North Highlands Tire Pros — Local services in Citrus Heights

Tl;dr: The people at North Highlands are wonderful. They are honest, hardworking, detailed, and communicative. It takes some time to get repairs done, but your automobile is in good hands!

I’ve had my 1999 Toyota 4Runner since I was a kid, it was our family car. It has roadtripped cross country multiple times, been shipped to and from Hawaii, and has had its fair share of mountain hills, gravel, and dirt roads. Needless to say, I love my car. But with 300,000+ miles on it, the issue isn’t IF it needs to be repaired, but WHAT needs to be repaired.

In September 2024, I moved to Sacramento and my car was running smoothly. Fast forward to February 2025, my car’s temperature gauge was overheating and coolant was continually disappearing from the reservoir.

I took my car to an initial mechanic, he diagnosed a faulty radiator hose. I thought this was odd since I got this part replaced in August 2024. But, if this was case, I needed to take my car to a mechanic within my old mechanics warranty program (TechNet). Enter North Highlands Tire Pros.

Following the previous mechanics diagnosis, Rodrigo and his team checked my car’s cooling system. They found that the lower hose clamps were loose, and that the upper hose clamps were old and worn, thus causing some coolant leakage. They tightened the clamps and replaced the old ones and performed multiple coolant pressure tests to make sure the system was good to go.

But that was not the root of the overheating problem. Although the engine passed multiple block tests, there was excessive white smoke coming from the tail pipes during startup. Upon pulling the spark plugs, they found excess coolant in the combustion chamber and corroded engine cylinders (yikes!), this was the true cause of the overheating.

Given the cars age, Rodrigo suggested it was better to replace the whole engine instead of trying to repair the warped/corroded gaskets & cylinders. He sourced 3 low mileage engines (used). The first one had obvious signs of rust and corrosion, and the second one looked clean, but failed during the test drive (cylinders collapsed on themselves & engine had a knocking sound). At this point I was losing hope that my car would ever be fixed, but North Highlands did not give up. Rodrigo and his team personally went to the used parts supplier, inspected and retrieved a 3rd engine, installed said engine, and took it on multiple test drives (100 miles: local roads & freeway) before releasing the car back to me.

I appreciate how detailed, hardworking, and honest these mechanics & technicians are. They took the time to inspect my car holistically and found the root of the overheating problem. If I went with the initial mechanic, I would have unnecessarily paid $200+ to get a perfectly good radiator hose replaced and still would have had engine overheating problems!

Choosing to replace my car’s original engine with a used, lower-mileage engine, I understood that it was a gamble to get a good, used engine that functions well without problems. I am so grateful for North Highlands’ attention to detail and honest work ethic. The team inspected and tested the 3 engines out, reporting honestly when an engine didn’t meet standards and did not charge me for the additional labor hours it took to take out and install the 2 faulty engines. My car has been running great since with no weird noises or suspicious smoke. Although my car was in the shop for over a month (due to setbacks in getting a functioning used-engine), the repair was top notch and very high quality!

North Highlands officially documented my cars diagnosis with pictures/videos and written reports via their online portal. Additionally, Rodrigo personally called to keep me informed on every step of the repair. He patiently explained every step of the repair and gave me constant updates, never making me feel stupid or blindsided.

I am so grateful to have gone with Norrh Highlands Tire Pros. Thank you Rodrigo and the North Highlands team for giving my car a second...

I guess bribing customers with prices to write a good review works, because North Highlands Tire Pro's does not do what they say and do half a$$ work so beware consumers.

I brought a brand new set of tires to them for mount and balancing because the young lady informed me that it would be $100 on the phone when I called. This was the cheapest quote over the phone I had gotten (I guess it's true you get what you pay for). I showed up for my appointment they got it on the lift and wheels pulled the young lady came out and informs me that she miss quoted me because she didn't know the tires were 35/12.50R20 and it will be $40 dollars more (I should of walked right then) so reluctantly I agreed. They proceeded to install the tires and I was observing them from the lobby. I never seen them balance the tires. When they said they were done I asked her if they balanced the tires because I never seen them do it. She said they do all the balancing at the other end of the shop and it was done. I took off and right way I know they were not balanced because the truck was shaking so bad that you couldn't see out the mirrors. I took it back first thing the next morning and told them it wasn't right so she said they would re-balance them right way. So the wife and I walked down the street and had breakfast when we came back the truck was still being worked on and we waited for over 1 hour before it was done. We took off and it was better but still had a bad vibration at 65 MPH. The truck isn't used a lot so I didn't want to spend another 1/2 day sitting in their lobby so I just lived with it for a few weeks. I just took the truck to American Tires and had them check it out. they wanted know who installed the tires because they didn't even balance the rear tires because there were ZERO weights and one of the fronts was over weighted by 2 oz. They balanced them all and the truck runs done the road as smooth as can be now. So if you made it through the story you will understand that North Highlands Tire Pro's are dishonest and are fair from being TIRE PRO'S. They will convince you to come in then hike the price up and don't even do the work. Places like this that give repair...

Unfortunately, I will not be bringing my car back here and I recommend you avoid it too. I brought my car for an oil change and was told I needed new brakes. I agreed to have them replaced and after waiting a few hours I received a call letting me know that a mistake had been made and that my hood was not latched and flew up while they were road testing the brakes causing decent damage. They agreed to take care of the damage which I appreciate. I was told that this should be quick and that the body shop they were sending it to should have it done by Friday (I dropped the car off on Tuesday). It ended up taking three weeks and I was given very few updates and they only came when I called. During this time I was told "we will reach out to the body shop and let you know" and I never heard back. I ended up requesting the number for the body shop and called and did not hear back. Both myself and The Tire Pros lost contact with the body shop. When I finally got in touch with the body shop they said they did not know why I was given such a quick turn around time because it was going to be at least another week (this was about a week and a half after the inital car drop off). This was never communicated to me from the Tire Pros shop and I only found out from the body shop. While they can't control the body shop timelines I do think they are responsible for who they trust to do work. I was also told they would give me a loaner car. The car I was given was in bad shape. The windshield was cracked, there was trash everywhere including an old McDonalds bag in the backseat and multiple other food wrappers, and bad staining throughout the car. Should you find yourself in my situation I would recommend requesting a rental car that they cover. They also told me my car was ready and when I went to pick it up it was in fact not done and needed to be held for 3 more days. Finally, when I went to pay I asked if they would be willing to give me a discount the man ringing me up guilt tripped me and told me what they had to pay for the damage and that his coworker would have to pay out of pocket for any discounts. All in all a very bad...