these guys are crooks. Gordon quoted to put in a thermost and sensor $700. I called another guy and he put the sensor and thermostat in for $100 parts and labor. be very careful with this place. read more

Would give 0 if possible. Avoid at all costs. Horrible attitudes in the shop. One of the mechanics is a jerk.

Gordon has been repairing and doing maintenance on our cars for 14 years now. He always does a great job. He never overcharges. He will tell you straight what's wrong with your car, what needs immediate attention and what can wait. When I was struggling financially, he did the minimum that my car at the time needed and I was able to afford keeping my car going. One of the last honest mechanics. I highly recommend him. We currently have a 2011 Toyota Corolla LE and an 2006 Audi TT quatro. read more

Gordon Lew has been fixing my cars for two decades. He has exceptional diagnosis skill and is a quality car repairmen. He has worked on my 1997 expedition, 2010 Suburu Forrester, 2007 Maxima, 2013 Volt and completely rebuilt my 1968 Mustang Fastback. Gordon, thank you for your great car care at very fair prices. Best, Jeff Allmon San Jose read more

I made a phone call to just get a quote for a full synthetic oil change and the guy gave me a five paragraph essay on why not to use full synthetic oil for my high performance vehicle and proceeded to quote me $125 which is 56% more expensive than the going rate for a full synthetic oil change. I said that's pretty steep and he immediately said goodbye and hung up the phone on me. Extremely rude and unprofessional staff working here and I would be cautious of their work if it's anything like their terrible customer service.. read more

Quite rude Horrible job (may have broken more than was fixed) Overpriced too! Truly cannot think of a worse type of service. read more

He got my girlfriends Nissan Versa up and running again in no time after Nissan failed to fix it. Thanks again!

Gordon does such professional work on all luxury cars especially Mercedes. He is always busy so schedule your visit and prepare to leave it for an hour. But the quality shows since he painstakingly tests and fixes everything. He is the rare Auto Mechanic who avoids doing unnecessary work. I had to insist that he does an oil change even when he said it was not required. I consider Oil change a cheaper alternative to expensive engine repairs! I also bring in my other branded cars because I have faith that they will be professionally serviced. read more

Horrible shop and experience. They caused more scratches on my car and said they were already there. They didn't even want to acknowledge my concern. read more

This guy is a big time joke he told me he can do my electrical and fix my oil leak for my car and didn't do either.My car sat in his ware house for 6 months I would call him almost every week to see how the project is going.He would always tell me the same thing I'm jus bout to get working on it.We had fix the electrical and have the fans start working.He got the fans to work for 3 months had a bunch a problems with my car still.Then the fans stop working and nearly almost blew up my engine I recommend if you have and old school car do not go to this guy WARNING. read more

See all

I never expected to have a positive experience when it came to a car repair, but Gordon was the best! I needed to have my brakes replaced, and I was very worried about the cost. As someone who doesn't know much about cars, I'm always wary of being taken advantage of or overcharged. When I spoke to Gordon, I immediately felt that he was trustworthy. He did a great job fixing my brakes (and getting rid of all the weird noises my car had been making), and completed it faster than I expected. His prices are very fair considering the high quality of his work. I will recommend Performance Automotive to anyone local that is looking for a skilled and trustworthy mechanic! read more

Look no further, these guys are great. My starter went out and not only did they replaced it that day but there price was absolutely amazing Thank you so much gordon read more

I was talking to a peer at work about a problem that I'm having with my 2000 Toyota Tacoma. He mentioned that he has a longtime friend that has a garage near my place that he highly recommends. (Oakridge mall area in SJ) Gordon is the owner of Performance Import Service and has been in business for a while. I took my truck in because the engine light came on and the lack of HP when I attempted to accelerate. It took him a bit of time to troubleshoot the issue (2 days) and I was amazed at what he found. The #2 and # 5 cylinders had a misfire and he was very puzzled at the causes as he has never seen it before. Turns out that the water pump bearing leaked which caused the cooling fluid to leak into the engine which solidified which caused the timing belt to 'jump' a few notches. This threw off the timing which lead to the misfires and to a loss of power. WOW... I do my own maintenance on my cars and have changed out part, brakes, headers, cat, etc... I would have never been able to troubleshoot this issue myself. If I took the truck back to the dealership, I'm 100% sure I would have paid at least 40% more than what I paid. I can say that Gordon is an honest mechanic and business owner. I'll be taking my cars to his shop in the future if they are in need of any type of service. This type of mechanic is hard to find... Aug 2012: It looks like Gordon hired a new person to run the front office. This person likes to account for every bit of time that Gordon spends on your car. Before, he would do a quick overview and talk to you about the issue at little or no cost. Now, it seems as if every minute is costing you dollars... So in general, it's not much different than taking your car to the dealership... Hate to do it, but I'm dropping the rating from 5 down to 3.... read more

