The Sun newspaper: The Weekly Record - January 31st, 2005

Keeping your vehicle going; Charlotte RV Center
repairs and services large vehicles
Author: GEORGE COLLINS
Weekly Record Editor

When it comes to servicing or repairing recreational vehicles and other large units, no job is too small or too big for the Charlotte RV Service Center.

Owner Amos E. Slater has created a one-stop, do-it-all facility at 4628 Tamiami Trail (US41), Charlotte Harbor.

From minor tasks like oil changes and lubrications to major mechanical repairs and inspection, the company keeps motorhomes, motorcoaches, buses and medium to heavy duty trucks rolling. It services motorcoaches and buses operated by tour and charter businesses, churches or other organizations and handles interior repairs.

Slater calls what he does for customers, "Servicing your freedom."

"The variety of vehicles we deal with is incredible, not just from brand to brand, but from type to type," he said.

"In addition to motorhomes of all sizes and shapes and other types of RVs, charter buses, tour buses, dump trucks, cargo trucks and delivery trucks, we deal with diesel engines, gasoline engines and propane engines.

"There's a lot of unusual accessories in the motorhomes. They've got LP powered refrigerators and various accessories that ca! n run on both 12 volts and 110 volts. There's air conditioning systems, plumbing systems. Many of them have very sophisticated entertainment systems. We see vehicles in here valued at up to $1 million. They are customized motorhomes that are converted from commercial passenger coaches into the most elaborate things you can find."

How do you handle all of them?

Amos: In order to accommodate all of these different services, we have a variety of individuals with different backgrounds and skills.

We have people with cabinetry skills, building trades skills, people who do paint and body work, people to work with fiberglass, diesel engine mechanics, general vehicle mechanics.

We have an electrician for up to 240-volt service. Some of the motorhomes and other customized vehicles have some heavy equipment and big generators on board to run them. We've got a man with hydraulic experience for the dump trucks and other construction equipment that comes in.

So every day presents some kind of a challenge.

Amos: When you come to work, you don't know what you're going to be doing that day. But with the range of talent my staff has, we're able to accomplish it all in a one-stop shopping arrangement.

When a person brings their vehicle in here, there should be no reason that we can't fix it. There's very few cases where we have to farm out a job to a specialty shop because we've got the expertise in-house.

How long have you been doing this?

Amos: I've been involved in heavy vehicles and mechanics all my life. I grew up in a family that owned a bus business. My dad worked for a nationwide company called Continental Trailways. I was born in Maryland and every time he got a promotion, we moved further west. We moved to Detroit and I was there 37 years.

After my dad died in 1977, the rest of the family decided to dump the Continental Trailways franchise and we started our own charter bus and tour company. We had 21 coaches based in Detroit. In 1993, after certain things occu! rred in deregulation of that market, we decided it was no longer profitable so I kept the garage and opened up my own repair business and I had an instant clientele because people knew how I took care of my fleet.

That company, called Vehicle Clinic Inc., is doing extremely well and I still have that operation. In fact, it is the parent company for our business here in Charlotte County. We decided to have the same corporation because it is simpler on paper.

What brought you to this area?

Amos: I came down here to visit a friend and he encouraged me to move here. We opened our Charlotte Harbor facility March 1, 2004.

We started with six employees and, since Hurricane Charley hit, the demand for our services has increased dramatically and we're now up to 14 employees. They are all skilled technicians ... there's no flunkies.

How did Charley impact things?

Amos: There was substantial damage to our building. The doors were blown out. About 25! percent of the roof was torn out. We still don't have a drop ceiling and air conditioning in the office, but that's just a luxury item.

We didn't miss a day of work because I put the guys on the task of patching the roof. Nobody lost their job.

Charley brought a lot of repair work from RV owners. There were a lot of paint scratches or objects that poked holes in fiberglass -- particularly on motorhomes. There was roof damage, broken windows and water damage to interiors. We've been rebuilding interiors, doing cabinetry, new carpeting, new headliners, lots of painting.

We have a 56-foot-long convection oven spray paint booth. It is the only one of its kind within a 100-mile radius. It was the focal point of what we wanted to do with our business when we opened here. It was completed last July.

The oven was a $200,000 project with 4 million BTU of heat to set the paint correctly while it is sprayed. That has proven extremely valuable with all the repaint work to be done.

We also have a $40,000 computer alignment sy! stem for large vehicles because there's nobody in this area doing that. There's a high demand for it. People don't want to have to go all the way to Tampa to leave their vehicle and go back again to pick it up. That adds up to 400 miles going back and forth. An alignment shouldn't be that hard to get, nor should a good quality paint job.

What did your research tell you?

Amos: We researched what the so-called competition was doing in the area for service work and paint work and we found that even the big dealers are painting outdoors in gravel parking lots. Number one, that's illegal. Number two, the end result is poor.

Inevitably, you'll end up with dust and bugs in the paint. Even with the slightest breeze, you can't get an even paint finish. With our controlled environment, the air flow is controlled, the air is filtered and the temperature is controlled. We've been getting compliments on our work. We have people bring vehicles in here that were worked o! n in other shops and need correcting.

How do people hear about you?

Amos: RV people travel around. They like to try out the different campgrounds. One of the things about RVers is they like to sit around a campfire and chat. People are people. They will sit around and complain, complain, complain. So they'll quickly find out who's bad, and to some extent, they also will find out who's good at the work they do.

We advertise in a variety of publications and we are included in the directory of services in at least 50 campgrounds as far north as Sarasota-Bradenton down to Naples and as far east as Okeechobee.

There's an incredible volume of motorhomes in the area but a limited availability of service for them. We feel we've filled that niche.

Hours are 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays. For more information, call (941) 883-5555.

Copyright (c) 2005, Charlotte Sun