About Us

The Chau's Auto Repair Experience 

In 1986,  four brothers after enduring years of hardship as boat people in refugee camps across Southeast Asia, finally realized their dream of coming to the United States. 

For them, the journey was nothing short of arduous and strenuous. The price they paid to be able to breathe in the fresh air in the land of the free and brave was not small. Two brothers had been captured in their attempts to become refugees and beaten to insanity by the Vietnamese communists. 

For a young man like our founder Hung Chau who had only ever heard about the economic powerhouse that is America through word of mouth, it was astonishing to have everything  he heard about America become true before his very eyes. The thing that caught his eye the most however, was how plentiful automobiles were. Whereas in post-war Vietnam personally owned vehicles were virtually non-existent, everyone owned a car in America. The abundance of cars wasn't the only thing that caught Hung's attention. The dependence on personally owned vehicles was also amazing to him. He knew that with so many cars, there would be a demand for someone to fix them as well. 

He set out on a mission to obtain the professional training required of him to become a knowledgeable and trustworthy mechanic. All the while raising a family of his own with a wife and two sons, he juggled fast food and food delivery jobs at night while taking classes at Renton Technical College during the day. 

After graduating from Renton Technical College, he sought work with dealership service departments in Seattle. Although he was finally getting to work in a professional garage using his expertise gained from his training, he was met with the reality of dealership service culture. He realized that the dealerships were profiting from being dishonest. He was constantly being told to find issues on customer's vehicles that did not have anything wrong, in some cases to create issues. He was being reprimanded by his superiors at work for being unwilling to compromise his integrity as a honest mechanic. In the late 1990s, Seattle was not nearly as progressive as it is now. With that being that the discrimination that Hung suffered by this service department's management and leadership had set his intentions in concrete: That he was going to open a honest shop of his own where he would not be discriminated against for being an immigrant. 

In 2002, a proud immigrant with the support of his wife and family established his own auto repair shop on one of the busiest streets in Seattle. 

Although it only had two garage doors, two lifts, no heat, no air conditioning, and barely a waiting room, Hung was proud to call the shop on the corner of King Street and Rainier Avenue in Seattle, his own. After 15 years at this location, we eventually upgraded to a much larger shop with 4 lifts and 4 garage doors, central heating, and an actual waiting room. Since 2017 we have been working out of Rainier Beach and are forever grateful for all of our customers who followed us during our move.

We would like to take the time to recognize that everything the greater Seattle community has done for us. It is not enough to thank Seattle alone, as we have loyal customers who drive from as far north as Mill Creek and as far south as Lakewood. When you support a family owned small business as ours, you are not only keeping your money with honest people but you are also keeping out of the hands of people who profit from dishonesty and racism like dealership service departments. With your support of small businesses, you are helping a family put food on the table instead of helping an executive buy a 3rd vacation home. It is with support like yours that we keep our doors open. Our customers are our shareholders, whose satisfaction in our labor is of the upmost importance to us.