Mata's Treats You Like Family
- Susan Heavilin
- Sep 16
- 3 min read
When I heard that four of my Bonita neighbors were all taking their vehicles to the same paint & body shop, I decided to check it out. I was not disappointed.
My friend, Donna Hodge, needed a new paint job on her truck. She had rust on her rust. She did her due diligence and called about seven different places. Six of them gave her a really expensive price and then she found Jesus Mata.
Jesus broke the task into small pieces. "I can do this for this much. For this much, I can do this and this and this. For a little more, I can do all that plus this." By the time Jesus had gone through all the breakdowns, Donna went for the whole enchilada. Mata's ended up doing the entire project and for a lot less money than the others had quoted.
Jesus Mata is the owner of Mata’s Auto Body & Motorcycle Repair. Mata’s is located at 819 Grand Avenue in Spring Valley, CA 91977. The company just celebrated their fifteenth year in business on September 1.
How did you get started with cars?
“I was walking one day from after school and noticed they had a body shop. It was something new in the neighborhood. There were mechanical shops and tire shops around. But I had never seen somebody do body work, I mean paint. That was 1979 and I was 10 years old.
So, I stopped by, me and my friend go walking into the shop. I said, ‘Hey, can I ask you something? Can you teach us about this new thing here?’ And the neighbor says, ‘Oh, you go to school?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And then, ‘Okay, you have to go to school.’
After school, I would go home, eat and then come to the shop. The shop owner says ‘I'm going to teach you guys.’ But what happened is that my friend’s father doesn’t let him work in the shop because they have money. So, I started working with him. I was in fifth grade. So, I worked fifth grade, sixth grade, all the way to graduation. He's a friend of my family. He became my godfather.
Last year he retired.
He came to my shop the other day, and he gave me the guns, the paint guns. ‘Here you are, here.’ Wow. He gave me his paint guns, the paint guns that he had used forever."
Why do you think your shop is so popular?
“I like to help people, you know. We are a small family business but people know about me because I like to help people. I don't abuse my customers. I treat my customers like family. I respect all the shops but what they think about is the end of the month, numbers. We obviously need money, too. But the most important thing here is to take care of customers. We want people to be happy. I want them to know that this guy is good . . . and friendly. And then they can–with the word of mouth– pass it on to other people.”
Click on images to enlarge
And do they ever! He does no advertising what-so-ever. It’s all word of mouth. His business is so abundant that there were cars parked in the street trying to get it.
There's a story about this beautiful wall painting. Jesus' daughter Jennifer asked if she and her boyfriend could go to the shop to wash her car or something like that. The next day, she asked her dad to show her boyfriend the car he got that was parked inside. When Jesus opened the door to the garage, he discovered the amazing wall painting they had painted for him!
All four of my neighbors—Craig, Jeff, Dan and Donna— are very happy with the work that was done on their vehicles. And they're also very happy with the price they paid.
I could tell in just five minutes of meeting Jesus Matta that he is a kind man and he truly does care about his customers. I know where I'll be going if I need a new paint job or body work done on my vehicles!
Click on images to enlarge
Comments