When Suzanne and I bought Lowell's back in July, a lot of our friends and family wondered why the business focused exclusively on Toyota brands (Toyota, Lexus, and Scion). There are historical reasons, but there are also significant benefits to our customers.
At first, specializing in one brand seems like a very limiting choice, since only a fraction of the cars on the road are Toyotas. Why not serve the whole market?
There are three basic reasons we specialize:
- It makes us better. With cars becoming more and more complex, keeping detailed knowledge of the unique properties of all of the brands becomes impossible. By getting specialized training for Toyota, we're better able to recognize problems unique to Toyota vehicles.
- It makes us faster. Our specialized knowledge lets us diagnose and repair problems faster than a multi-brand repair shop can. We also stock a variety of original Toyota parts so that we can perform most maintenance or repair in the same day as the vehicle came in.
- It makes us more affordable. Servicing today's more complicated vehicles requires very specific parts and equipment, which is costly to keep across multiple brands. By focusing exclusively on Toyota, we can keep our inventories smaller and our equipment more up-to-date. These lower costs help us keep prices lower.
Finally, this combination of better, faster, and more affordable reinforces itself: When we have deeper expertise, we provide superior service faster, which helps us keep costs (ours and yours) lower.
[where: 111 Mechanic St, Lexington, KY 40507]