Service With a Shine

An auto and tire center upgraded its car care with improved lighting from Arkon Power.

Goodyear Leone Auto Repair & Tire, Oldsmar, Florida, was having trouble with its lights, and the darkness was affecting all aspects of the auto service center’s business.

Goodyear’s technicians either couldn’t see what they were doing, or they dealt with sub-optimal conditions to account for the lack of lighting. Lighting maintenance and power costs were too high. And customers couldn’t be serviced quickly and efficiently.

Arkon Power had the solution to put the Pinellas Country-based Goodyear outlet on track to have a great year, replacing the company’s legacy lighting with LED fixtures throughout its service area.

“I am just really happy with the light quality itself,” company President Nick Leone said. “I can’t say anything bad about it. The techs are really happy, and the light quality is amazing.”

Prior to installing the new LED lighting—efficient high bays down the middle of the service area, and 4-foot linear low bays between each work center—Goodyear Leone operated 8-foot fluorescent tube lighting throughout its facility on Tampa Road. The lights often went out, and when they were working, they didn’t provide enough illumination for technicians to see what they were doing. The Central Florida service center frequently had to open its doors to let in enough light to work. On hot days, conditions were stifling. On cloudy days, light was still an issue.

“They wanted to replace the tubes in the existing fixtures,” Arkon’s Graham Brown said. “That would’ve helped, but it was not going to be the best solution.”

After completing a photometric plan, Brown and his team came up with the current configuration. The result was daylight-like lighting regardless of conditions and shadow elimination regardless of car positioning.

“Better lighting makes it easier to work—you can just see things better,” Leone said. “If it’s raining out or overcast, we still don’t have dark spots in the shop. The use of [supplemental] lights has gone down drastically.”

Leone said his Goodyear facility has also seen a drop in its energy bill, using nearly 1,000 watts less energy each month. And that reduction is even with longer hourly lighting use.

Email Info@ArkonPower.com to learn more about this or any of Arkon Power’s other projects.