CAR TALK
By Chris Wadsworth
Let’s just be clear from the start – John Maas is going to hate the first few paragraphs of this article. That’s because they don’t focus on his years as a successful mechanic in Ashburn, or the booming business he has built at the Ashburn Sunoco, or even the fact that his shop won the Best Auto Repair category in our Best of Ashburn 2025 competition.
Instead, we’re going to talk about his uncanny resemblance to the famous cover model Fabio.
“So, we ran an ad in one of the 55-and-older communities. And I snapped a picture of him and the whole ad is just his face,” said Janessa Maas, John’s wife and business partner. “And he’s got these beautiful blue eyes and his long hair. He’s stunning. And that’s the whole ad.”
Within days, a local man came into the shop who happened to live in that senior community, and he recognized John’s face.
“And John was like, ‘Yeah, I know. It’s in the magazine,’ and the man said, ‘No, it’s on everybody’s refrigerator.’ I guess they had clipped out his little face and put it on their refrigerators,” Janessa said with a laugh. “We all make fun of John.”
All kidding aside, John and Jenessa Maas have built something pretty impressive right in the heart of Ashburn Village – a mom-and-pop car repair shop that has earned a fair amount of faith and trust in a field not always known for that.
“We don’t use pressure sales,” John said. “If something is broken, we tell you it’s broken. I try to give customers options as to what they can do. And if something doesn’t need to be replaced, we tell you it doesn’t need to be replaced.”
John grew up in Vienna and has been working on cars since his teenage years in the mid-1980s. Janessa is originally from Detroit but moved to Burke in the sixth grade. John spent years working in other people’s shops before deciding to take a leap and get his own place. He and Janessa purchased the Ashburn Auto Care shop in the Ashburn Village Shopping Center in 2013.
It was not an overnight success.
“So, there were two owners before us. There was a guy named Dave who was fabulous, and everybody loved him, and he was here for like 17 years, and he did a great job. He was just this little community shop, and he had a great following,” Janessa said. “When he sold it, he sold it to a gentleman who didn’t do as great and ran it into the ground.”
When the Maases took over, they had to slowly rebuild the trust that the surrounding community once had in the shop.
“We would sit around some days and do maybe three or four oil changes. That’s it,” John recalled. “So, we made a few staffing changes, made a few advertising changes and the business started to take off.”
They took an old database of customers and sent out a coupon offering a steep discount to introduce themselves. Customers came in and liked what they found, and business has been growing since.
David Hooper owns a plumbing company in Falls Church and has a fleet of eight vehicles. When they need service, he brings them all the way out to Ashburn Auto Care.
“John is the only guy I trust to work on them,” Hooper said. “It’s because of the attention to detail and how they actually care about you as a customer.”
One of the key elements to their success and that “trust” factor is not trying to sell folks on things they don’t need.
“The dealers will tell you that you need something because you’ve gone 30,000 miles. I think both of us would agree that, yes, those are the recommended procedures based on what the dealership sees on an average vehicle, but it doesn’t necessarily apply to every single vehicle,” Janessa said. “When we get a list from say a dealership or even a competitor and that has a power steering flush, a coolant flush, a transmission fluid flush and an oil change on it, and they throw a brake fluid flush in there as well – does the customer actually need these things? No. Yes, they’re on the maintenance schedule, but guess what – sometimes their fluids all test exactly how they should. They’re still clean. They’re not contaminated.”
Today, the Maases live in Ashburn Farm. John is the head mechanic, and Janessa – who laughs when asked whether she has an official title – basically runs the place. Six employees round out the team.
We asked John what the biggest mistake is that car owners make when a car needs repairs and what is the one thing every car owner should do when coming into a shop. The answers were pretty insightful.
“The biggest mistake? People Googling what is wrong with their car and then walking in and telling me what they want done to their car. 95% of the time that’s not what’s wrong with it,” he said.
And the smartest thing to do? “Ask questions. If you don’t understand what a mechanic is telling you, and they don’t want to answer questions, then run.”
The shop is busy every day with a steady stream of customers and cars moving in and out of the three repair bays. There’s so much business, they sometimes have a backlog – to the point that the Maases have been looking to expand for several years now – trying to find a second location in the Ashburn area. Nothing is official yet, but they are working on it.
“We don’t have a big fancy waiting room. We don’t have loaner cars. We don’t have donuts and coffee. We don’t have any of that,” Janessa said. “We are down and dirty. I have nowhere for you to sit and I don’t have a drink to offer you, but we will fix your car if you’re willing to be patient.”
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WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Believe it or not, the official name of the repair shop is Ashburn Auto Care, but most people call it simply the Ashburn Village Sunoco because of the gas station next door.
Technically, the gas station/convenience store is a separate business from the repair shop. 7-Eleven owns and operates the gas station and store, and the Maases lease the auto repair shop space from 7-Eleven.
But from the T-shirts the repair team wears at work to the greeting they use when they answer the phone, Ashburn Village Sunoco is the name that has stuck.
