Content brought to you by PTEN. To subscribe, click here.
Technician: Andrew Kay
Shop: Hendrick Honda of Charleston
Location: Charleston, South Carolina
When Andrew Kay was a young automotive technician, a Matco Tools mobile tool dealer was one of the many distributors who would come into his shop. Unlike the other guys, Jimmy Smith from Matco was the only one who would talk to Kay. He took a risk with Kay and trusted him, and from there, a lifelong customer was born.
“With my first box, I didn’t have any credit but he got me into my first box and it grew from there. It meant a lot and it’s gone a long ways because I probably have in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars worth of tools,” says Kay, an ASE certified Honda master technician at Hendrick Honda of Charleston in South Carolina. “I’ve always purchased the majority of my tools from Matco because of my first distributor.”
That first box was a Matco four-series double bay and then Kay upgraded to a five series double bay with a hutch and side locker. He has since sold that and now has the Matco six series triple bay 28” toolbox with a matching Matco JSC 770 roll cart. He bought the bottom triple bay in 2015, the top box in 2016, and the side lockers in 2017.
The dark green color on his box is now a rarity as this particular shade (called “green envy”) has been discontinued, as has the textured black (called “crinkle black”) that appears on the box.
“Nobody can ever get my color combo again,” Kay says. “It’s a big eye-catching piece.”
And because he was not able to order the roll cart in two tones to match his box, Kay ordered two carts and swapped the drawers so the roll cart would match the box.
The top box is actually a half-hutch in the middle with drawers on either side. He custom ordered two side lockers with two sets of sliding shelves and a power strip on each side. All his Milwaukee 18V and chargers are on one side and the 12V and chargers are on the other.
Many years ago, Kay's shop foreman told him he was organizing his box all wrong and that he would soon get tired from “bending over 30 times a day to reach the same tool.” Turns out he was right, so now Kay keeps his most-used tools around waist level so he’s not having to bend down as much. In the skinnier drawers, he keeps his wrenches, screwdrivers and flatter tools. The deeper drawers hold his sockets standing up in socket organizers and pliers on plier racks.
“You try to take up as much vertical space as you can in each drawer,” says Kay.
The roll cart usually has the tools he uses the most throughout the day such as his metric wrenches, screwdrivers, torques, socket extension, swivel-foot pry bars, and ratchets. Often found on the roll cart are hammers, pliers and diagnostic equipment at the bottom.
Kay’s favorite part of his toolbox is the half hutch.
“A full hutch for me is a waste of space in terms of square footage. I prefer to have doors on either side for organization,” he says. “The half hutch is big enough that you can put a laptop, scanner, radio, and stuff that you want to lock away.”
He also finds the power drawers in the side lockers very useful as well for plugging in battery chargers and tools, especially since most tools have gone cordless nowadays.
“Battery charging capabilities is a must,” he adds.
Kay’s box has a power drawer, each side locker has a power drawer, and the box comes with “convenience power” on the front of the box with 110V and USB power.
Kay’s loyalty to Matco runs deep and he even had a stint as a Matco dealer himself but ended up selling the franchise once him and his wife started having kids. Now, he works as a technician at the same Honda dealership that he started out at when he was 17 sweeping the floors and moving the cars. But his big-time box was moved from the dealership to his house after his employer decided to standardize the toolboxes.
Although he loves Matco, when asked if he has plans to add to his toolbox, he is quick to respond “absolutely not!”
“My wife would kill me if I added on to this box,” he says. “It takes up the entire wall of my garage — there’s no room to go up or out.”
