Uncategorized | Stews Garage

Fresh New Look

August 8, 2022July 21, 2022 by Stew

Bright New Paint and Lights!

The inside is looking like a brand new space! Our fresh paint has dried and it looks so much better inside than what it used to be! The old yellow/tan paint covered in a few decades of grease is officially gone. We matched our Kirkland location with the same two-tone grey and white look for a nice bright and clean appearance. The white helps reflect as much light as possible while the grey down low helps reduce visible dirt/grease/grime before it can get wiped up. That’s not the only fresh new paint though.

Fresh Outside Look Too!

Is it a new building, or just a fresh coat of paint? You’d have to forgive some people for thinking it’s a new building because other than the shape, the building is very different now! No more pale yellow and red paint, say hello to our fresh color scheme of grey and Stew’s blue! While Kirkland may remain yellow outside, it is not by choice, so we weren’t going to let our Auburn location suffer the same fate. We didn’t want to leave the clean looks to just the inside, and we knew this color scheme would look great for years to come. Next up on the visual changes list is our big sign on the street that’s had a coming soon banner over it. We are excited to have the new sign panels put in!

So What's Left?

Our electrical inspection just happened and we are now signed off on that. We still need to get our fire safety permits done, and there’s still lots of finishing work to go. We also are awaiting on a garage door to arrive so we can have all 10 bays ready to go. We are also working on hiring a whole new team to staff the Auburn location. We have started the hiring process so we can start training them in Kirkland to be ready when we open later this year. Right now we are focusing on getting the workbenches in place and stocked with tools. We are getting closer and closer to announcing a grand opening day, but for now we have to wait a bit longer. We know everyone is very excited, and we are too!

Can't wait and need to work on your car now? Click the Book Now button to make an appointment in Kirkland!

What’s the latest on Auburn?

February 18, 2022February 10, 2022 by Stew

What's The Latest On The Auburn Location?

I’m glad you asked! We made a special page just for this question that will be updated regularly to reflect the progress being made. But I will also take some time to go over what that latest news is, and what’s on the horizon for the new location. We are still numerous months away from being open, and we appreciate your patient excitement! You can get to that page by clicking here, or clicking Auburn in the main menu.

The equipment liquidation auction happens February 23rd to March 2nd online at James G. Murphy. When we took over the space, we took on the challenge of liquidating all the old tools and equipment from the previous business. If you have any interest in some of the stuff, check out the auction listing by clicking here!

We are in the process of hiring a contractor to do the improvement work to the space. It was originally built in the late 80s, and needs some updating. We plan to bring in 40+ new light fixtures, 20+ drops of additional power outlets, a whole new air piping system, and a lot more in the shop area. We will also be constructing a new office/reception area complete with storage for stocked parts.

Lastly, some signage has gone up! We’ve got our coming soon temporary banner on our big sign on Auburn Way. We’re in the process of getting the permanent one done, and adding some signage to the building. We’ve got more in store for the exterior that we’ll be ready to share later!

What About Improvements To The Kirkland Location?

Don’t you worry, we’d never forget about the Kirkland location! We’ve recently completed phase 1 of the upgrade to the back area that has the press, vise, and other equipment. It used to be semi organized chaos back there, but now it’s much cleaner and better setup for your use. This was a big request in the feedback survey we ran in October, so it was a priority for us to address. We added an additional 20 ton hydraulic press to ease waiting for the press when we have multiple people who need one. We’ve also organized our press tools into a 48″ wide toolbox that’s right there in the press room. Less time wasted digging around for tooling is the goal.

On top of that, we’ve added another vise to the area, as well as a better drill press, new grinder wheels, and a belt sander. We also purchased a portable band saw that will come in handy for cutting all sorts of things. Our goal was to make the area match our bays for the quality of tools, equipment, and organization. We think you’ll enjoy using this space when you come in and need to use it!

