Jerry McCabe owns over 80 acres of pasture land and manages over 25 head of cattle, but, though he loves farming, his main vocation is auto repair. McCabe is the proprietor of McCabe Repairs, a fixture in Preston for the past 18 years. To get to McCabe Repairs you pass by a charming restored farmhouse and continue to a large red outbuilding that sits, at least metaphorically, at the center of McCabe’s farm. While McCabe’s first love may be cattle farming, his livelihood for the past 18 years has been servicing the cars and trucks of Preston and surrounding cities. “Farming is my hobby, “ McCabe jokes. “I’ve never just farmed. It’s not enough. You have to do it for fun because there is no big money in it.”
McCabe and his wife, Pam, grew up in the Bluffton/Burr Oak, Iowa area and moved to Preston in 1987 when they purchased their farm, located just east of the Poet Biorefining complex off Highway 52. McCabe recalled as a young couple, he and his wife purchased the property with some trepidation. “It was a hard place to look at because it wasn’t very nice. When we first walked in the house there was a dead mouse hanging from the ceiling. Good thing we were freshly married,” McCabe laughed.
McCabe and his wife have made lots of improvements over time. “The only thing that’s original is the house,” McCabe noted. Over time they added all the outbuildings, including the auto shop. In their early years of marriage, McCabe worked for other repair businesses, including Greenway Coop in Chatfield, a full-service station, and K&R Equipment in Fountain, a small engine repair shop. In 1999 McCabe decided to go off on his own and launched McCabe Repairs.
McCabe is a self-taught mechanic. “You learn by doing it wrong the first time and do it right the second time,” he joked. When McCabe first started his business he mostly worked on small engines. “That’s what I did at K&R,” he recalled, “when I came here a lot of lawn mower owners followed me. But, you’d starve to death working on them (mowers). It’s a seasonal thing, so I had to do other things that I know.” McCabe then began working on cars and trucks.
McCabe and his wife have three children, Amanda, Alex and Adam. They are all grown now, but McCabe reminisced about the early days when money was tight and with three children the cost/benefit of both spouses working outside the home and sending their kids to daycare didn’t seem to be working out. “The daycare bills were getting too outrageous with three kids in daycare. My youngest was four when I started the shop. It was great,” McCabe recalled, noting that after opening his shop on his farm property, “I never missed a t-ball game.” Once his three children got older, they joined McCabe in the shop frequently to help out. “When we started we (washed vehicle) windows inside and out on the oil changes. My kids helped a lot,” he smiled in recollection.
Transitioning his shop from small engines to car and truck repair is certainly the biggest change McCabe has seen in his 18 years in business. The advent of computerized vehicle diagnosis is another big development. McCabe uses a handheld device that he hooks up to vehicles to download codes, then uploads the codes to one of two web-based programs that read the codes and provide potential causes of a vehicle’s trouble. McCabe recalled one situation where a customer’s car repeatedly stalled out when coming to a stop. The customer told McCabe: “I go up to a stop sign and it’ll quit and it won’t start. I have to tow it home. Then by the time I get it home, it will start.” McCabe used the computer program to diagnose the vehicle issue. The program told him there was a ground wire under the back seat that may be the source of the trouble. McCabe investigated and found the ground wire had rotted off. Replacing the wire fixed the problem.
Currently, McCabe and has one long-time employee, Monty Darling, working with him in the shop. The two of them do general auto repairs including work on tires, brakes, exhaust systems, transmission, and engines. The shop does roughly 25-30 oil changes a week. “I’m in the works of trying to hire another guy,” McCabe said, “We need three of us to keep things going.” McCabe Repairs opens its doors at 8 a.m. weekdays, but, being a small business owner, closing time isn’t set in stone. “Sometimes you work till seven, sometimes you work till four,” McCabe noted.
If you go to McCabe Repairs for service you are likely to be greeted by an unpaid staff member, McCabe’s Norwegian Elkhound, Kya. Kya greets most customers with a friendly lick. She is especially fond of McCabe’s auto parts delivery drivers who often give her treats when they stop by. Kya knows their vehicles by heart and rushes out to greet them. Customers also tend to enjoy her company as they sit waiting for work to be completed on their vehicles.
McCabe has encountered many perplexing vehicle problems over the years. He recalled one situation where a customer’s car would repeatedly stall while driving down the road. The customer would go back to the car a little later and it would start right up. After much investigation McCabe determined the cause was simply a loose battery cable. “You only get a few minutes with most vehicles (to diagnose a problem),” McCabe stated, “To diagnose it’s problem in just a few hours can be very hard.” McCabe acknowledged the value in having customers provide as much detail about what their vehicle is doing, what noises it makes, what precedes or follows a problem they are having with their vehicle to help him more quickly diagnose the vehicle’s problem. “That saves them a lot, “ he said, acknowledging the benefit that a customer’s detailed observations about a vehicle can have on diagnosis.
Of course, anything a customer can do to avoid a vehicle problem in the first place will also save them money. McCabe recommends they have their vehicles looked over before winter. “Check your batteries, antifreeze, tire tread,” he advises.
McCabe Repairs is located at 23012 Ivy Road, Preston. Their phone number is (507) 765-2404.
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