By Robert Bravender
Some things start with a purpose, others evolve. Oak Ridge, Tenn., was specifically founded in 1942 to manufacture fissionable material for use in the Manhattan Project, the secret government program which developed the atom bomb. On the other hand, Wheel 2 Wheel of Oak Ridge began as a detail shop, became a collision center, and eventually spun off a repair shop.
“I was 19 when I started it in ’97,” recounted owner Chris Lane. “At the time, I was in my second year of college and working full time, but then got laid off.”
Having detailed cars on the side since high school, Lane decided to take a chance and make a career of it. Using money from his severance package, he opened the original detail business in a two-bay garage in Kingston. For the first six to eight months he did everything himself, even offering free pickup and delivery.
“I had a few dealerships that fed me work,” he related. “They were buying repos that had been treated badly, and I would take them apart—seats out, carpet out, put them up on a lift. I’d spend two or three days on them, so what I did was more like a $450 to $500 detail job.”
His meticulousness brought in more work, and Lane realized he’d have to hire some help.
“But when you do that, you realize there’s an obligation to keep money in the employees’ pockets,” he observed. “They usually had financial responsibilities, families. I didn’t have a family at the time, but I went out and got even more work for them.”
One of his sources was a body shop down the road.
“They would feed me work, like water and fire damage claims through insurance,” Lane said. “Within about two years I was buying wrecks myself, fixing them up and selling them. But before too long, you’d sell a car to a person who had a wreck, and they’d come to you with an insurance check—that’s when the light bulb came on.”
Having spent nearly a decade as a third party vendor, by 2006 Lane was all set to enter this lucrative new market.
“I already had contacts, had planned out who I was going to hire, the start date, everything,” he said.
His location would have to change, however. Being that the body shop that originally helped him into this market was less than a mile away, Lane decided the only ethical thing he could do was to move—28 miles away to Oak Ridge.
“It just made a whole lot more sense,” he explained. “It’s a much, much bigger market; there are three defense plants there so the average income was higher than normal; plus the majority of my work was coming out of Oak Ridge anyway.”
When they first moved, Lane reports that Wheel 2 Wheel was still doing about $400,000 a year in detailing, “so that kept us afloat for a good six months. But after we got going in the collision industry and really started rolling in the repair orders, we cut down the detail department to only two detailers.”
The new facility was about 7,500 sq. ft., and Lane outfitted it with a Track Liner frame machine, a Global downdraft paint booth, and a welding rig. To man this he eventually settled on employing two body men, a painter, and a quality assurance/detailer. Comfortably established, he was vaguely thinking about future expansion when something came to town to hasten his plans.
During the winter of 2010–2011, Oak Ridge suffered a major hail storm. And while this brought tons of work to all body technicians in the area, it’s what followed that caught Lane’s attention: a national paint shop chain came courting all the major collision centers with buyout offers, including his.
But Lane had seen this happen before in Knoxville; negotiations would drag on and probably take half a year. So instead of winding down his operation down like some of the other prospects, he did the opposite—he expanded, starting a towing company, a glass replacement service, even a mechanical repair shop.
“And low and behold, we didn’t get bought out,” he laughed.
Yet for all this rapid expansion, Lane noted that it was more like a return to form in this industry—the services he now offers were once handled by body shops. Everything except auto repair operates out of the body shop, the repair facility being located just down the road.
“We have an in-house glass guy,” explained Lane, as he started listing the services he offers. “Sometimes he’ll help out doing other things, but he stays busy with glass work most of the time. We have all the special tools required: racks, chip repair systems, tools to cut windshields out, battery-operated urethane guns and equalizers. We just bought a little Ford Transit Connect van that we’re going to put on the road and go mobile with it. That’s going to start growing here pretty soon.”
For towing he has six trucks: two wreckers, three rollbacks and a four-car rollback he uses to help auto dealers transfer vehicles from wreck auctions.
“There are several auto transport load boards you can subscribe to that keeps that four-car hopping,” Lane said. “The other trucks I designate to police calls, motor clubs and cash calls.”
For those he has four drivers on call 24/7.
“Each has their own iPad,” explained Lane. “We have a software system that dispatches the work orders out to them. We’re on three different rotations, Tennessee Highway Patrol and two local police departments. Plus there’s some things coming down the pike this year that will expand that also. You have to attend to it every day just like everything else; it’s expensive to get into; but it’s low overhead.”
While Lane’s detailing department isn’t what it used to be, they still get some business from wholesalers and dealers.
“We do water and air-leak detection, dyeing, paint correction, fix wheels,” he explained. “There’s also a lot of off-the-street business we still do.”
About a quarter of a mile away, the repair shop is an old 14,000 sq. ft. dealership Lane bought in 2013. It employs five technicians: three A-level, two lube techs; as well as two service writers. He admits getting into the repair side of the industry was a change of pace, “but we had done mechanical work in one bay for years, so it wasn’t that big of an ordeal.”
Except when it came naming the new shop.
“Everybody thought I’d name the new shop Wheel 2 Wheel Mechanical,” Lane explained. “But in case I someday sell the body shop, I wanted to be able to secure my income; I couldn’t have two shops with the same name.”
So until he could come up with a new moniker, Lane asked the City of Oak Ridge if he could operate under a no-name basis. They answered in the negative—so the business was listed as “No-Name Repair Shop” for about six months until 2014. That’s when Lane had an idea…
Not one to pass up a promotional opportunity, he held a public contest to name the repair shop. People submitted suggestions, and the consensus proved to be—quite naturally—People’s Choice Automotive Repair.
“What better way to get the community involved?” said Lane. “I put signs up everywhere with ‘HelpUsNameOurShop.com,’ and you could go onto this website, put in your name, phone number, address, vehicle type, good experiences, bad experiences, and of course, a suggestion for the name.
Lane optimistically thought he’d get about 60 or 70 submissions; he ended up with 1,843.
“I just took them all and added them to my customer database of about 6,000 people that we market to all the time for all four companies.”
In some ways, starting out in detailing could be seen as a quest for perfection.
“Nothing’s ever perfect, and you’re always chasing that,” Lane mused, “but it’s satisfying as a reward more than anything. If you detail something or fix something, watching it drive away is its own reward. We’ve got to have money to get by in life, but you’ve got to put it into the right spot sometimes, so if you do the right things it will come along by itself.” •