Loyalty Program Coming Soon™

I don’t have many details to share, but once again this was a popular request in the feedback survey. I’ve evaluated multiple of the top loyalty management systems, and we are in the process of selecting one and setting up a program. In keeping with the theme of this blog post, it’s coming soon! What I can tell you is that it will be a points system, and there will be multiple ways to earn points. There will be the typical ways of points earned per spend, as well as referral points rewards. The plan is for the points to essentially be a cash credit system, where the points you earn can be redeemed as credit on your invoice when you’d like to use it. We look forward to what we can offer with this loyalty system, as I think it will address a few of the requests from the feedback survey. As for a timeline, I don’t have an exact date, but I can say it is going to be no later than June. We are actively working on this, and will launch it after some testing to make sure it works well for both us and you.

Are You Offering Classes Yet?

We are preparing to start classes again soon. We’ve done some private classes for local clubs recently, and they’ve been well received by their members. This has allowed us to fine tune how we would like to teach classes, and how many people we can work with at one time. We are working on creating a monthly class schedule that will teach a lot of the basics of auto repair. There are no dates yet, but we expect this to be announced in the next 2 months. There will be limited number of spots available as when the group gets too big, it makes it difficult to teach in an impactful way. Be sure to keep an eye out for this announcement, as when the class fills up, we won’t be able to add spots.

Need to work on your car? Make an appointment to rent a bay today!

New Year, New Stew’s Location

January 2, 2022 by Stew

New Year, New Stew's Self Service Garage Location

What a way to end the year! On December 30th, 2021 we signed a lease on a building in Auburn, WA! We started this process in September of 2021, and were able to get it across the finish line to end the year. We are so excited to finally add another location, serving an even greater geographic area in Washington. The hunt for a second location has been on going for the past 2-3 years. We’ve primarily focused on going South, for a couple reasons I’ll outline below. We wouldn’t settle for a building that didn’t exactly fit our needs, leading to the search taking some time. I’m happy to say, an ideal location has been found!

Our plan is to operate a total of 10 DIY bays in the space. We plan to have 8 2-post lifts, and 2 4-post lifts. We’ll also be able to have a sizable tool room, and should be able to accommodate more specialty type tools and equipment. There is still a lot of work to do on the building, but we’ll detail that below!

The Search

We started looking for another location about 2-3 years ago. While buildings would pop up in the search, there wasn’t anything really grabbing our attention as an ideal location. We stayed patient and in September 2021 our broker, Matt, came through. The old Stan’s Headers building was hitting the market, and we jumped on top of the opportunity. I got down there and toured it a couple days later and recognized this is what we were looking for. The building would allow direct drive in bays, and we’d be able to have 10 bays. There are other factors that go into the ideal location, but that post would become exceptionally long. It was exciting to tour a building and immediately the vision was there on how a Stew’s Self Service Garage would work there.

Since it was originally built for an automotive business, there are a lot of things that are in place that will make this building great for us. The parking lot is flat, and the entrance is not steep which will be a welcome sight for those in low cars. The building was built specifically to accommodate direct drive in bays, making getting into a bay a lot easier for people instead of needing to make multi-point turns inside the building. Because it was originally an exhaust shop, they’d run the cars a lot, and this design allows you to easily run a hose to the outside and not have to worry about fuming everyone out inside. Overall, we are loving everything about this building and location!

Why did we focus on looking for a location more in the South end? While we do receive requests to put a garage in numerous locations, South was by far and large the most requested. We also have an existing customer base in the area to help support this location at opening. Both of those factors greatly influenced our decision to make our second location South of our original in Kirkland. I look forward to the success of our South end location, as it will allow us continued expansion throughout the state and greater North West area.

What's Next?

We are so incredibly excited to share the news with everyone! What’s next though is a lot of waiting sadly. We are in the process of getting to the permitting stage for the building improvements we need to make. The other thing is liquidating a lot of the equipment and other stuff in the building as we won’t have a use for it. Part of the deal was that we would liquidate all the equipment, so we’ve got some work to do on that front as well. I’d love to be able to share an opening date with you in this blog post, but we aren’t quite ready for that announcement yet. We are on track for a 2022 opening, but we aren’t sure if that will be mid or late 2022 yet.

There is a lot of work to be done, from building improvements, to tool and equipment purchases, to hiring, and more. There’s lessons to be learned, and mistakes to make, but I’m excited for the new challenge. I wrote the business plan for Stew’s Self Service Garage in my dorm room in the winter of 2012. It took almost 2 years to open the first location, and all I wanted was to just get open and see what would happen. After a few years of operations and learning a lot, I just wanted to get to opening a second location. We are now 7 years past the opening of our first location, and we are getting ready to open the next one. This is an exciting chapter, and I am really looking forward to starting it.

As this is an expansion, our Kirkland location will remain open. You’ll see some minor changes in Kirkland as we test out things for our second location, but it will remain largely the same.

I can’t wait to see you all at the grand opening for Stew’s Self Service Garage in Auburn! For now, I’ll leave you with a gallery of the building as it is now.

Stew's Self Service Garage Auburn - As Pictured in December 2021

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7 Years Old!

November 28, 2021November 15, 2021 by Stew

We've made it 7 years!

7 Years is officially in the books for Stew’s Self Service Garage! It’s amazing to reflect every year on not just what we did in the previous year, but also reflecting upon where we started. It’s a very stark contrast from the beginnings to now. We pour any profits we have into upgrading equipment, adding equipment, and doing our best to offer livable wages and amazing benefits to our staff. With our aggressive reinvestment we have upgraded nearly every aspect of the shop area, and many behind the scenes systems to make renting a bay easier. There are still areas of improvement, and there are also things we wanted to get feedback on to see what matters most to you, our amazing clients. We received hundreds of responses from you all, and we have been reading and compiling all the responses over the past weeks to prioritize what we can do to make the service even better. I’m excited to give you all a sneak peak as to what we have already begun working on, and what is to come next.

Work/Press Area

First, the most neglected area of the garage is certainly our back work area where the press is. For years it has been unorganized and chaotic back there. This was something we’ve been aiming to fix, but kept getting put on the back burner. One of the more requested things from your feedback was to improve that area, and bring it up to par with the work bays. I’m excited to say that we have already begun the efforts to fix that area. We have purchased a large L shaped stainless work bench that will have 2 vises, a drill press, bench grinder, chop saw, and belt sander on it. Below it we will have cabinets for storage, as well as drawer cabinets to house the spare bolts and hardware. We are also adding a 48″ toolbox with stainless steel work surface on top to house all of our press tools. This will provide a final home for all of our press tools, as well as a work area while using the presses. Yes, I said presses, because we are also going to add another 20 ton press. Too many times recently we have had more than 1 person needing the press, leading to wasting your time waiting. The estimated delivery of our new equipment is mid-February, so there is a little bit of a wait. But we promise, it will be very worth it!

Tool Room/Air Compressor

Next, we have moved the air compressor and are in the process of making the tool room bigger. Our air compressor can be noisy when it fires up, and can startle people washing their hands. After reading in multiple responses asking what that noise was, and can we fix it, we knew we needed to take action ASAP. Fortunately we can fix it, and we have moved the air compressor to the back storage area! Now we will have more room for tools, and less noise when it turns on.

This means we will look into providing certain manufacturer specific specialty tools we don’t currently offer. We aim to provide as many tools as we possibly can, so we always enjoy increasing our selection of tools. Since we have been out of room for some time in the tool room, we have had to limit how many more tools we could acquire. We also resisted buying manufacturer specific specialty tools because of the cost associated with them, and their infrequency of use. We will be adding tools that we know will be used most frequently first, and then see how often they are used, and if we will have room for more things. Because now our tool room will hold more than just tools too!