Our family has been going to performance automotive since I was a baby. We have always gotten great service and our cars are always done in a timely matter. They've worked on our nissian, multiple toyotas, honda, Mercedes, and bmw. Gordon and Bob have been honest and fear on pricing. We tried taking our cars elsewhere to save a few hundred bucks, but ended up costing a few hundred more in the end bc the cheaper mechanics made the problem worse and ended up having to bring our car to performance to fix the problem anyways. Note to self- If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Never gonna go to another mechanic again when these guys have always been awesome. read more

Performance Automotive - Auto Repair Near Me - San Jose, California

Always goes the extra mile for anything he's done on my cars. Honest guy with fair prices.

There are few honest people in this world, there are even fewer honest mechanics (read my review of Capitol Mitsubishi in San Jose to know what dishonesty is...), and I was convinced that there are NO honest mechanics that have empathy with their customers. I was proved wrong when I went to Gordon. In 30 minutes, he showed me that 1500$ that capitol Mitsubishi charged me was a lie.....another 2000$ they wanted from me to keep my car running was a lie..... My car's rear tires were torn on the inside (I could never see that...other mechanics had to know cause they jacked my car to change shocks and struts..) and capitol Mitsubishi wanted 2000$ to replace tie rods also. Gordon drove it for 5 minutes, went over/inside/outside for another 25 minutes, sent me to tire shop to get new tires AND HE CHARGED ME 0$ FOR HIS 30 MINUTES. Thanks to him, my baby is not going to a salvage yard. (I have a Mitsubishi 3000 GT) read more

Gordon is such an honest and smart mechanic. He is like an engineer in the uniform of a mechanic. Very intelligent with anything to with engines and cars. He services my Toyota 4Runner and seems to be better with Japanese cars, but I brought my Mercedes C280 to him and he was able to solve it's problems as well. I went to Stevens Creek Toyota-horrible customer service and expensive labor. I went to Smythe European Mercedes Benz-good customer service, horrible labor rates and incredibly high fees. I originally went to him based on Glenn O.'s review below, around May of last year(2007.) He is now my primary mechanic. I live in Santa Clara and it's not convenient for me to get over to South San Jose, but an honest mechanic who does good work is worth the drive to me. I hope his quality and integrity last. read more

My wife drives a Mercedes E320. After paying spiff at two Benz dealers, I decided to shop around. I found Gordon's place through Yelp and liked the reviews. Especially, the guy who had his car serviced at Bob Lewis. So, I scheduled the Benz's Service B maintenance at Performance Import. Everything went smoothly and we have dollar savings compared to the Service B cost at the Benz dealership. For my Service A, I will bring it back to Gordon's place. read more

I went here and entrusted my 94 Ford Probe to Gordon after reading the reviews on Yelp. I wasn't disappointed. I asked him to check the car over as it had been off the road for 6 years and I wanted to make sure it was safe to drive again. He only charged me for an hours work yet he spent much longer on it and spent a further hour explaining some problems it had when I came in. When I explained that I was a student with limited means and asked 'what really needs doing now?' he was honest enough to say that it was safe to drive and the problems could be fixed at a later date. He came across as a good honest guy, very chatty and keen to help. Always willing to answer questions! Would go there again for sure. read more

I took my honda 2002 to the car repair complex off off Winfield ave and I just decided to walk in this shop to get a price check. I wanted to check another place for price before I hand my car in to the lowest bid, but I got such a great sense from Gordon that I decided to work with him on the spot, without checking another shop. Somehow I knew I could trust him on the spot before getting another bid. His work is great and he even changed my windshield wipers for free and fixed my light bulb as well. Great guy, great work. I would definitely recommend him to any one. read more

Nice guy with reasonable price. It takes a bit of time to get my service done. But, overall, I get an impression that Gordon is pretty hard working, honest man. I recommend him for annual car service. read more

