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| Written by Aaron Cedeño | |||
| Wednesday, 27 January 2010 08:00 | |||
About 18 months ago, Larry Fields started to notice a change in his business.  As the national economy continued its downward slide, people in Louisburg were affected right along with the rest of the nation. As a result, money became a little bit tighter. “Even Bill Gates has cut back something,” said Fields, the proprietor of FDL Tire and Auto, with a smile. “Everybody cuts back. Maybe he didn’t cut back like the rest of us did, but he’s cut back somewhere.” One place his customers haven’t cut back, however, is on how much money they’re willing to spend to keep their current or older model vehicles up and running. Quite the opposite, in fact. Today’s drivers are more conscious about certain elements of their car’s overall health, Fields explained. If a $5,000 car breaks down and has a $1,000 repair tag attached to it, just two years ago he would see an inclination on the part of the owner to trade it in and begin the search for a new vehicle. Now, he said, times have changed. FDL is doing more mechanical work than ever before, but it comes at a cost. Standing next to a tire he replaced on Monday afternoon, Fields pointed out the steel showing through the rubber — a tire worn dangerously thin. As big-ticket replacement and repair work has increased, people are frequently pushing their tires and oil, expenditures typically regarded as comparatively minor to something such as engine work, beyond the point of safety, he said. It doesn’t help that tires are perhaps more expensive now than ever before, after President Barack Obama implemented a three-year tariff on tires imported from China in September. The tariff adds an additional 35-percent tax in its first year, and decreases by five-percent every following year. Prior to the tariff’s implementation, Chinese-made tires had overtaken a significant share of the market in the United States. “It made very little news coverage because it’s not the Afghanistan war or health care, and at that time in September nothing else made the news,” Fields said. “But it hits everybody’s pocket.” Nick White, owner of White’s Automotive, has noticed a similar trend. The economy has played a big part in his customer base’s willingness to invest more money in their current vehicles. In years past, he said, it used to be unusual to see a car enter their garage with more than 100,000 miles on it, White said. Today, it’s a much more common occurrence. “A hundred thousand used to be quite a few miles, but any more that’s pretty much the norm,” he explained. “A lot of these cars come with 200,000 or 300,000 miles on them.” Some of the best advice he felt he had for consumers was to engage in preventative care. In addition to bringing in a vehicle every 3,000-5,000 miles for an oil change and tune-up, he said, cars often come with a recommended list of repairs and checks to be made at larger mileage intervals. Spending a little bit more now, White said, can prevent a larger bill down the road. “A lot of times they’ll want your transmission fluid changed, tires rotated and breaks checked,” he said. “Everything checked and inspected.” It’s not uncommon for them to catch a car on the verge of a major breakdown, Fields added, one that could potentially cost the driver thousands of dollars to fix. “They’ll say ‘Boy, it’s a good thing I came,’” he said, with a laugh. “And I’ll say ‘Yeah, it sure is.’”
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