The Shop San Bruno — Local services in San Bruno

Bad experience... Doubt if they tried to trick me

Went with a perfectly fine car, got back a car with Engine lights ON, Alternator Issue and $721. estimate for the fixes. I really doubt they tried to trick me by triggering the engine lights and TPM indicators. Long story: Since I was going on a road trip and since I was due for the major service for changing transmission fluids, brake fluids etc I thought of doing a cheap inspection service at "The shop". Their website lists a $25 inspection fee and I thought well it is okay to spend that money to confirm if my car is good for a road trip. I called them up and talked to Simon who gave me an appointment and I drove in and checked in with Simon. He said it will be quick and will take 30 mins. I waited for 1 hour 15 mins and didn't hear back. So went back to the desk and Simon said it is done and he is making a report. And then he handed me the report and the fun begins He said the engine lights are ON so they need to inspect further and also my car's alternator is week and has to be replaced and they do not recommend to drive the car at all for the road trip unless these problems are fixed. (Just to make a note here: My cars warning lights will turn ON when the battery is disconnected and has to be reset manually with OBD port). I was shocked and also found that funny. I asked him when did he see the engine lights ON, coz when I parked my car there it was never ON and he said well it was ON when they pulled the car to the garage... I understood their point. They might be trying to scare me with that and make some money out of it!!! And my first thought was to take my car and escape. But I asked them, how much would it take to fix all these? He did an estimate with a new alternator, engine lights inspection and also tpm fixes to be around 750$. I told him that I'm not doing anything in here and and wanted to take my car and he gave me a receipt for $45 and I asked him about why is it $20 more? And he said he had to do more inspection than for older cars. Total bullsh*t. I should have confirmed the amount before I turned in the car. So finally after getting the car I turned ON the engine and figured out that I'm seeing lot more warnings in the head unit than I have seen before. I cursed myself for being extra cautious. My car had only undergone the routine maintenance at the dealership 2 months back and I never should have turned my car at a local unauthorized "The Shop" at all, that too just before the road trip. I went back in and spoke with the Manager and complained about the whole thing which is "I have a car with more problems than what I drove in" He took the car in and cleared all the warning lights and said it might come back again and alternator needs some attention and it is not bad. So now I have a car with no warning lights. I escaped from "The shop" and went to my friend who did some diagnostics and said everything is fine. The next day I went for the road trip and everything was fine during the entire trip.So lesson learnt: Dealerships might be expensive but they can be trusted - I hope so :)Not going into any local workshops any more especially "The shop" This was my second visit to the Shop, and the first experience was good. Also this was something that was recommended by my friend. I will alert him and his friends too. Also posting this on yelp, so...

I didn’t have a good experience here. The shop felt very transactional and not particularly knowledgeable about diagnosing issues in depth. During my visit, the owner seemed more interested in what was bought for lunch than in really taking the time to understand what might be going on with my car. He mentioned one thing but never followed up and seemed in a hurry to leave.

It left me feeling like customer care and attention to detail weren’t priorities. The price quotes were inconsistent, and he didn’t seem confident in what he was explaining. The shop also appears to rely heavily on inexperienced workers for most of the actual work.

There are many honest, skilled mechanics out there who genuinely care about the quality of their work — this just didn’t feel like one of those places. Overall, it came across as purely transactional rather than...

I've had a set of tires from Tire Rack smoothly installed here before, so I decided to come back to replace my front brakes and do a brake fluid flush. After comparing prices with a few other places, The Shop had the best one by a good margin.

I brought in my own rotors and pads, and they were done installing and bedding the brakes within 2 hours. Everything went fine, and I was charged the price we discussed before. I would have no issue bringing my car back here for service.

For the brake fluid flush, one thing I noticed was that they listed ATE brake fluid in the parts list with no real mark up (I'm guessing it's ATE Type 200). Not only was the price reasonable, but ATE is also a very popular and reputable German brake fluid. You know the Germans always...