Parts/Consumables

The roadblock keeping us from stocking fluids, parts, and consumables has been space. Our tool room is so small, and was the only fitting place for us to be able to sell this type of thing from. We have maximized what we can fit into it, but it’s not been able to handle anything more for a long time now. But, with the expansion of the tool room, we will now have space to stock more parts, fluids, and consumables! We plan to stock a selection of the common flavors of engine oil, transmission fluids, and gear oils. We are also planning on stocking more crush washers, nuts, bolts, electrical connectors, and lots of other miscellaneous little things that always get lost or forgotten about. Less waiting for a parts store delivery means more wrenching!

Loyalty Program/Membership

I’m grouping many of the similar suggestions together into one category of some form of loyalty or membership program. Discounts, friend referral rewards, a points system, different rates for different days, paid memberships, and a few others all somewhat fit under this umbrella. We’ve said in the past we weren’t ready to do one, or that we didn’t know how we would implement one, and just put it on the back burner. Since it was the most requested thing when you put all the similar suggestions together, we are now actively determining a best way to implement such a system. It’s important to us to get this right, both from a customer facing side, and an employee facing side. If it isn’t easy to use for everyone, it just isn’t going to work well. As we get further down the road with how we want to do it, we’ll be reaching out again asking what specifically people would like to see from it. For now, I promise it is something that is coming soon, and it is actively being worked on. We are targeting sometime in the first half of 2022 to have this completed. This one may take more time as we dial in an exact implementation and make sure we are offering what you want to see in a program.

Classes

In the past we have run classes on our own, and with car clubs. When we’ve run them on our own, participation was close to non-existent. It was a strong request in the survey, so we will revisit it in some form or fashion. We love to see that people want to receive more education on car repair! We will be following up on this to find out more specifically what people would like to learn so we are offering classes tailored to what you want. Expect to see something in early 2022 from us about it.

Online Scheduling

Last, but not least, our online scheduler will be going through changes within the next year. This isn’t something we can change quickly, as there doesn’t seem to be a good way to implement the features people are requesting. We will either need to have our own scheduler program built, or heavily adapt the one we are using for it to meet the needs. In general the way schedulers work is that you input what and when you want to schedule, and then it shows you if it’s available or not. What most people are requesting is somewhat the inverse of that. You’d like to be able to see the availability of each bay for each day up front, and then input what you want to schedule. While this is how it works for us on the employee facing side, it is a little more complicated from the client side. We can’t allow a calendar view on the front end with our current scheduler because it will display your personal information publicly. We’ve been looking at other alternatives, but haven’t found one that offers the features being requested.

In the meantime, we have implemented a temporary solution, that may become permanent if people like the change that has been made. We will still be searching for a more ideal solution, but we hope this change is welcomed. We have made it so you can select 2 post, or 4 post lifts and that will allow you to let the scheduler choose the first available lift of that type. From there you can select how much time you’d like, and you can leave the bay selection as ‘Any’ to let it pick for you, or pick a bay you’d like and then schedule. This should reduce the amount of back and forth for you when making an appointment.

Doing an Inspection

May 23, 2021May 23, 2021 by Stew

The Vehicle Safety Inspection

Doing a vehicle safety inspection is critical for road safety. It can save you from having an expensive break down, and hopefully prevent you being stranded on the side of the road. There are numerous different things to check, but they can be checked fairly quickly. We put together a checklist for you to make doing the inspection systematic for you, and to keep you on task.

The check list is broken into sections, and each section has parts that are all related to each other. This will also allow you to do things in pieces if you want. You can do one whole section at a time, even across different days if you know that other parts in other sections are good.

Our experts on staff can’t do an inspection for you, but we can answer questions you have. We recommend checking out 2 Car Pros by clicking here to learn more about how to actually do the inspection. On their site you can research each section of the inspection to learn more about it and how to identify issues.

A Stew’s Garage Summer

August 10, 2020August 8, 2020 by Stew

A Fresh Stew's Garage Shirt!