This was my first trip to Performance Automotive. Gordon is a very knowledgeable mechanic/owner and a super pleasant, honest straight forward person. We purchased a used 2008 Mitsubishi Outlander for my son up in Grass Valley. It was a very nice car in excellent shape for 126K miles. The biggest questions we had was if the timing belt was replaced at the 105K mile mark and also if the spark plugs were replaced or at least if the still looked good. I checked a couple places up in Grass Valley to get a cost for possible repair. For both of them it was right around 1400.00, they gave me no other options to check of the status of these parts. This was some money I was hoping not to spend. Well, we brought the car back to the Bay Area. I started looking at Yelp to try to wade through some of the auto repair places. I picked 3, called and talked to them, then drove out to each and talked to them face to face (I myself usually have new cars, so until the warranty expires I use the dealer. So I don't have non dealer mechanics). I ended up picking Gordon at Performance Automotive. He gave me some options of a way to possibly save me some money in the total repair. While he would have to charge me diagnostics time, if it worked out then I would not have to be putting out well over 1000.00. We dropped off my sons car a 8:15 AM. Gordon reiterated how he was going to approached this and he would really try to at least get the diagnostic done today, even if not the entire repair. Gordon is the owner and currently the sole "employee" at his business (that he has owned at this same location for 34 years)! I checking in once at 5:30 Friday afternoon just to see what was going on. He apologized that he got rushed and he was still going to work on it. He said he would give me a call a bit later to let me know what was going on. He ended up calling me at 7:36 PM on a Friday night (he was still at the shop). He told me the results of his diagnostic and lucky me, my son did not need the timing belt (when he took the cover off the belt looked new) or the plugs done (yet). He also checked all the fluids, brakes, drive belt and misc. He did advise me that the front rotors were warped, (that is something I had seen is some of the service records from the old owner). He told me what the cost would be to resurface them, but also said it is nothing that needed to be done immediately, only if it bothered us. His troubleshooting fee was very reasonable! We picked up the car about 8:30 PM. While in the office I told my son, "Here is your mechanic from now on. Whenever you have a problem with or need something checked on our car, call Gordon". If I need a non dealer mechanic for my other cars as they get older, I will be using Gordon also. Give him a shot! read more

I simply called with some questions and he took the time to explain what might be going on. Cant give him 5 never saw the place, but a mechanic that will take time to explain thing over the phone without your creditcard? wow. read more

I first started taking my 2000 Jetta here in 2003. I had taken it to Bob Lewis for regular service, and asked them to check out why the air conditioner smelled so foul. They demanded $300 for an air conditioning check-up and service. They wouldn't even do a diagnosis otherwise. I left without even having the regular maintenance done. I told a friend about this and he recommended I see Gordon at Performance Imports. He did the regular service, and when I came back to pick up the car, showed me why the air conditioner smelled bad: The old cabin air filter was absolutely green and slimy. (This particularly galled me because Bob Lewis was supposed to have replaced this as part of the previous service, but obviously they hadn't.) Bob Lewis would have charged me $300 for this. Gordon charged me $25 for the part and $30 for the labor to replace it. Gordon is also really friendly, but professional. I know a little bit about cars, but I'm not an expert, especially when it comes to the electronic stuff. Gordon always explained to me in plain English what the problem was and what he would do to troubleshoot or fix it. He always delivered what he said he would, and on time. I have bought a new car with a maintenance warranty now, and I no longer work in that area. However, if I ever have any major automotive work that needs to be done out-of-warranty, I would go out of my way to have it done here. read more

Omg. Was melting in my work truck, Gordon the owner took care of my issue immediately and was reasonable and trustworthy, what a life saver , many thanks . Awesome service . From Carlos Gutierrez amazed customer !!! read more

Gordon is very nice and intelligent guy and experienced mechanic. I highly recommend choosing performance automotive for your car repair. I had some issues with my wife's Acura MDX 2004, everything was fixed quickly and for a reasonable price. read more

I had a cylinder misfire with my car. I had another mechanic try to repair it, did some things, he reset the check engine light. On my way home from this mechanic, I felt some of the misfire symptoms again, so I called this place. He was very gracious and spent 10 minutes with me on the phone, offering advice and saying, "bring it in and I'll look at it." The next morning, I tried to start it at 7:00 am and I got the Check Engine Light all over again. I thought, you know, that guy was really cool. I'm going to give him my business." I drove to his shop. It was only 7:05, so he wasn't opened yet. I waited until 8:00 for him to arrive and didn't mind waiting because out front of his shop, it was a ghost town. I wanted to be first, figuring, I could just leave it here all day and walk home. He arrives about 8:20. He's a little late, big deal. So I am thinking "I'm going to remind this guy of our call and give him my business...my money." He opened the garage door and steps out. I approach him and he gives me an awful look. I say "I called you late yesterday and I had the misfire.." (He interrupts me), "What do you want ME to do about it?" - in a tone as though he caught me fu***g his sister. He continues "Will you look in my garage?! See all those cars? And you think I'm going to help you? I don't have time to help you!" Well, Gordon, you lost a customer for life. That is why you drive that beat up piece of sh** car. In business, you could be the greatest mechanic known to man, but when you mistreat prospective customers, rergardless of how shi**y your morning may have been, you lose customers ... good people trying to give you money. Wouldn't it have been easier to say "Why don't we set an appointment?" Wouldn't that have been easier? I appreciate the phone chat and advice, but being nice when it's free and crappy when you have the opportunity to earn business...well that's a horrible business model. Best of luck to you, but you're dead to me. read more

