Each bay is occupied for an average of two to eight hours. All 22 bays are usually filled, often forcing Rabaut to turn away customers. It took years to make it happen, and awhile for it to catch on and generate profits.īut go there any weekend now and the 18,000-square foot building buzzes with engines revving, metal tools clanking on concrete and impact wrenches humming. Rabaut envisioned a compound where people can rent a service bay and tools to do their own car repairs. 'So I said a prayer, ‘Lord, what can I do? What else can I do?’ and then it happened. 'I thought I have no way to retire, I’m getting old, but I want to send my kids to college. I just saw no way out,' said Rabaut. My Mechanics Place is the brainchild of Jay Rabaut, 55, a Livonia native who got the initial idea for the business in the mid-1980s while in the Navy and then envisioned the model for it nine years ago.Ī plumber by trade and father to nine children, Rabaut was driving home in the fall of 2010 with a heavy heart.

'And I'm saving thousands doing it myself.'

I don't have the tools to do the repairs and apartments won't let you work in the building parking lots,' said Denny. He's learned the repairs by watching YouTube videos, he said. People can rent tools, too.ĭenny's doctor told him about My Mechanics Place, so he started coming earlier this year, typically once a week, spending five to eight hours on each visit working on his car. To rent a bay with a lift costs $25 an hour one without a lift is $12.

'It can be a pain do it yourself, but it's worth it to save $1,500 to $2,000,' Denny said.ĭenny is a regular customer at My Mechanics Place in Livonia, a massive garage on Plymouth Road with 22 service bays, a paint booth, a machine shop and U-Haul distribution. He grins when acknowledging he's paying to fix his own car, knowing he'll end up saving a lot. Rented tools are splayed out on the concrete floor around him.ĭenny, 24, has replaced brakes before, but he now faces a new challenge: Replace the shocks and the trailing arm bushing in the suspension. View Gallery: My Mechanics Place in Livonia, a do-it yourself garageĭetroit resident Patrick Denny shimmies out from under his jacked-up 2006 black Ford Focus sedan.

Do it yourself auto repair shop near me