It’s been many many years since we have had a new style of shirt. What better way than to immortalize Rick’s legendary van with it’s own Stew’s Self Service Garage t-shirt. Notably, these will not be working shirts, they are premium tri-blend shirts. They are awesome for wearing any time, you might just not want to get them dirty is all. If you want one, be sure to act fast as these are going to be a limited time offering. They will be available for pre-order for 2 weeks (8/24/2020), and after that we will send them off for printing. If you don’t order during pre-order they will not be available again after that.

The detail level of this shirt is what really stands out. You have the duct taped window, perfectly recreated in silhouette. There is also the front shade on the windshield, the roof rack, and the all important Stew’s Self Service Garage decal. Click here to buy yours now before they are all gone.

When it Rains Suspension, it Pours Suspension

July was full of suspension jobs! Something that is interesting is that similar jobs always come in waves. For the entire month of July it seemed everyone was either putting lift kits on, or coil overs to go lower. By far it was the most popular job we saw through the month. Typically we’ll see a lot of the same job types over a few week period. For example we’ll see a bunch of clutch jobs all over the period of a few weeks. Or we’ll see lots of fluid changes, or exhaust jobs. While people do all sorts of different jobs here, there is always one job type that is more prevalent over the month than any others. We sometimes wonder why that is, since everyone drives different, and has their cars serviced at different intervals. Some how, some way they all seem to find a common time to do a common job though! Just a fun observation.

This RV is LARGE and in Charge

This is by far the biggest vehicle we’ve had at Stew’s Self Service Garage. This RV measured in at just over 24ft, and just under 14,000lbs. They were on a road trip out here in the Seattle area and needed to fix their power steering pump before driving back across the country. We don’t blame them, having to manually steer this beast would be one hell of a work out! Fortunately they were able to find us on the ol’ google machine and were able to talk with us and confirm that it would fit before coming in. After we knew it was going to just fit, we said come on in and Be Your Own Mechanic! They were able to get the new pump in, and get back on the road home.

A Fond Customer Farewell

This turbo Silverado has been coming to our garage for a couple years now. It’s owned by a soon to be retired from the US Navy sailor. He will be heading back home once he is officially out of the Navy. He brought it in recently once last time to make sure it was road trip ready. The US military brings all sorts of awesome individuals and families to our area, and we love to be able to see them and their vehicles here at our garage. We also provide all active and former military members with a 15% discount on all services as a token of our appreciation. We appreciate the Navy bringing him to the Seattle area, and we wish him well on his next journey out of the Navy!

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Return Of The Blog

July 2, 2020June 8, 2020 by Stew

A Grand Return!

Stew’s Self Service Garage returned to business May 18th after a 2 month closure. The good news was we were extremely prepared for a shut down, though we had planned on it never happening. We had multiple months of expenses in the bank just in case we would ever need it. We were excited to re-open our garage doors to everyone and let people get back to working on their cars. Since we’ve opened we have stayed fairly busy, and have been happy to see a lot of you come in to work on your car! While we were closed we even found time to make some improvements, and catch up on maintenance.

Upgraded Tool Room!

We took advantage of the time while we were closed to make some updates to our tool room. We completely reorganized it to streamline getting tools out to you. We brought in an additional tool box for even more storage as we continue to add more and more tools. The biggest change is that now every tool has a set location, which means no more “well it was here last time” while we try and get a tool to you. There are some more additions and updates we plan on making to the tool room, but we are far more organized now!

In addition to the tool room, we made some improvements elsewhere to the shop. We repainted all of the bay stripes, and added additional centering stripes for the lifts. This makes it easier to tell where your bay ends, and the next begins to do your best at social distancing. The centering stripes should make it easier to guide you into the bay to be lined up with the lifts!

Staying Sanitized

We also have a COVID safety plan to do our absolute best to keep everyone as safe as possible while in our garage. We are sanitizing most surfaces in the bay after each person leaves with an EPA registered disinfectant. This includes the workbench, lift controls, and other commonly touched surfaces in the bay. We are also wiping down our credit card terminal and waiver tablet between uses. Surfaces not as regularly used are also being wiped down hourly with a sanitizing wipe or sprayed with a disinfecting spray. The state, county, and city have laid out regulations as to what the minimum requirements are, but we want to take it a step further as our commitment to your safety. If you are curious about learning more about our COVID plan you can click here and read more about it.

