I don't know about the long-term good and bad for these guys, but I do know that I trust long-term relationships, especially ones that my family develops. My aunt and uncle have come to this shop for years, to service their Hondas. I'm not talking about regularly scheduled service for their cars, or little repairs here and there - but somehow my uncle and aunt have kept their Honda CRV for a good, oh, at least as far back as high school for me (so mathwise, I guess that pegs at least 21 years?). Then again, my uncle kept his Honda Civic prior to the CRV at least about the same number of years.
So somehow, either Honda makes really good vehicles, or my uncle and aunt have a knack for picking the good ones, or maybe a little of both - but one way or another, I know that my uncle knows cars. And he knows car repair people. And they've taken their car here for years.
So when I came driving up to visit this past weekend - no, correction, LIMPING - with brand new all-season tires on the front rims of my 2007 Audi A3 2.0 (rears were just replaced in July), post-visit to Landmark Sears for purchase and installation (I will always keep going to them if they have the best price for materials I'm looking for, but I will NEVER go to them again for any service - years of my mother going back and again blindly to Sears for them to "fix" her problematic brakes and brake pads should have taught me something) - well, my aunt and uncle told me to go to these guys. First thing Saturday morning, off we went.
They had 2 guys in the shop, and 3 cars ahead of me. But - they told me - they'd get to my car that morning. At 12:01, I got a call that the car was ready for pick up. We picked up the car at 12:20, and the guy I talked to (Dave?) told me all 4 tires were out of balance. What really ticked me, was that he showed me that the front tires still had their old weights on them. I was about to have a conniption. Sunday afternoon, $55 later, I drove myself and the kiddies all the way back home, like a hot knive through butter.
So moral of the story? I'm not going to let Sears touch my car again. And these guys just won another customer - but I hope I won't have to limp to their shop again in the near future.
*This shop, however, transferred ownership in September 2012. So while my aunt and uncle knew the previous owner for years, they don't know the new people - but I'm pretty happy so far with how they did with my cars. read more