March 6, 2019—An auto service center in Illinois will close by the end of March. WJBC reports that Fred Groves Servicenter of Bloomington, Ill., will close its doors after years in business.
Fred's wife, Sandy Groves, told WJBC that the industry changing it's focus from repairs to replacement was a large reason the business decided to close, the station reports, along with Fred turning 80 in June.
“The tire business went away, so what we had was our auto repair business, which was very good,” Sandy said to WJBC. “Now technology is changing that whole industry, too, so that with this type of an operation in this location, it’s time had come.”
Sandy told WJBC that Fred focused on taking care of customers at the business.
“His problem was he [often] underestimated what it needed to do the job,” Sandy said to WJBC. “As we got further along in time, he no longer really could do that and try to compete. That was just in his nature. If he knew of a way to fix something rather than paying big bucks for somebody to totally replace it, he would fix it.”
The business holds a lot of memories with both customers and employees.
“He still has with him one employee who’s been him for almost 40 years, right out of high school,” Sandy said to WJBC. “This person is the best mechanic auto tech anywhere around and we still have him with us. One of the reasons we tried to stay in business for so long is we were almost staying in business for our employees because they’ve done such good work for us.”
