Sign up for the Planet Money newsletter. The world is confusing. Economics can help.

KENOSHA, Wis. — People are holding onto their vehicles longer these days, so spending on car repairs is on the rise.

That’s good news for Snap-on. The company has been making high-end tools for auto mechanics for over a century.

“Vehicle repair is one of the great businesses,” says CEO Nick Pinchuk. “Everybody’s got to get their vehicles repaired. The garages are humming.”

By catering to those mechanics, Snap-on has enjoyed steady growth and profitability, despite the challenges facing U.S. manufacturers. This week, the president of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, Austan Goolsbee, dropped by Snap-on headquarters in Kenosha, Wisconsin to get a taste of the company’s secret sauce.

“It’s interesting to see,” Goolsbee says. “Customization is why they get paid a premium and how they still manufacture in America.”

The company makes 85,000 different tools, each one tailored to a specific need of someone fixing cars or airplanes or even rocket ships.

“Our philosophy is to be at the point of work, observing it, and figuring out what are the most sticky tasks,” Pinchuk says. “And then using those insights to create a tool which will make it easier. People will pay for this.”

Snap-on tools are not cheap. But they pay off if they help mechanics save time and complete more repairs.

Snap-on franchisees make weekly visits to neighborhood mechanics in custom company vans. By closely watching mechanics at work, they can identify new tools that might be needed. They also provide credit for mechanics to purchase the tools.

Scott Horsley

hide caption

toggle caption

Scott Horsley

To diagnose those sticky tasks and peddle its tools, Snap-on relies on thousands of franchisees, who make weekly visits to nearly a million neighborhood mechanics in custom company vans.

Snap-on makes 80% of the tools it sells in the U.S. domestically, so it’s relatively insulated from tariffs. To crank out such a wide variety of tools, its 15 U.S. factories have to be enormously flexible, changing models multiple times each day. Other companies do a much bigger volume of business with a much narrower product line. But Pinchuk says specialization is what makes Snap-on so profitable.