection, I’ll move it over and create an estimate. The customer can then accept the cues if they want to stay up on what I call the flow. Throughout the day they’ll be able to see where the car is in the process through text messages or email.”
“The other nice thing about this system is that it prompts me two weeks later to call customers back if I need to,” said Yeager. “When the customer either calls me or comes in, it will also prompt me about previous repairs. Going the other way, it prompts the customer when an oil change is due by date. Our younger customers are scheduling their appointments through this.
“People are keeping their cars longer because of the cost,” said Yeager. “We are trying to help them maintain their car, keep it on the road as long as possible.”
While Joseph Brown’s original mill is long gone, the name lives on through street signs and place names. Browns Mill Auto Tech will also live on—through its reputation. •
