What’s driving customer loyalty at Steve’s Auto Care? Regulars go hours out of their way to get their cars serviced at this small, family-owned auto shop with only three mechanics on staff. As hundreds of reviews indicate, it’s not just for the reliable service—it’s for owner Steve Lite’s honesty and integrity.
“Honest and trustworthy is what you want from ‘your’ shop,” reviewer Benjamin W. wrote. “If you looked up “honest, reliable, and knowledgeable” under the Auto Dictionary, it would point to Steve’s Auto Care,” said Frederick K. “The last honest auto repair shop,” writes Eric P. “[I was] just amazed at the candor that Steve just spoke to me with.”
A career mechanic, Steve said he’s always been motivated by the desire to do right by people. He worked at car dealerships for more than 20 years until he took a leap of faith and opened his own shop specializing in Japanese automakers like Honda and Acura in Novato, California. “It’s really about ethics and integrity,” he said. “We’re not here to just do business. We’re here to build relationships that last a lifetime.”
For Steve, integrity is a core value. He’s also found that treating customers honestly helps keep them coming back. According to Steve, about 20% of his customers—regulars he sees multiple times a year—are responsible for 80% of his sales.
“It’s really looking at the big picture, creating customers for life,” he said. “I’ve had customers that have been with me [for generations]. I’ve seen their kids from babies to now driving cars and having families. It’s a generational thing, right? It’s looking at the big picture.”
Below, Steve shares three foundational principles that have contributed to his 5-star reputation, inspired fervent customer loyalty, and set him apart from others in the auto industry.
1. Stand firm against upselling
Steve’s Auto Care has a firm policy against upselling—a practice so common in the industry that many training centers teach it to new mechanics. This has never sat well with Steve. “I treat everybody as if they were my family,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, business is about making money and profit, but you can also do it in such a way where you have both. You can do things to save people some money and also make enough money yourself to provide your employees with benefits and retirement.”
Steve’s Yelp Page is full of anecdotes from reviews who were quoted much higher prices at other shops, sometimes for services they didn’t actually need. “I told Steve I wanted to do a $1,800 [service my dealership recommended]. Steve said, ‘Don’t waste your money,’” reviewer Eric P. wrote. “That simply does not happen in this day and age. This place is something special.”
Steve’s stance against upselling is about ethics first and foremost: He got into the auto repair business to help people, and providing them with fair, honest service is the best way to do it. But as a businessman, he’s also seen that honesty and transparency benefits his business, resulting in repeat customers and 5-star reviews.
Yelp reviewer Christine P. was one of these cases. When Steve treated her with candor and transparency—and gave a significantly lower brakes estimate than another mechanic—she said he made a customer for life. “He was very honest with what services we actually needed, but also what you could do. Based on that experience and also looking at the other many Yelp reviews, he definitely deserves his credibility.”
Steve focuses on repairing parts, rather than replacing them, and puts internal checks in place to make sure he’s consistently balancing honestly with profitability. For example, he asks himself a set of questions before every service: “What would I do for myself? Would I sell myself this job? Is this the right thing to do?”
“That’s what it comes down to, is doing the right thing based on reality, not what you’ve convinced yourself,” he said. “That’s the toughest thing when times are hard. You’ve got to pay people wages, you’ve got to pay overhead, but you’ve got to stay true.”
2. Support and pay your team fairly
In the auto industry, only 10% of shops pay their employees a salary, according to a 2024 industry survey. Most pay hourly or flat-rate wages, where mechanics are compensated by the job—meaning if they can’t work for any reason, they won’t get paid.
Steve hired his first employees in 2015, and after 15 years of running the business and serving every repair alone, he was committed to paying his team a living wage. “We work hard. We work very efficiently. But at the end of the day, my guys are getting paid, whether we have work or not,” he said.
Steve’s Auto Care also offers retirement and medical benefits, which many small businesses struggle with due to high costs. According to Steve, finding a niche within the industry helped make this possible. “My business is very specialized. We do things that we know how to do well, and we do them efficiently,” he said. “That’s what leads to profit margins that can then allow you to share the profit with your employees.”
Leadership and training also play a crucial part in the team’s success. Many of Steve’s customers have been coming to him for years and trust him personally. To ensure a seamless transition with his new hires, Steve instilled them with the same values and high standards for customer service. “That’s mainly just leading by example and hoping ultimately at the end of the day when you pay people right, treat them right, show them that you’re going to get down in the trenches with them… your employees will kind of model what you do,” he said.
Ultimately, Steve believes in treating his team with respect and humanity, as he would want to be treated himself: “This is a blue-collar business, and we all have grown up with challenges, and none of us are really that different. So it’s really about connecting, showing that I’m not just here to use you up and spit you out. I’m slugging away with you.”
3. Let your reputation grow organically
When Steve’s feeling down, he reads his Yelp reviews. A quick glance at his business page reveals why:
I’ve been going to Steve’s since I was 16. A common phrase in our family is ‘take it to Steve’ whenever car troubles arise.
—M.A.
Steve’s personal values are beyond reproach. Even though I live a distance away, I would never think of going anywhere else.
—Daria S.
We have been taking our cars to Steve for over 20 years, and he is the only car repair service where I’ve ever felt I can just relax and rely on his advice.
—Don D.
Steve’s Yelp Page showcases two decades of well-earned praise: Since receiving his first review in 2005, Steve has gained nearly 300 reviews, a 4.9 star-rating, and enough leads to sustain his business for life. “Yelp has provided me with more business out of all the resources that I’ve had,” he said.
Before Yelp launched in 2004, Steve primarily advertised through direct mail, sending mailers to people with registered Hondas and Acuras. But as soon as he claimed his page and started Yelp Ads, he found it was the only channel he needed. Nowadays, Steve’s Yelp Page is so successful at generating leads organically that he no longer needs to advertise at all. “The $300 a month I give Yelp [for advertising] is really just me saying ‘thank you,’” he said.
Yelp Ads helped the business gain much-needed exposure, but as for Steve’s stellar reputation? That’s all thanks to his customer service. “You can only really control how you treat people, and ultimately, that controls the reviews,” Steve said.
“[With reviews,] it’s one of these things that you have to let happen organically,” he added. “You have to keep doing the right thing and the fruit will come from it. For a while, there were times when I was heavily looking at [my Yelp Page] and getting too cranked up over it and then disappointed. But you have to just keep running your business and doing the right thing and knowing that that good will come out of it.”
Steve does make sure to respond, however. Since customers take the time to write something personal for him, he said he wants to make sure to pay their kindness back: “I know who these people are, I know what we did for them, so I try to make something personal for each one of them. Each one of my responses, if you look at them, is different. They’re not computer generated. They’re from the heart.”
Steve responds the same way to critical reviews as well: “Reviews are people… I don’t understand why they said what they said, but I’m not going to try to figure that out. Any business is going to make a mistake. So it all really comes down to how do you own up to and learn from your mistakes and not make the same mistakes over and over again.”
These lessons come from an episode of Behind the Review, Yelp & Entrepreneur Media’s weekly podcast, with additional insights from Robert’s exclusive Yelp 20 interview with Yelp Content Writer Emily Moon.
Photos from Steve’s Auto Care
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