Central Service Auto Repair

CENTRAL SERVICE AUTO REPAIR and CAA Niagara go all the way to the early 1970s. Central and the CAA Niagara office were literal next-door neighbours for over 50 years. Dave Smith — son of founder Larry Smith (1936-2019), who opened the shop as Central Gulf in 1969 — lights up at the mention of the AARS program.

“We were one of the first [facilities] to be CAA approved,” he says. “From 1979. We have the original certificate!”

As he heads to the back office to retrieve that paperwork, current owners Andrew Koch and Cameron Maclean smile knowingly. Koch is Larry Smith’s grandson. He became the third generation of his family to run Central Service Auto in September 2024, when he and co-owner Maclean bought the business from his uncle Dave.

Koch’s future in the family shop was never really in question. “I was always working on cars, always leaning towards the mechanical,” he says. “It was my grandpa’s idea [to] keep it in the family. It worked out that I had an interest in it and carried on.”

Maclean first worked at Central pumping gas when they were still aligned with Petro-Canada. Unlike Koch, he had no interest in becoming a mechanic — but Larry and Dave saw something in him.

“They approached me and asked me if I wanted to be an apprentice — and I said no,” he explains. “They kind of needled me a little bit, and eventually, I signed on.”

Luckily for Maclean and his customers, he discovered a passion for the work, especially diagnosing issues. He remembers a tough case involving a brake light fuse that malfunctioned every time the owner started the engine. Five hours later, he’d solved the mystery. “He’d put some change on the dash, and a dime had worked its way into the dashboard and fell into one of the modules, shorting it inside. That was a fun one,” says Maclean with a grin.

Koch agrees. “To be honest, I like the puzzle of it all: trying to figure out what’s happening with the car, why it’s happening. I enjoy it. It’s tinkering for me.”

And if a problem ends up yielding a difficult or costly solution, Central’s famously warm customer service can soften the blow. As Maclean says, “Working directly with people is one of the best parts of the job.”

Central’s caring service has created an intensely loyal customer base spanning generations. Some come from as far away as Toronto; one regular now brings her car from Ottawa to Central twice a year. As we were talking, a customer came by and shared his experience on the spot: “When my car broke down in Grimsby and I didn’t know where to go, my neighbour said, ‘Tow it to Central Service.’ That was 1994, and I’ve never looked back. You couldn’t go wrong here.”

Whatever they do, you can be sure of one thing: they’ll do it the way founder Larry Smith would have done it. As Dave says, his voice and vision live on in the shop. “There’s the right way, the wrong way, and Larry’s way.” All three (former and current) owners and many happy customers seem to agree that Larry’s way is the best. CAA