BY HAILEY MINTON
This family run and car-loving business keeps the families they serve first.
ZK Automotive is a family-owned business, owned and operated by North Ogden and Pleasant View residents, built to serve residents along Northern Utah. Jennifer Roskelley, her husband Tyler, and father Mike Salazar, are the owners of ZK Automotive. Tyler grew up in Huntsville. Mike was born in North Ogden, and Jennifer has spent the better part of her life in our community as well.
After Jennifer and Tyler married, they decided to start a full-service auction company. Mike, having a love for thrifty buys and restoring items of rusty items, gained his Auction License in 2014 and never looked back. All three got their car state auction license soon after, and from there it grew. “We all LOVE cars,” said Jennifer. She admitted that fast cars are her indulgence.
Jennifer explained that car dealerships go to state dealership wholesale auctions, in order to purchase cars for their fleets. “We can offer that to the public.” People can buy or sell their vehicles through ZK Automotive auctions, which has moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Look for their restart in the Spring of 2021)!
In 2016, they decided to transfer their passion for cars into expanding their services in order to offer more help to their customers. “We believe in being diverse and expanding where you can, when it makes sense,” Jennifer said. They offer a wide range of financing options for ALL credit types, and they finance vehicle purchases, repairs, and upgrades.
Today, they have a mechanic shop and collectively, ZK mechanics have over 100 years of experience. “They’re great,” said Jennifer. “They come second to none!” And many of them hail from the beautiful city of North Ogden as well.
Jennifer said they like to be innovative in running their business. They offer a car service subscription, which reduces the hourly rate of service when customers bring their vehicles in to have work done. Jennifer explained that a lot of places will charge anywhere from $110 – $130 per hour for normal mechanic work. Theirs ends up coming to as low as $59.95 per hour. They chose to incorporate this into their business, with families in mind. “On the back end, it genuinely saves families thousands of dollars if their transmission goes out, their engine breaks down, if they need alignment jobs, or have a huge leak. We are a family first oriented business and that’s not going to change.” That has been their motto from the very beginning.
They have made some hard decisions along their journey. “As an entrepreneur, you either fail or succeed. At one point we were really beginning to feel that pressure. The return in revenue wasn’t there and it didn’t make sense to continue, but we know the secret to success is to keep working hard and never give up. Innovate! We decided to change up our procedures, restructure, and learn how to better manage our time and costs,” said Jennifer. “From that point success came easier. It’s all about working harder and smarter, and never giving up.”
INFO
Business: Automotive Sales, Repair and Finance
2389 N Highway 89 Ogden
(385) 492-3594
HelpMeZK.com