My Personal Exciting News

During the COVID shutdown I got engaged to my girlfriend, Ally. We’ve been together since our senior year of high school, which has been over 8 and a half years. She’s stuck with me through thick and thin while getting Stew’s Self Service Garage off the ground, and I couldn’t be happier to be getting married to her. It was a bit hectic at the start nailing down a venue and a few other vendors right away. Our wedding is planned for next summer, but we had to compete with a lot of people because of the COVID reschedules. We were fortunate to schedule a venue, and all of our vendors for next summer before reschedules made our first choices unavailable. Now we are through the craziness of wedding planning, and on to the fun stuff. Next July we’ll be celebrating, and I’m looking forward to it!

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The Snowpocalypse is finally over

March 13, 2019March 1, 2019 by Stew

We had fun filming a new ad!

It had been awhile since we did a video ad, so we decided to do another one. Steve and I were talking about what would be a funny video, and he mentioned the Forest Gump scene where Bubba lists off all the shrimp. We decided if we changed it to hammers, not only would it be fitting, it would probably be pretty funny. So off I went on writing up the script for this video. We got Seth, aka The Talent, to come in on a Wednesday and do some filming.

This video took about 4 hours to film, even though it’s only 1 minute in length. Each “scene” took multiple practices, and then around 30-40 takes each to get it right. Naturally anytime we are doing anything humorous, there’s a lot of laughing going on. After you get a good take, you still need 2 or 3 more just to make sure you have a perfect one. Needless to say, I have a lot of bloopers that I should probably edit together. After the video is shot, then the longer part begins.

They say in editing for every minute filmed is an hour of editing. There is certainly some truth to this, I spent probably 15 hours or more editing it all together. First step is watching all the clips and finding the best take. After that you need to cut them down so they are timed up perfectly. With the rough edit all together, then comes all the effects afterwards. You have color correcting, anti-flicker, any sort of zooming or panning to add. Of course then you have transitions and audio correction too. With all of that added up then you can do all the titles at the end! Fortunately the titles are the easy part, they take no time at all to do. After it’s all edited, then you have the finished video, which you can view above!

Snowpocalypse came and went

Pictured above is our lot after it was plowed by a private plowing company. At the time that this picture was taken, we had about 8″ of snow on the ground in Kirkland. With the snow effecting the roads, we had no choice but to be closed for quite a few days. This is tough because that doesn’t pay the bills. Fortunately we were able to get back open after the roads were plowed, and get back to being available for everyone. After the great snowpocalypse we had a big spike of people coming in. Fortunately only a couple people were in because of snow damage. Hopefully we are done with snow for the next few years!

And now a for a PSA regarding unsafe vehicles

Ever seen a brake rotor look like this? If you have, and it was on your vehicle, you were being extremely unsafe on the roadway! Obviously brakes are a very important component on the car, but there are certainly other systems you need to be mindful of. It’s very important that your suspension is in good operating condition, as well as the steering, and wheel bearings on the vehicle. Over the winter we’ve seen quite a few cars come in that have been neglected in those areas, and they could have caused a crash. These problems can be avoided by doing regular maintenance, and doing regular checks.

One of the best ways to regularly inspect your car is to do it when you do an oil change. Since you should be changing your oil roughly every 3-5 thousand miles, or every few months. Regular inspections are a great way to make sure nothing ever looks like that brake rotor pictured above. They are machines, they take maintenance and care to keep them running right. So be sure to keep your cars in good operating condition, we don’t need more unsafe cars out there!

