Empire Autohaus

We're here today talking with Karen and Alan Aple at Empire Auto House in Pell I didn't know That'so crazy to me. It's a fabulous secret. How long have you been in Pell 11 years. Wow. So what brought you to Pell An act of God I t Okay, okay. I took early retirement from Mercedes Benz, from the plant, and had this idea to start a business and was driving around looking for all right, well and you know Pell It's good to have a community Tell me a little bit about your business and how you came to decide to do what you do. Well I was responsible for product training for Mercedes Benz globally for all the markets where we sold the car and I had I've always been interested in European and English cars and it was a natural fit to choose to work on European cars if I were to start such a business. So how many employees do you have helping you? Is it just you or do you have a couple other guys? In the shop here we have myself and two other guys and the friend office staff. What do you enjoy about these cars? Because when I pulled up on the lot I'm just kind of I feel Well a European car is a passionate somet It's not an appliance you just buy and hope it lasts for a few years and then you throw it away in a junk yard. You love it and I've fallen in love with them since I've had them w Starting in the 70s when I started working on cars hardly anybody built a decent car the only interesting ones came from Europe and it's just been a passion ever since. Okay and for you Karen what do you love about t I am we work together daily the customers I love we have a great customer base community is great and I get to work with my husband every day. For some people that wouldn't be a good t I was very chosen people can't do that but we do it very well that's good that seems So what do you gots to offer? Oh goodness I have a Mercedes. We have one of every German car except a Porsche and three Elfa Romeo's and Austin Healey because another part of our business is old sports cars w Okay and so we own a little bit of each of those. Okay what is your typical customer? Our typical customer is from Shelby County we're kind of the go-to place for European repair in Shelby County. Good reputation. And I would say many of them more than 50% female an equal mix of BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen and Audi I would bet it splits up in t When we started the business we worked on any imports and then we finally decided to specialize in German cars and that has been a good advantage to us. Okay let's talk for a minute about maintenance. Maintaining your cars just such a really big deal. What's a couple of tips you could give people on maintenance that they can do themselves before they have to bring it into you? Most cars don't lend themselves to self maintenance anymore. Mine doesn't wash itself either. Understanding what the indicators on your dashboard mean, what to take seriously, the yellow means caution just That's a good point. Basically following the scheduled maintenance w You need to put in the proper fluids, oils are specific, people t It has to meet the manufacturer'spec, there's a European grade of synthetic and mobile one makes some of every type just because you bought mobile one doesn't mean it's the Euro spec. So you need to trust your service provider to do those t You need to do everyt Absolutely we do everyt We do a little bit of everyt Actually we do some upholstery on the old cars but that's not a main business. Awesome, So tell me where folks can find you at physically and online. Okay we're at 270 Jager Parkway which is across from s Our website is empireautohouse. com and house is HAUS Absolutely. Okay and are you on Facebook or any of the social media? Yes we're on Facebook and our n Okay thank you so much Becky.