When it’s time to tinker, try renting a service bay

Spring finally is here and with that comes the get-your-hands-dirty urge to work in the yard, wash windows and clean out the garage.

Well, perhaps not the latter.

If you feel like working on or cleaning out your car, but it’s too soon to face a winter’s accumulation of returnable cans and bottles, empty cardboard boxes from mail order deliveries, snow gear and other clutter, there is an alternative.

Several Metro Detroit companies have popped up in the past year, offering rental bays for do-it-yourselfers. They come complete with the lifts, tools and sometimes the mini machine shop that even the most sparkling clean residential garage likely doesn’t sport. Hourly charges run around $25 for a stall with a lift, with add-on fees for tool rental and other services.

Owners say patrons run the gamut from those keeping a commuter vehicle alive or saving a few bucks on an oil change, to restoration buffs burnishing a classic.

“We go from people with old beaters trying to get a dent out of the door to someone installing a performance part on a 2015 Corvette,” said Jamison Rabaut, who opened My Mechanics Place in Livonia last fall.

Business has been picking up, said Rabaut, a plumbing contractor with fond memories of helping friends out in the auto hobby shops on military bases.

“I thought, ‘We need something like that on the outside,’ ” he said. Today, his Plymouth Road shop boasts seven lifts, a tool-rental library, welding equipment, drill press, parts washer and more. A few customers even bring in non-automotive projects.

“We don’t care if you’re fixing a car or a washing machine,” Rabaut said. “I rent the space and for the time being it’s your garage.”

Local auto supply stores will “hot shot” parts to customers, he noted, while a certified mechanic on duty oversees safety.

“And we do the lifting,” Rabaut added. Customers aren’t allowed to operate the hoists, which include rigs that can handle a 43,000-pound RV. Insurance is one of the business’s biggest overhead costs, he said, and that would balloon even more if untrained patrons were whisking their own cars aloft.

Over in Farmington, DIY Gearheads caters to a similar crowd, though both managers say they market to car clubs and other groups. Like its competitors, DIY Gearheads, which opened about a year ago, offers tools and diagnostic equipment, and also has a “mechanic assisted” DIY rate of $50 an hour.

“Our customers run from a dad who’s teaching a teenage girl how to change the oil, to someone who just wants to rotate tires,” said office manager Erin Przekop. “We just had a guy in working on a 1939 Cadillac.”

At Gearheads Rent-A-Bay in on Dixie Highway in Waterford, owner Les Lambrecht, a longtime servicer of the giant Cummins diesel engines, remembers renting gas station space for $3 an hour back when stations needed extra revenue during the 1970s oil embargo. But as fuel stations migrated from service shops to convenience marts, that option dwindled for many DIYers.

His firm, opened last year, is gaining traction and began breaking even in January. He prides himself on the well-stocked tool inventory and spotlessness of his comfortable shop, which is kept T-shirt warm at 72 degrees, and even offers a detail bay with tools for giving vehicles a thorough sprucing-up.

Lambrecht loves the camaraderie that regular customers establish among themselves — “I see them exchanging phone numbers and email addresses,” he said — and really enjoys sharing his expertise with novice self-servicers.

“We get different people, different age groups, but they’re all doing the same thing: wrenching,” he said. “Here, you are the lead mechanic, but we will walk you through it. It’s a passion for me and I really enjoy sharing it.”

Melissa Preddy is a Michigan-based freelance writer. Reach her via [email protected]

Cars for a cause

Later this month auto mavens can get a rare up-close tour of a storied private collection and help the American Cancer Society at the same time. It’s the semi-annual open house offered by the Lingenfelter Collection in Brighton, where more than 200 classic, performance and exotic vehicles will be on display.

Each spring and fall, owners Ken and Kristen Lingenfelter welcome car lovers to this event, which raises funds for charity via voluntary donations. The open house takes place from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. April 23 at 7819 Lochlin in Brighton. For information and a preview of the collection’s stars — which range from Ferraris to a 1969 Dodge Hemi convertible to concept cars out of Lingenfelter’s performance shop — visit lingenfeltercollection.com.