UW Husky Basketball Has Been on Fire

It’s certainly been an exciting year to be a UW fan. With the football team playing in the Rose Bowl and the basketball team leading the Pac-12 it’s been fantastic to follow. And with the baseball team coming off of a college world series, I’ve had a lot to cheer about. But basketball is the flavor of the month, and with a good Pac-12 tournament showing they should be in March Madness. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season, hopefully they can win out and have a nice 1st seed in the tourny.

New Year – New Stuff!

February 11, 2019February 4, 2019 by Stew

Starting the Year with a New Lift!

The new BendPak 4-post in bay 1 may look like the old one but if your wide-body barely squeezed on the old one then you’ll immediately notice the difference. We upgraded the drive on lift in bay 1 to a wider model with 10″ of additional clearance between the posts. Now we have the perfect drive on lift for those low cars that are also wide. Otherwise the lift’s operation and features are the same as you’ve become comfortable with. The old lift ended up going with the lift installers to hopefully live on in another shop.

New Drink Fridge, Extra Cold!

Back by popular demand, we are once again selling drinks! After our vending machine died, we stopped for awhile, trying to find a vending solution that was simple, reliable, and fit the space we had available. That turned out to be a big commercial-grade glass door fridge instead of a vending machine. This fridge keeps drinks nice and cold at just above freezing, which will be perfect once summer comes around. You can either pay cash or put it on the bill to pay at the end. So much easier than a vending machine.

We’ll also be able to provide more drink options so be sure to let us know what you’d like! (Mention you saw this post and get a free water) No alcoholic beverages though, our insurance frowns upon consuming alcohol and operating heavy machinery.

Big Rolling Jacks for the Big Lift

Have a big vehicle, that’s tall, very long, heavy, and need to get the wheels off? No problem! We added rolling jacks to our big drive on 4-post lift, allowing you to be able to do just that. It does involve a few more steps than using the 2-post, but bay 7’s lift is sturdier and can handle 4,000 lbs more than the 2-post lifts. It also isn’t limited by a top bar, meaning you can take the vehicle up a lot higher so you can stand under it. Many customers choose to go this route for their large vehicles as it is easy to use and very safe. You can do suspension work, brakes, wheel swaps, or whatever you would like with the wheels off.

Edgar Makes The Hall Of Fame

Take the time to watch the video if you haven’t seen it yet. I was a big baseball fan growing up – my room was painted Mariners blue, even the carpet was Mariners blue. Edgar Martinez was my idol and easily my favorite Mariner growing up. I’m a little too young to remember Griffey being a Mariner, so Edgar is who really stuck out to me. I have a huge sticker of him on the wall, his bobble head’s on my shelf, a home run ball from him, and a home run ball from his number retirement weekend. I wore the number 11 on my uniforms through little league, always wanting to be like him. A true legendary right handed hitter, it’s finally come time for him to join the other Hall of Famers in Cooperstown, NY. In late July I’ll make the pilgrimage to the birthplace of baseball to see my childhood idol get inducted into the Hall of Fame, and I couldn’t be more excited.

It took 10 years for him to get the call, needing to receive 75% or more of the vote from the Baseball Writers of America. Many didn’t want to vote for him as they deemed him a partial player. Since Edgar was a designated hitter, they felt by not playing defense, he wasn’t worthy of being inducted. They chose to ignore his pure superiority as a right handed hitter throughout his 18 year career. He was the one who hit “The Double”, arguably the most important play in Mariners history. This lead to the public support to build a new stadium to replace the Kingdome, and in turn keep the Mariners in Seattle. Sometimes Safeco (now T-Mobile field) is referred to ‘the house that Griffey built”, well it was Edgar who brought that run in. So it’s only fitting that he now joins Griffey Jr., the man who scored the winning run on that hit in the Hall of Fame.

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‘Tis the Season

December 7, 2018December 3, 2018 by Stew

November has breezed past; now we're really into the Holidays

Cool Things? How About a Ferrari!

