A-1 Auto Repair Wins Loyal Customers with Honesty and Reliability

2024 SmallBiz Editor’s Choice Award winner: Owner Bubba Smith, a former Navy aircraft-engine mechanic, works on everything from Hondas to Ferraris.

Surgeons and auto mechanics. They use different tools, but when it comes to these professions, it all comes down to trust. Bubba Smith, the owner of A-1 Auto Repair in Kalihi, understands this dynamic well.

He says that in auto repair, “the field has a reputation that at a lot of places, you will get ripped off.” He focuses instead on being reliable and honest. “I tell my employees: Whatever you’re doing on a customer’s car, it’s like you’re doing it for my mom’s car. I wouldn’t want my mom driving around in an unsafe car.”

Smith is from Mobile, Alabama, where he grew up tinkering with vehicle repairs alongside mechanics in his family. He furthered his passion for hands-on problem-solving with a career in the U.S. Navy as an aircraft engine mechanic.

After he left the military, he worked as the head mechanic at A-1, then took over as owner in 2009. It was a scary time. “Because of the recession, business had dropped off,” he recalls. But the business survived and these days, the team has four employees and hopes to add another mechanic. In 2022, A-1 received a Carfax top rated service center award.

The shop usually has 10 to 15 cars in at a time. “Some are in here for the day and some for longer, like if we’re doing an engine change,” he explains. “Whatever comes in the door, we try to help everyone we can. We’ve had everything from old Hondas to Ferraris and Lamborghinis and Maseratis.”

Smith does some volunteer car-repair work with area churches. “We try to help people out who are not as fortunate; it’s one of our ways to donate back to our society,” he says.

Two factors make car maintenance trickier in the Islands, he says. One is the wait-time for parts to arrive. “Sometimes we wait over a month for parts,” he says. “We get more frustrated than the customers do!” The other is the traffic on O‘ahu, which causes cars to linger in idle or to run at very low speeds, which over time can hurt the catalytic converter, as well as other car parts.

“I tell people to take the car out for a drive when there’s no traffic. Get it up to freeway speeds and hold it as long as you can.” Sounds like good advice for a small business, too.