Rocco’s Auto Tech in Cost Mesa, CA is a different kind of car audio expediter and the winner of our recent Facebook contest.
Like other expediters, Rocco’s installs equipment in cars for local car dealerships. But Rocco’s uses mainly factory equipment and only in about 10 percent of installs does it go with aftermarket product. And in that case, it only uses the top of the line Pioneer decks. For added speakers and amps, sometimes it uses a small under-the-seat enclosed subwoofer from a local supplier, Dynaquest.
Rocco’s operates with just an office manager and owner Rocco Eyerman and part time help. Eyerman does most of the installation and sales himself.
Why does he use factory equipment?
When he started in 1998, the market was just shifting to deep integration with CAN buses and many shops were having trouble making the adjustment at that time. Car dealers who worked with them saw installations coming back as returns. “When I was working for dealers they would say, ‘Is this factory?’ They were gun shy of people working on cars.” So Rocco’s went with factory equipment to suit the car dealerships.
“Especially Beamer dealers and some lower production cars like Lamborghini. If the dealer is involved and he writes me a purchase order, he wants the the car factory or close to factory. That’s our niche.”
He adds, “Every other car in Newport Beach is a Mercedes. They may be older… but it’s not uncommon to see about 10 Mercedes behind each other at a traffic light here.” There are about 5 Mercedes dealers within an hour of the shop that he works with plus about 5 other dealers and auction houses.
A typical job is a customer who’s car is a few years old that is missing a feature. “They don’t necessarily want it louder and they don’t want Kicker stickers on their back window. They say ‘I need my phone hooked up,’ or ‘I want to listen to Pandora.’ If we can do it with factory stuff we do it. ” If the customer wants 4 or 5 features, he moves them to an aftermaket radio.
The average sales ticket is about $1000 to $1,100.
He also works with NAV-TV interfaces on MOST fiber optic vehicles and he’ll use PAC accessories.
Someone might want to add satellite radio to a deck, so Rocco’s finds a factory satellite radio tuner, which may cost $900. It makes its own harness and reprograms the vehicle to accept the tuner. Another example: “This morning we did a Pioneer 8100 in a 2002 CLK with a nice backup camera. We had to change the dash and make the trim ring just like any other shop,” he said.
He installs backup cameras and parking sensors “all day long.” “Phones, cameras, parking sensors, that’s what we do.” Occasionally he will fabricate a tablet install or WiFi mirroring, he adds.
Congratulations to Eyerman for winning the CEoutlook Facebook contest in February/March, with the prize of a story in CEoutlook.
Congratulations Joe!
Love these profile stories, I do wish you guys would post a lot more pictures of the facilities etc, or even a video walk through would be cool.