The Garage — Local services in San Francisco

I have taken my car there for several years. This place used to be good, but i took my 2011 Ford Escape there last week for its 95K service. I was asked when I needed it back, I said 2pm. The receptionist, Lily Caro, who later was identified on my paperwork as the "service adviser", said alright. I assumed that meant, it would be ready on time. Well I was never called and I called them at 4:45 pm and was told it was ready. I was never given any information about what was found needing repairs, except 2 tires that would need replaced soon. I said alright. They used give you a call and let you know what needs servicing when they are working on the car. At pick up all she gave me was a receipt with the payment info on it and not much else. They used to give you a link to all the items inspected, checked, replaced, and would reiterate things that need to be fixed. I was never called about anything needing work. I asked about the link for what they did, and was told, "I dont know, let me see". She was able to send the link to my email. When I could finally open the link, it listed several item, including: valve cover gasket: Rec to replace engine valve cover Front Suspension System: Left LCA bushings cracking/tearing Right LCA bushings cracking/tearing Replace control arm(s) Drive Axle Boots: seeping Right and Rear inner And a left blinker bulb not working.

I was never told of any of these things. The worst sounding like, If the drive axle breaks, then the vehicle will not drive.

I am not bringing my car back to them and will seek out a new mechanic. Something seems to have changed, and not for the better. This Lily person doesn't know anything about cars nor have any...

I've been taking my 1994 Honda Del Sol to The Garage for many years. They consistently provide the very best possible service. They always go out of their way to save me money, but keep my car running at its best. This is getting more challenging every year as the car is now 21 yrs old with 265k miles on it! Yet the folks at The Garage have been able to keep it passing smog and running well. They do everything for me from regular maintenance to the big jobs like the timing belt. Recently they replaced the brake master cylinder which was failing. They also made some attempts to diagnose the fuse for brake-lights/horn/cruise control which was regularly blowing. As part of that diagnosis they replaced the brake pedal switch. They did not charge me for that work because it turned out not to be the problem but it would have been more work to remove the part than it was worth, so I got the new part at no cost. The next time I drove the car I found that something wasn't quite right with the brakes. I brought the car back in and they quickly found & fixed the issue, of course at no cost to me since the work is completely warrantied. While they had the car they put some more work into diagnosing the electrical issue, still at no cost to me. On top of providing quality service work on the car, they simply have the best customer service skills. They are great communicators - you never have to call them to find out what's going on. If they promised you a call, you get a call. They are always cheery, friendly and professional. I couldn't be happier and won't take my car...

After hearing so many praises here on the Internet, I decided to try it out myself. I was slightly disappointed. The good things about them is they are VERY friendly and professional. However, when I made an appointment with them on the phone, they said that they could do a price estimate (itemize the parts and the labor cost, etc.) for me free of charge, and they will also do a complimentary inspection. However, when I got there, they told me that for "diagnostic" they will have to charge me for US$120, as it would take 1-2 hours to diagnose the problems, and without diagnostic, they can not come up with a price estimate. They did offer that they could do a free error code scanning for me, which I'm thankful (my car is a 1993 Mercedes, which does NOT have OBDII system, meaning more trouble for them). As I had to rush back to work, I decided to just let them do the error code scanning (to see if it matches with my friend's scanning), and NOT the $120 diagnostic. I'm glad that I decided to do that, as later when their mechanic did the code scanning, their diagnostic system had trouble to communicate with my car computer. The mechanic said that either there is something wrong with my my car computer, or it's a software problem with their diagnostic system. However, just few days ago my mechanic friend just did the code scanning for me and he was able to get the codes (so nothing was wrong with my car computer). Bottom line is, friendly and professional folks, but they might NOT have sufficient equipments for some specialty cars (like Mercedes made...