SEARS AUTO SERVICE ADVISER VOICES LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN BIG BUSINESS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993                   TAG: 9301260276
SECTION: ECONOMY                    PAGE: EC-8   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
SEARS AUTO SERVICE ADVISER VOICES LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN BIG BUSINESS
On one hand, Dave Hutchinson thinks the economy is much worse than most people think.
"I don't have any confidence in banks anymore," said Hutchison, who for 20 years has worked for Sears, Roebuck and Co.'s auto center as a service adviser.
When he reads about what's going on Roanoke's Dominion Bank, for instance, he says he thinks seriously about pulling out all his money and keeping it under a mattress.
On the other hand, someone has got to be making big money.
"When you make a credit card payment, and less than half of what you're paying is going to the principle, you know big business can't be suffering all that much," he said.
Since moving to this area when he returned from Vietnam in the early 1970s, Hutchinson says he's watched this area slowly disintegrate from being larger than Greensboro and Charlotte, N.C., to losing its standing as the third-largest city in the state.
His wife lost a good job with The Travelers Cos. when the insurance firm moved her department to Augusta, Ga.
And he admits that when he hears rumors coming from Sears corporate headquarters in Chicago, he feels nervous. For much of 1992, the national retail chain has shed stores, employees and auxiliary lines of business. It began 1993 announcing plans for more retrenchment and changes.
Still closer to Hutchinson, the Sears auto shop at Valley View Mall where he works seems to have weathered the controversy that battered Sears auto shops in California and New Jersey last year. Officials in those states lodged charges that the company was performing service that customers didn't need.
"People who come here and ask for me to service their car trust me," said Hutchison. "Helping them is like doing a good deed."
Hutchinson says it's always been his impression that if he or anyone he worked with ever sold something a customer didn't need, it would mean automatic dismissal.
So Hutchinson has never been concerned about any consumer group conducting an undercover investigation of the shop where he works.
He feels a lot of people still trust Sears as one of the most venerable names in American retailing.
When the news surfaced about Sears auto shops on the West Coast deliberately overservicing cars, Hutchinson says, the attitude of his regular customers seemed to be: "You've been taking care of me for 20 years, so I'm going to stick with you."
Aftermath of the controversy touched him nonetheless. As a back-shop mechanic, Hutchinson worked on commission until Sears changed that to avoid future unethical-sales allegations. He feels he's making slightly less than he used to.
"But now my pay is more well-rounded," he said. "Now when the slower months - like January, February and March - roll around, it's not such a rat race."
And what does Hutchinson drive? Not the fast, slick car you'd expect of a professional mechanic. Hutchinson arrives at Sears everyday in a '76 Pontiac. He's proud to say he paid for it in full in just five months.
"It does what it's supposed to," he explained. "It takes me and brings me."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB