Miller’s Tire & Auto Service

By Robert Bravender

Eddie Morris inherited quite a legacy. His former boss and mentor, John Miller, not only founded Miller’s Tire & Auto Service in Johnson City, Tenn., he also road raced — until he went back to work in the nuclear industry.

“A super smart guy,” Morris said. “John worked on [uranium] centrifuge projects back in the late ’60s and early ’70s. He was being shuffled across the country and was getting tired of moving every two to three years, so he decided to take an early retirement and started an automotive shop in 1987.” 

Morris is no slouch either. Around the time Miller went into business, Morris had finished a tour in the army with plans on becoming an accountant. But first he wanted to go racing, so he rebuilt his Camaro’s engine in his apartment living room. After hearing that “those guys race,” Morris took the finished car over to Miller’s to get it checked out. 

“The look on Johnny’s face was awesome,” Morris said, laughing. “Because now that I’m on this side of the counter, if some guy came in with an engine he installed, you think it’s going to be a train wreck. But the Camaro was detailed; you could eat off it. Everything was nice and pretty.”

Miller was so impressed, he invited Morris to join his race team on endeavors, like amateur GT-1, the Valvoline Runoffs at Road Atlanta, and eventually even the Trans Am series. Soon Morris would switch from accounting to automotive tech and join the shop’s staff as well. Starting in general service, he worked his way up to the front counter, ultimately becoming the manager. 

“Then around 2007 a guy comes in, and he’s with the FBI, asking about John,” recalls Morris. “When John came in later, I asked him if he’d killed somebody. Turns out they’re updating his security clearance. They want him back in Oak Ridge to teach the younger guys how to enrich uranium.”

Once part of WWII’s Manhattan Project, Oak Ridge, Tenn., is still home to atomic research facilities run by the Department of Energy. It was here and now that Miller wanted to end his “retirement” and get back into nuclear physics.

“So John said, ‘I’m going to sell, you’re going to buy, and here’s how we’re going to do it,’” says Morris. 

Miller owner-financed to get it started, and Morris officially took over in 2010. Ironically, accounting came in handy after all. Still, it was a tough transition from employee to owner.

“At that point you’ve been working for a paycheck, so you have no idea what expenses are,” he said, “so there’s that battle of charging enough to make a fair profit to cover expenses.” 

Morris would eventually find that balance and reinforce it with a mantra: “fair prices, good service, fix it right the first time.” To that end, he has carefully chosen both equipment and talent. 

“We’ve got a Road Force tire balancer; made a big investment in that probably 10 to 12 years ago,” he states. “It eliminates a lot of problems right out of the box. If a tire’s out of round or a wheel is bent, you don’t want to just throw it on the vehicle to find out. It also helps provide a high-end service to the high-end tire folks.” 

He finds Snap-On scan tools “infinitely updateable. The [ones we use] are subscription-based; the last time we bought one it came with a three-year subscription, so we saved quite a bit of money over the $3,500 to $3,600 fee, since it covers a 36-month period as opposed to doing $150 a month.”

Their workload is primarily Asian imports.

“Timing belt jobs, 90,000-mile service, 120,000-mile service, scheduled maintenance services,” Morris said. “Once the initial warranty period wears off, people start trickling in. You’ll lose them for a while, because they’ll go trade their car in to buy a new one, but generally those folks will come back. And it’s been generational; I know I’ve been doing this a long time because the folks who used to bring their kids in, those kids are now bringing their kids in.”

And should preventative maintenance fail, Miller’s Tire is also a Jasper Engines distributor.

“Very good product,” Morris noted. “They stand behind their warranty. We’ve had a couple engines over the years that have had problems, but we’ve pulled them out, and they’ve sent us another one, no questions asked. They’ll do the teardown, send you an analysis report, pay the labor — the customer’s happy. Its a little expensive, but this day and time there’s so much that can go wrong inside of an engine [i.e. direct injection buildup]. A Band-Aid repair just about equals what it would cost to put a new unit in.” 

Morris has also done equally well with the other half of the equation: talent.

“I’ve got seven bays and seven guys and we do just about anything,” he proclaimed. “Joe Pearman is the lead technician and part owner. Joe’s a dynamo fix-it guy. Late 30s, physically sharp, mentally sharp, very low comeback ratio; what he diagnoses and fixes is done. We’ve also got a guy who specializes on suspension; we try to keep him updated on classes and school — a lot of electric steering devices and brakes.”

Being on an advisory committee for a local community college, Morris has a heads-up on finding new talent, “but for the longest time those guys were being hand-picked by dealerships,” he explained. “Of course, the dealers have a bigger compensation package, and its tough competing with that, but you’ve got to pay them right, give them weekends off. As far as big benefits, our employees get a week’s paid vacation once they’ve been here a year, plus four paid days off. You can do this for a living, but you’ve also got to be able to live at the same time.” 

Which may have helped entice their latest hire, Andrew Buczkowski.

“He was an army MP, and being an old army guy myself, I liked him to start with,” Morris said. “I watched him on the volt-ohm meter, electronics being the thing today. If you can figure out the control area network wiring, the way things are constructed now, you’ve got a leg up on the guy who’s just been changing oil for five years. He’s got the ability to learn and lead, so it’s kind of a natural place to start. He’s been here six to seven months now.”

Their bread and butter are fleet account vehicles; service trucks and transports, as well as “national accounts like pharmaceutical reps, company cars, etc., where we’re getting brand new vehicles in,” explained Morris.

So besides attending classes offered through parts suppliers and retailers, “I encourage the guys to peek around these cars to see what’s changed so we can prepare for the next year or two.”

Morris is also preparing to improve the facility itself. Located just off Johnson City’s “motor mile,” Miller’s Tire is surrounded by dealerships, but foliage had blocked the view from this important road. 

“The trees grew but the sign didn’t,” he wryly noted. “Repair is 70 percent of our business, tires about 30 percent, and it’s been that way for years. But some people come in for tires and you tell them they need brakes, or a ball joint is going out, and they ask, ‘Where can I get that done?’” 

With the back lot cleared, parking will be expanded and a fence put up. Meanwhile the sign will be refurbished with LEDs and new panels. As a plus, one side of the building will get better, cheaper lighting through a deal Morris worked out with their neighbor. Poles with LED lights will be installed along the shared property line, which he will rent at a fraction of what it would cost to put them up himself.

“I think the LEDs are going to be $105 a month total added to the power bill and the pole rentals, but we’ll cut the sodium vapor lights off on that side of the building, so it will save us $140-150 a month.

“The whole place is eventually getting upgrades,” Morris continued. “We spent about $15,000 on the lighting out in the shop a few years ago. [An electrician] came in with a light meter and said he was going to put in half the number we had before, but we’d have twice the light. I like to work in a bright environment, so he changed the old fluorescents with T8 fixtures; it was like night and day, literally.” 

Thus Eddie Morris has created his own legacy.

“My original goal was to own a suspension specialty shop and call it ‘Bottom Line Repair,’” he said, grinning. “I graduated high school in Raleigh, N.C., so part of my plan was to go back there and work on higher end cars like Audi and Porsche. I had to do decide whether to go there and possibly make more money, or stay here where it’s more comfortable. And 30 years later, I’m still here. And it’s good.”  •

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