Kansas City Automotive

N.W. Audio soups up rides with top-brand audio equipment, car alarms, and window tints. The shop’s skilled certified technicians enrich playlists with amplifiers, door speakers, and CD players by Lightning Audio, Morel, and JVC, and protect newly installed equipment by outfitting rides with Python alarms or by chaining an angry chihuahua to the tail pipe. Aside from installing electronic systems, N.W. Audio also blocks harmful UV rays and nosy passersby with Viper window tints backed by a lifetime warranty.

Cobalt-blue key chains emblazoned with Johnson County Automotive's logo swivel on countertop racks in the cozy reception area, emulating the spinning wheels and whirring belts on the bustling auto-shop floor. Amid hydraulic lifts, arsenals of tools, and three decades worth of greased memories, a team of ASE-certified mechanics goes to work, rebuilding battered carburetors, grooming engines, changing oil, and replacing the alarm clock hanging next to the Garfield hanging in the back window. While mechanics pore over cars, drivers take off in complimentary loaner cars until their rides are ready. Johnson County Automotive upholds its work with a 24-month, 24,000-mile warranty, and doles out car-care tips on its newsy blog.

A framed picture of the Route 66 sign hangs near the front desk of Dr. Dent—an homage, perhaps, to road trips across middle America. Though such treks can help make travelers worldly and wise, they can leave cars with dents and dings. Dr. Dent’s repair experts erase the bumps and scratches that happen on the road to self-discovery—or simply to the grocery store—to let the discoveries themselves shine through, and they’ve been doing so for more than 20 years.

Instead of affixing heart-shaped band-aids to scrapes and hail wounds, the crew uses several makeover methods to furbish car complexions. During paintless dent repairs, they return the surface to its ideal shape using a nonabrasive metal tool. In addition to improving the car's appearance, this technique preserves the original panels and factory paint. The technicians also use glue pulling—a new technique that involves adhesive tabs, slide hammers, and skilled force—to reshape dented metal. They can also fix chipped paint in-house, layering a clear coat of enamel atop a color-matched base coat.