Chris Stephens owns Eurotech Classics in Frederick County, Maryland, an independent shop that started on Volkswagen and Audi service and moved toward vintage European cars. In 2017, when he talked with host Kevin Dubois, he was also co-hosting Garage Rehab on Discovery Channel with Richard Rawlings of Gas Monkey Garage. The show sent the hosts into struggling independent shops to clean them out and set them back up as working businesses.
Chris opened his first shop with his older brother in 2003, at about 20 years old, with very little money. By 2017 the shop was in its third location. By the time of the show he had learned most of the lessons he was teaching on TV by getting them wrong first.
This episode is full of practical advice for small service shops. Chris covered how to start without debt, how to follow the work your area actually has, where to put lifts, what idle space and junk really cost, and how to earn a new customer's trust.
Start small and skip the debt
Chris grew up around car people. He restored a Porsche 914 in high school, moved on to Volkswagen GTIs, took business classes at Montgomery College and worked as a commercial manager at Advance Auto Parts. His brother was a Volkswagen master technician who wanted his own shop, and Chris joined him.
He said a lot of people think a new shop needs a new diesel truck, a big trailer, 5,000 square feet, new lifts, an alignment rack and a dyno. In his view that's a good way to get into debt and go out of business in about three years. They started with used lifts and used toolboxes and bought better equipment only when they could pay for it. Chris never took a bank loan. If he couldn't afford something, he felt he shouldn't own it.
He thought a one- to three-person shop could make good money in about 2,500 square feet. He also had no patience for big offices. A service shop needs a clean, comfortable counter where a customer can pay or ask a question, and that's about it. The same went for toolboxes. A new tech doesn't need to go into debt to the tool truck.
Offices don't make you money. If you're in the service industry, offices don't make you money.
Follow the work your area has
The brothers opened the shop to tune Volkswagens, since that was what they loved. The work that actually came in was scheduled maintenance on Volkswagens, Audis and Mercedes, such as timing belts and water pumps. Chris fought it for a couple of years, then accepted that in his area there was no money in modifying cars. A dealer would quote around $2,000 for a timing belt job. Chris did it for about $775 out the door.
His advice was to look at your local market and take what it gives you. Near a military base, young people with spending money will pay for horsepower. In a commuter area, brakes, oil changes and scheduled service are your bread and butter. He told shop owners not to brand themselves as only a Ford or only a Chevy shop. If you can work on one car, you can work on another, so tell customers you can service the family's other vehicles too.
Where you put the lift matters
When the first shop's used lifts went in, Chris was still working at Advance Auto Parts and couldn't watch the install. The installers set one lift at an angle. For six years, backing cars off it meant denting the drywall. He said it taught him that lift placement sets the workflow of the whole shop.
He gave some numbers to work from. An older symmetrical lift, which puts half the car in front of the posts and half behind, needs at least 12 feet from the lift to the wall. An asymmetrical lift sets the car 30 percent in front and 70 percent behind, so it can sit closer to the wall. At his second shop he measured carefully and put two lifts side by side with three feet between posts, so a car never needed more than a couple of turns of the wheel to get in and out.
Before signing a lease on an older building, he recommended checking the slab. Drill a hole in an out-of-the-way spot, hook a bent coat hanger under the bottom of the concrete and measure it. He wanted at least four inches for lift anchors.
Every square foot costs rent
On Garage Rehab, Chris spent long days hauling trash out of shops. He showed one owner that a 24-by-24-inch corner, at his rent per square foot, cost about $34 a month. That corner was full of junk. Once the owner saw it that way, every inch started to look valuable.
Personal projects got the same math. Chris found plenty of half-finished cars sitting in bays. If a $5,000 car has taken up a bay for six or seven years, it has cost the owner $10,000 to $15,000 in rent, and it keeps costing more. He said a struggling shop has no room for personal projects.
Chris's action item was to find whatever is taking up space, clean it off, take good photos and list it for sale. On the show he got owners' permission and title information, then sold parts they didn't know they had.
Earn trust before you sell the big job
Chris said selling the job was the hardest part of running a service shop. Nobody is happy to walk into a repair shop. They didn't plan for the alternator to die, and they don't know if the bill will be $50 or $500. The shop has to explain the problem, show photos, and say why the work matters.
His test for any shop was to think of your mother. Would she pull in alone and feel comfortable asking a question? Is the place clean? Could she use the bathroom while she waits? With a new customer, he advised against opening with a $2,000 bill. Check the car, fix what's needed for safety, give honest timelines on the rest, and earn the return visit.
If you want to be a crook in this business, you could be a millionaire pretty quick, but you won't last very long.
He had firm views on discounts too. Friends who won't pay full price aren't really friends, and hiring friends makes it hard to tell them when their work is wrong. On customer-supplied performance parts, he told the customer up front there was no warranty. He also said to keep politics, flags and one-brand banners out of the shop.
Clean habits and the right hires
Chris was firm on cleanliness. Put every tool away and clean it before going home, even in the middle of a two-day head gasket job, so you start the morning clean. No drinking during work hours and no smoking where the smell gets into customer cars. He laid out bolts in order as they came off. On a bellhousing with a dozen different bolts, he pushed them through a piece of cardboard in clock positions, so he could reassemble days later without guessing.
On hiring, Chris said he was a perfectionist who struggled to hand off work, because a customer drives off with their family trusting the brakes you just did. He warned that if you hire cheap, you get cheap work. Test drive more than you think you need to, and only release a car you'd put your own pregnant wife in.
His shop kept changing to fit his life. In 2010 he left a building run by a management company with too many rules and moved to downtown Frederick, about five miles away. He lost no customers, and drop-offs got easier because people could walk to coffee. When the landlord there brought in messy tenants, he moved again, this time to a spot right off a major highway. While filming the show he downsized service work and built a 2,500-square-foot showroom for the vintage cars his brother was restoring.
Key takeaways
- Start with used equipment and no debt, and buy better tools only when the business can pay for them.
- Build the shop around the work your area actually brings in, even if it isn't what you hoped to do.
- Plan lift placement for workflow, and check the slab thickness before you sign a lease.
- Price your idle space and stored projects by the square foot, then sell what you don't need.
- Earn a new customer's trust with honest, staged recommendations instead of one big bill.
- Clean up and put tools away every night, and organize parts so a job can resume days later.
Running a tighter service shop with My Shop Assist
Chris's advice comes down to knowing where your time, space and money go. My Shop Assist helps a small service shop see that. Every job carries its tasks, parts, purchase orders and photos, so you can show a customer what you found and why it matters. Technicians log time on each task. You can text customers updates and approvals, take payments, use checklists to make sure every car gets a final check, and export finished jobs to QuickBooks. Learn more about MSA for independent service and repair shops.
If you're starting small or cleaning up an existing shop, start a free 30-day trial.