This Ferrari 488 was in to replace their exhaust to make it a little louder. They also wanted the new sound that an X-pipe provides. We always like when people work on cars that people say they can’t work on. This owner wasn’t afraid to jump right in and get after it. The exhaust even came with step-by-step instructions that show you exactly what to do, and even told you which tools were needed for it. That gave the owner complete confidence that they could do it themselves and save thousands over taking it to a shop that handles Ferraris. Changing exhaust on a mid engine car is a little different than your standard car in that you don’t have it completely under the car. Most of it is essentially right in the middle, which makes it slightly more challenging as you have to work around other components. After taking the wheel liners out and the intake pipes, getting at the exhaust wasn’t bad at all. With the new X-pipe in the owner is much happier with the new sound. It sounds more exotic as well as has quite a bit more turbo sound.

Going To Be Traveling? Here's An Inspection Checklist

We are asked frequently about what to check on a car before going on a road trip. We decided to put together a check list to help you when you are getting ready. This list also includes most of the items to check on your car regardless of a road trip. We put the full size document on this page so you can save it if you would like. Otherwise we can always email you a PDF copy to print at home ahead of time. We also have copies on hand in case you don’t bring one with you.

Of course, if you have any questions about how to check any of the items on this form we are happy to help. If you are working on your car here at Stew’s Self Service Garage all you have to do is ask one of us!

How do you use this I can hear you ask. The green, yellow, and red boxes indicate the status of each component you are checking. Green means everything is good for that item. Check yellow if you aren’t sure, things may not look right with the component, or it will need deeper diagnosis other than a brief inspection. Naturally red means the component needs immediate replacement. Most sections have space for you to make notes, otherwise write your notes in the comment. It is also very important to note the vehicle mileage and date of the inspection so you can check back with your inspection form on any items that didn’t check the green box.

Give (or Get) The Gift Of Stew's Self Service Garage

Not sure what you want for the holiday season? Ask for something from Stew’s! We have shirts, hoodies, and select purchase ahead punch cards. This is the only time of year we offer these punch cards, so time is limited! The punch cards allow you to purchase time ahead of time and take advantage of deals with us. The 2 hour punch card comes with a free oil change special, and the 6 hour punch card allows you to buy our 6 hour special, but use it in 15 minute increments. Normally you have to use our 6 hour special in a single consecutive use. The 6 hour punch card lets you buy 6 hours for the price of 5.

We also have some great shirts and sweatshirts to keep your style on point! Our shirts are black to hide dirt and keep you looking fresh. The grey distressed logo is also a nice flair that will keep the shirt timeless in design. Our sweatshirts are just like our t-shirts, but will keep you warmer. We went with a heavier duty sweatshirt to stick to our high quality standards. These sweatshirts are durable as well – these are the same hoodies our employees wear so you know they’ve seen some action. T-shirts and hoodies are available in numerous sizes up to and above XXL. Not sure what size you need? Stop by and we can let you try some on.

Ready to put something on your list? Here’s a link to the store page so you can pick exactly which item you want.

The Huskies Are In The Rose Bowl

Sorry Coug fans, but with a win in the Apple Cup and the Pac-12 championship game the Dawgs are back in the Rose Bowl. Another fun fact, the Huskies have as many Rose Bowl games as WSU has total bowl games. I promise I’m done gloating now. I have to give props to the WSU band for playing Bow Down to Washington. After a UW Husky band charter bus crashed, the UW band wasn’t able to make it. WSU stepped up and played the UW fight song in their place. If you’ve been keeping up with the blog you’ll know I’m a UW fan. Though it’s been a ‘disappointing’ season for UW not making it to the college football playoffs (by losing 3 games and not having a signature win), I’m happy with how it ended. Making it to the Rose Bowl is never a disappointment. It’s a great way to finish off a season, and any team should be happy to be there. While I’m not sure if I’ll be there yet, I’ve been thinking about going. It’s the first time since 2001 for UW, and facing Ohio State should make for a great game. A high ranking defense against one of the best offenses in the game. Reminds me of a certain super bowl the Seahawks played in against the Broncos. Let’s hope it goes the same way for the Dawgs!