Gordon is the best. I've been with him for 25 years because he is completely honest and approachable. The last 10 years, I have lived in Sacramento, but still bring my vehicles to Gordon, and he always takes care of me the same day if at all possible..:-) If you are looking for a mechanic who you can talk to and trust, Gordon is the guy! read more

I don't see why Gordon has so many stars. I took my rx7 to him a few years back and he took it for a road test to see what was wrong with the car. The car stalled out on the road and he left it there for many days. Well since it was just sitting on the side of the road it was broken into and alot of stuff stolen out of it... he was stupid to think that if he left it there for a week that no one would be curious and look into it. I had some mods and the whole stereo system stolen out of the car not to mention the passenger door was damaged when they broke into the car.... after talking with Gordon about it he seemed to think that he did nothing wrong and that he wouldn't pay for any of the damage done to my car. I imediately towed my car out of there and whenever anyone asks me about that place I tell them to avoid Gordon like the plague. read more

DO NOT WORK WITH HIM WHATSOEVER. He repeatedly hit one of my friends car then proceeded to box him in telling him to leave all because he was parked outside for a minute. What a very immature thing to do and very unprofessional read more

I've been going here for about 7 yrs. and Gordon will never steer you wrong. He's the most honest mechanic and very knowledgeable.

I have 2007 Nissan altima and its AC was blowing hot air. I went to yelp to find auto mechanic who can fix. Performance had few bad reviews, and based on its review I didn't want to check it out. First I went to different place where their review was better. Of course they also had few bad ones but it wasn't that bad. Other place just told me to drop the car and they will get back to me. This was one of bad reviews. So i went to performance. I met Bob and told him my problem. He didnt sound a jerk like one of the bad review. I asked him I needed to recharge AC and asked him if they can check that quick. He was initially hesitant but he asked Gordon to do so. They found out quickly that I have different problem. Gordon was very helpful and recommended to use oem parts. I personally don't like after market cheap parts since they are not usually realiable. So, I liked the mind set of using better parts. They do use oem parts. I do recommend this place. read more

I started taking my cars to Gordon since about 2002 and have found him to be trustworthy and good at what he does. He's told me when things don't need to be fixed, which I'm not sure all mechanics do. If you are like me and don't know a lot about cars, you'll appreciate the time he takes in explaining things. I've since moved from San Jose, but continued to use him for another year because it's hard to find a mechanic I'm comfortable with. read more

Totally honest, friendly, great service, fast, reliable extremely affordable and will always use Gordon and Bob at Performance. They were referred by a friend and I'm so grateful. 2003 Mercedez C240. read more

Read all the reviews about this shop and took my wife's car in. Just like the others his honest and straightforward. Will be back

If you like to be ignored, go here! I went in to get my car looked at, and the guy in the office started to help me, then he got a phone call, instead of putting them on hold or offering to call them back, he took the call and ignored me for about 10 minutes. When I asked him if he was going to help me, he told me he was on the phone with a "good" customer and that I could wait. With four old cars, I AM a good customer, but not for them. read more

Good repairs and personalized service. Helped me get 450,000 miles out of my last car. Now called Performance Automotive. Gordon knows his stuff. read more

Gordon was great with my car. He was really considerate of the fact that I have been unemployed for over nine months now. The heater core needed to be replaced and he said that it wasn't even worth considering, because it was too expensive. That he could do a bypass and fix the coolant leak that way. I have no heat for now, but my car runs. It saved me a lot of money. So, I had been in need of an honest mechanic and this was the best time for my car to break down as it turns out, because now I have someone that does great work and isn't out to taking advantage of me. Highly recommend. read more

I stopped by and Gordon helped me right away. He looked over my car and told me he could fix it in a day. I brought the 2001 Suburban over the next day at 8 am. He had the broken window, broken lock and hinge system for the rear door fixed all in one day. read more

I've been taking my '86 Mazda to Gordon for well over 10 years and he's never let me down in that whole time. He's that rarest of finds: a crackerjack mechanic who is also very personable. Gordon always makes time to talk to his customers! Most people are in the dark when it comes to their vehicle. Gordon shines a light on this dark area and sets your mind at ease. He's a really likeable guy who knows his stuff inside and out and knows how to share his extensive knowledge with great effectiveness. And his assistant mechanics are top-notch, just like he is. He has fixed numerous problems with my aging Mazda and has kept it on the road for the last 13 years. Gordon sets a very high standard for trustworthiness, competence, and great customer satisfaction. He is every car and small truck owner's very best friend. Forget the others; Gordon's the best. read more