Smog Star Express Walnut Creek — Attraction in Walnut Creek

I had to get my elderly uncle's 2007 Lexus LS460 smogged last week. Unfortunately, he never drives it, so when I took it to a place near his house on 19th Avenue in the City, the technician said he couldn't pass it because the "OBD was not ready and needed to be reset." Huh??? He then charged my the $59 anyway. I was a little peeved, so I drove out to my area and just pulled into Smog Star Express totally by chance. Well, the Good Lord must have been guiding me because this place was heaven-sent. The shop owner, Tom, politely greeted me. I told him my "sad" story, and he said not to worry because what the other guy told me was probably legit. He plugged in his OBD code reader to confirm that the O2 sensor was indeed needing to be reset before anything could happen. And then he did what only a truly honest person would do...He told me the truth! He explained to me EXACTLY what I needed to do: drive the car at 55-60 (NOT 80-90!) mph for 10 minutes to reset the computer. He then said the first guy I went to should give me a free re-test. I said I wanted to get it done and would rather pay him, so he said he would wait for me to go for a drive and come back. He also plugged in his code reader when I returned and told me, "you did it!" If it didn't re-set, my story wasn't going to be any "sadder" because he wouldn't have charged me a dime. That's after all the time he took to explain the situation to me and educate me, and to plug in his OBD to the car twice! OUTSTANDING service and honesty. And props to Tom's technician, John, who did and OUTSTANDING job finishing off the check and getting the car cleared through Sacramento. In the future, my 2002 Silverado and the wife's 2015 Sentra will be coming here when they need a check-up. Thanks again, Tom and John. I thought I knew a lot about cars before this experience, but you can always learn something new as long as someone is willing to make the sacrifice...

DO NOT GO TO THE WALNUT CREEK LOCATION. The advertisement online says the normal price is around $50 and that you can get a $20 off coupon. This leads to the assumption that the price will be somewhere between $30-$40. When I arrived and asked about the coupon the guy helping me said no problem, and that he would apply the coupon. He waited until after the test was already done and it was too late to leave and go somewhere else, to charge me $59 and inform me that $50 was the DISCOUNTED price, and that I could not use the $20 coupon. At best they are negligent in explaining their prices, at worst, they are just ripping people off. It is not worth the price...

This is the smog check location operating out of Mobile. We went without an appointment, and were next in line for the smog test. Waited 5 minutes, got checked, and were out 10 minutes later.* The technician was efficient, friendly, and very professional.

*The technician discovered that our car had an unusual issue (we recently replaced the battery, so needed to drive 55mph for 5–15 minutes to trigger the computer in the car to connect to all the car’s systems). He explained it very clearly, told us how to take care of it, and offered to wait after closing so we could return to complete our smog test and get our...