Beth Dugan

Many women--and men--are terrified of mechanics. Better to run the cars into the ground than get the tires rotated or fluids checked. Something about the stained coveralls, monosyllables and filthy waiting rooms of stereotypical service stations sends Type A personalities into a frenzy of hand-fluttering denial. But if a Greek tragedy occurs, like both the alternator and battery going out in one dying gasp, there is no choice. Suck it up and find a mechanic, or get friendly with public transportation.

The office of Transtastic at 3717 North Ashland Avenue is covered floor to ceiling in brushed copper with silver flames winding up the walls. Not your everyday greasemonkey motif. Andy Maggio, the manager, greets customers old and young with a "Whazzup?" A diminutive guy with deep brown eyes and tattoos down both arms and up his neck, he looks more punk car thief than mechanic. The man is all business as he whisks cars into the bay and invites patrons back to look at them.

Back in the service bay, Andy throws up the hoods of domestics, imports, classic muscle cars and beaters with the same nonchalance while customers stand next to him looking like dental patients waiting to hear "root canal." He hooks up a computer to the car du jour and shows the anxious owner what is wrong. Stooped over the engine, he explains quickly with expansive gestures how different parts work until understanding dawns on their faces. Slightly stunned, one woman watches him scissor his arms back and forth explaining the window mechanism, which is on the fritz.

Andy is not your dad's mechanic: he demystifies your car and the process of fixing it, which ironically, is twenty times more complicated than it was twenty years ago. Both he and Steve Marvin, the owner/mechanic, are diagnosticians with blueblood automotive pedigrees, but Andy makes sure customers understand what is going on with the enigma wrapped in a riddle that is the average car. With computers controlling everything from the transmission to the dome light, having a mechanic who knows his way around the keyboard and mouse is essential. "If you don't know electronics and you don't have a good sense of what the engineers were thinking about or how they were designing it to work, you are going to be lost."

Having more female customers than male makes Andy extra-special careful about explaining and reassuring in an almost Eddie Haskell kind of a way what's going on. Andy says, "Check this out, I had an ex-girlfriend that, when we broke up, it was a horrible nightmare. It was F-you this and that... but she refers all her co-workers to us."

(2005-02-08)

Also by Beth Dugan

about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment