The work: 4/5
Customer service: 2/5
Value: 3/5
I went here based on the recommendation of my mechanic for some body work. I put in an insurance claim and decided to use this shop instead of one recommended by my insurer. In hindsight, there's probably a reason your insurer recommends one of their shops: they're familiar w/the work and process and it comes backed up by the insurer if there's any issues.
My biggest qualms were the customer service. I went on 7/25 to inquire about an estimate for my vehicle. The owner gave me a fair estimate (he even uses a auto body shop estimator website so it's a fair price), explained what work would be done and advised the part would likely be in either Friday (7/26) or the following Monday, I believe. That was good enough for me, at the time.
An aside: it is very tight when you enter the lot to the shop. There are a lot of items all around the grounds, so you really have to maneuver around to get to the office door. There is also relatively no parking in the area. They have some near a fire hydrant and across the street, but it's an extremely busy street without a crosswalk, so you really have to sprint across like it's the 100 meter dash in the Olympics to avoid a collision. Not a complete dealbreaker, but makes getting in and out difficult.
It's a fairly long story, but in essence, I had to keep following up numerous times either through phone (the owner has no voicemail set up or it was full; the line just hangs up if he doesn't pick up) or e-mail/text over the next few weeks asking for updates. I kept being told the part was arriving yet it ended up never coming. It wasn't even a very complicated part; just a new bumper basically on a relatively common vehicle. Ultimately, the owner decided to abandon buying the part through his first aftermarket site and went with another, which ended up coming almost immediately after he placed the order. The parts finally arrived, in full, by 8/13. So literally almost three weeks just to get a part, but repeated follow-ups by me being needed; never the owner himself. The other tough part about getting work done here is that the owner, while very knowledgeable and courteous, is not a native English speaker, so I had to often times assume/guess what he was saying. Not the worst thing in the world as I've gotten good at interpreting accents, but difficult when it comes to something like car repairs. When I was able to deal with one of his employees directly, I was able to get better instructions and direction.
I finally dropped my car off on 8/16 in the afternoon after confirming the parts were in. They were nice enough to lend me a loaner car to drive home, advising the work would be done by around 6pm that day. Great, I assumed--this long process was almost over.
When I went back to the shop around this time, however, I found the entrance gate was shut and it appeared the shop was closed. I repeatedly called and texted but did not hear back. I ultimately was forced to open the gate manually and entered myself, only to see he and his employee working on my car. This frustrated me.
Also, when you walk into the shop, there's two Boston terriers on the grounds that are extremely energetic and continually sniff, follow and jump on you while you wait (once I walked in they advised me to wait in the office, which also has a lot of items all around). Something to consider if you're not a dog person. They did offer me essentially anything in the fridge while I waited, which was a nice gesture I guess.
Ultimately the work wasn't completed until around 7p (with me having to also continually keep checking in on--would have been nice if they just came out to tell me when it would be done, in their estimation). While not entirely their fault (they showed me that they had to completely disconnect some shoddy workmanship from the dealer on the back, and it took them awhile to put it back together), some better communication on when the work would be completed would have been appreciated. I also paid via credit card which comes with a 4% fee I believe (although the owner quoted me $1500, he advised the credit card reader auto builds in a 4% fee that he couldn't remove, so I ended up paying $1500 * 4%, which was also frustrating). I didn't have that amount of cash on me but I guess be weary of this in the future if you get work done here.
I found the work to be very good and the team themselves are friendly and hardworking. I appreciated they stayed late to get the job done for me. However, I would have liked to have been updated on the progress with this a lot better (and the owner buying the parts from somewhere else after they didn't arrive within a week the first time around) so I could have arranged my work schedule in a bit more of an organized fashion (I ended up going back and forth a lot more than I would have liked). I recommend for the work, just hard for me to do that for the overall package (customer service, value, etc). read more
