Originally published Saturday, October 31, 1998

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

"Often it's the little things that are important to customers. The lady who owns this car isn't going to remember the new timing belt or the fuel injectors or the other major work we did. She's going to drive away happy that we repaired her windshield washers."

And Kinnon Mackinnon is going to be happy that he helped another customer because "that's one of the best things about this business -- being able to help people."

There certainly isn't any shortage of motorists needing help in the Totem Lake area of Kirkland, where Kinnon has his K&M Automotive shop. Sure, there are some new sidewalks, but 99 percent of folks hereabouts are driving to or through this busy spot between Interstate 405 and the Sammamish Valley.

Most of them don't even know where the actual Totem Lake is, but many know where Kinnon is doing business, even after several changes of locations in the past decade. I know, because I've been a customer since he ran a busy little car repair business in a gas station just a piece up the hard road toward Woodinville.

Kinnon is the kind of mechanic who spells out your repair options . . . in advance and with several cost options. He'll also be the first to tell you when "it's about time you thought about selling this car," instead of leading you down the nickel-and-dime path. That reputation for concern for customers spreads like dandelions and mole hills on the East Side.

"A customer who just moved here from New York said he read about my shop on some Internet listing of reliable auto repair shops," Kinnon said with just a hint of pride. "Someone else told me that the shop was listed on some sort of internal network for Microsoft workers."

Fact is, he's never spent a dime on advertising. And on a budget based primarily with expansion to meet demand, why should he? "One couple drives all the way up from Olympia just for oil changes and whatever else they might need. And a retired Boeing guy who used to live around here now calls for appointments and drives all the way from Ellensberg," Kinnon said.

Although "much of the business these days is 'jiffy this' and 'quick that,' we're one of a small group of independent do-everything shops," he said. "We do everything except exhaust systems and automatic transmissions, which we contract out. There are several other small independents in this area, and we all have a sort of network where we can swap tools or advice on how to handle such 'n' such a problem."

Less than a year ago, his business was in a 2,400-square-foot shop just down the alleyway of automotive businesses east of 132nd Place Northeast. "We had to move two or three cars every time we wanted to get another car into the shop, so we moved here and got 3,500 square feet and two more service bay doors. And we're still having to move cars around to get at the work!" he said.

Not bad for a 36-year-old high school dropout who pretty much learned the auto repair trade one greasy part at a time, from the time he was 16, pumping gas and detailing cars and leaning over the shoulders of mechanics and asking questions. "I read a lot and studied to pass that first ASE (Automotive Service Excellence) certification test," he said. "But I was lucky to be breaking in about the same time onboard car computers and emission testing were happening. A lot of old-timers got out of the business about then."

Kinnon, then just a few years married to Brenda, an accountant, got out of the business just briefly. He almost took a sales job, he said, because he was disenchanted after a gas station owner declined to expand to accommodate Kinnon's growing auto-repair part of the operation. "But friends and customers kept calling the house and asking for help. I sat down with Brenda and figured out I could make this thing fly."

Well, sort of. Kinnon maxed a credit card for tools and equipment and began operating a car-repair business out of his own 500-square-foot garage. "It was so tight that when I worked on trucks, I had to let most of the air out of their tires so they'd be low enough to get into the garage!"

Letting air out of the tires didn't work when there was so much business that Brenda couldn't park in her own garage on winter nights. That was about 11 years ago, when Kinnon again maxed credit cards and moved the business to Totem Lake. And now, after less than a year in even larger space, he's looking to buy land and an even bigger building. "Something that I can pay off in 20 more years and then go fishing!" he quips.

For the first time in more than a decade, he can take an occasional long weekend and leave the shop in the capable hands of mechanics Shawn Bruno and Mike Tregear. "And I'm hiring a fourth, full-timer, this month," Kinnon said. Cars are already stacking up outside and there are phones ringing.

"This may not be as profitable as doing only one kind of repair, or working on just one kind of car, but that would drive me crazy," he confessed. "So would working for someone else. I like being my own boss, and doing things the way I want to, instead of taking orders.

"Best of all, I like dealing with the people. If I can, say, help a single mom keep her car running and the cost down . . . actually helping people, then I feel good about it. It feels pretty good to have clients that trust you."

I do.

K & M Automotive is at 13209 N.E. 126th Place, a long stone's throw east of the state vehicle emission-testing station on the east edge of the Totem Lake business district. Phone: 425-820-2027. Hours: Weekdays, by appointment, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.