OxfordPress.com

The news from Jeff Pohlman's business differs from others in the auto market as his repair shop is making money.

A lot of money.

"I've never seen a period like this before," the 33-year auto repair veteran said. "People are putting more money into their vehicles than they would have before."

Normally, Pohlman said repairs are down at this time of year, but business has almost doubled at his Jeff Pohlman Tire locations.

As credit tightened and nervous consumers stopped buying, U.S. auto sales in October fell to 10.5 million vehicles — the worst sales pace in 25 years.

And while U.S. auto manufacturers may need the $25 billion government bailout to survive this sales crash, Pohlman said the recent news is good for auto repair shops like his.

"Who wants to buy a car from someone when they may not be in business? As the Big 3 trim their dealerships down they are eliminating the competition," he said. "People are fixing instead of buying, too."

That is Liberty Twp. resident Peg Moody's plan.

"I'll be taking in my (Ford) Focus for repairs now rather than trade it in," she said. "I'd rather save $1,000 to fix it than put it on a car from someplace that may go out of business."

But Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Investors, said more is at stake. Rather, it's 2.6 million jobs — 2 percent of the U.S. work force — from company workers on down if GM, Chrysler and Ford go under.

And that doesn't include the 1.1 million jobs at auto dealerships, said Annette Sykora, chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association.

"The real estate crisis and the Wall Street meltdown and the credit crunch have left consumer confidence at its lowest point in recent history," she said. "As a result, auto sales have suffered. In other words, the auto industry is part of the collateral damage."

The Big 3 have to take responsibility for some of their faulty practices that have led them into this mess unlike their foreign competitors, said James Brock, a Miami University economist with a focus in the auto industry.

"When we went to three gigantic firms, the U.S. auto market became stagnate, uncompetitive and inefficient, stumbling around trying to compete for about 30 years now," he said. "It's not good for the industry and not good for the country."

If the Big 3 fail, we'll still have an auto industry in the U.S., he said. It will just be names like Honda, Toyota and Hyundai.