AT YOUR SERVICE : The Mechanic

After two decades under the hood, Ventura mechanic Lee Lizarraga can diagnose an ailing automobile as well as any technician. And he will do everything possible to see that customers aren’t inconvenienced when dropping off or picking up their vehicles, including personally shuttling them around town.

But those are not the things of which he is most proud.

Rather, the 40-year-old owner of ABC Auto Care derives his greatest satisfaction from knowing that his customers wouldn’t go anywhere else for service.

“When you come here I know your name, I know what you do for a living, I know about your family,” said Lizarraga, a native of Mexico who immigrated to the United States when he was 16.

“All of those things are important to me,” said Lizarraga, the father of twin 16-year-old girls. “I’ve formed the kinds of relationships with customers you just don’t see other places.”

Indeed, Lizarraga has built his business on that kind of personal attention. He started fixing cars because he couldn’t afford to pay someone else to work on his car.

He landed his first job at a Ford dealership in Torrance in 1978. A decade later, while working for a Ventura dealership, a customer offered him the financial backing to open his own place.

His first shop was a cramped 1,800-square-foot building off Johnson Drive. He moved to his current Market Street location in 1995. Here, he has built a base of about 2,500 clients, many of whom are die-hard customers.

That includes Wayne Brunkan of Ventura, a loyal patron and friend for more than a decade.

“He’s very knowledgeable and very bright,” said Brunkan, who invited Lizarraga to his retirement party four years ago. “And he’s very good about taking care of your problem in a very short time.”

Lizarraga said his approach to service is based on an old fashioned idea of treating customers the way he wants to be treated.

“I’m so happy doing what I’m doing,” he said, “mostly on the strength of the people I do business with.”