Shop Profile: Sofia Collision

“My wife tells me how to drive and I just let her reach over and do the gas,” quips Steve Sofia.

It's Saturday morning in Rochester, N.Y., and Steve and his brother Tony are on the air, taking calls from 1180 WHAM listeners. Although their own business is primarily auto body repair, many of the calls are about mechanical problems—like a 1989 Buick Riviera with only 60,000 miles on it and a cruise control that doesn’t work.

“Did you ever think of putting a brick on the gas pedal while you’re driving it?” asks Tony.

“We sell all different kinds of bricks,” says Steve. “We’ve got 55 mile an hour bricks, 65 mile an hour bricks. Whatever brick size you want, we’ve got it.”

The caller is advised to have his car scanned, and soon, Tony is relating a story about getting lost driving with his wife. “She’ll say, ‘We’ve been lost for an hour; when are we going to stop and ask for directions?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, but we’re making good time; why would we stop?’”

Despite the lighthearted nature of the show, the brothers also act as consumer advocates. When a man calls asking for advice on fixing a small dent himself, the brothers provide it—and when a woman asks about all the add-ons that some auto businesses try to sell, the brothers tell her not to waste her money.

Originally hired to fill in for a few weeks five years ago, the Sofia brothers have been on the air ever since. Word about their funny, but also helpful, show spread and soon they had a following. “Kids hear it on the way to soccer practice and tell their friends about it and get them to turn it on,” notes Steve.

Part of the show’s appeal is that the brothers consider themselves opposites. “He’s a Democrat and I’m a Republican,” says Tony. “He’s short and I’m tall.” The brothers use their differences to play off of one another—even in the pronunciation of their last name. If Tony says, “I’m Tony Sofia,” pronouncing the name with a long “i” sound, his brother will say, “And I’m Steve Sofia,” using a long “e” sound instead. (Call either of Sofia Collision’s two Rochester area locations, though, and you’ll be greeted by someone who pronounces the name with a long “i.”)

The brothers opted to do the show for free, rather than get paid and use a simple show title,  “Tony and Steve.” Working for free, they are allowed to mention their business. “It gave us a bigger market and people trust us a lot more,” says Steve.

 “People stop in here just to meet us,” notes Tony. “We have people sending their problems here when no one else can solve them.”

The radio show has added to the success of what was already a thriving business. But achieving success didn’t come easily. Sofia Collision got its start in the early 1970s when the brothers had recently graduated from high school and their father, who had been a part owner in a previous body shop, decided to start his own shop with his sons. Initially, the family tried to create a “one-stop shop” in 10,000 sq. ft., some of which they sublet to other auto-related

businesses. But the concept didn’t work out because some of the other businesses weren’t reliable, Tony says.

During the economic downturn that hit Rochester in the late 1970s, the company downsized. “We went back and worked on the floor,” says Steve, who notes that both brothers learned the business from the ground up.

Eventually the local economy and the business recovered—and the shop moved several times, to larger facilities each time. Then in the early 1990s the family experienced another setback. Vandals set fire to the shop, burning it to the ground and destroying 30-some cars inside. “You couldn’t tell a Volkswagen from a Mustang,” says Tony.

Adds Steve, “You go home and you’re on top of the world and five minutes later, you’re on the bottom of the world.” But surprisingly, the brothers were back in business within just a few days, after buying out another body shop that was struggling.

In 2002, the brothers opened a second location. “The initial plan was to open a larger location and close the first one,” says Tony. “Then once we got it going, we said, ‘We don’t need to close the first shop.’ It gave us the opportunity to load level if one shop is too busy.”

Recently, however, the brothers have encountered some tough times again, as Rochester has found itself in another economic slump. In the last year, Tony, who is involved with a business council self-help group of body shop owners nationwide, says he’s seen the whole body repair industry shoot backwards—in part because the proliferation of air bags has caused a higher percentage of cars to be totaled.

To accommodate the drop in business, the brothers have had to change their pay structure so technicians are paid completely on commission. “When there’s work, they can make a ton,” notes Steve, adding that the smartest technicians are putting money aside during busy periods. “There’s no reason to live from paycheck to paycheck with the money you can make even in bad times in this industry.”

Recently, the Sofia brothers, who get about 60 percent of their business through direct repair programs, made a move they expect will give their business a boost. They reached an agreement with a key insurance company to have insurance company employees in the shop writing up repair paperwork—a move that will likely generate additional business from convenience-seeking customers of that insurance company. Tony says he used to be cautious about relying on any individual insurance company for more than 15 percent of his business—but as he’s seen more and more insurance company/body shop alliances forming, he’s had to rethink that premise.

Meanwhile, the third generation of Sofias has entered the body shop business. Tony’s son, Tony Jr., works full time in the business—and Steve’s daughter, Sara, has worked summers while attending college and plans to join the business full time when she graduates. Steve foresees the cousins eventually working together in much the same way that he and Tony do. “They won’t agree on everything in the world,” says Steve, “but they will learn that they have to bend sometimes or they’ll break.”