precision automotive

This is a tale (service review) of how Precision Automotive Service in Palo Alto, CA on The Peninsula, comes to the rescue once again, with a smart approach and the least pain to my wallet! (I know this will only apply to my local readers, but this is important enough because it’s hard to find a mechanic a consumer feels they can trust. Any Bay Area readers, please share!)

For a year or so my wife’s ~~POS~~ Volkswagen Golf has had an engine light warning signal going off for a while. But it never stays on. It visits for a few weeks, then goes off. On two different occasions the local VW dealer has looked at it and scratched their heads. Though they happily suggested a few very expensive repairs.

I’m not into expensive repairs these days, especially with this VW. I met my wife eleven years ago, and this thing has forced us to make an annual pilgrimage to the garage. And the things that break on it are amazingly stupid, or poorly thought out designing. (Or not, depending on the income focus.)

This week the engine light thing came on and it was accompanied by an angry, sputtering VW engine. But this time, the “check engine” light was blinking.

According to every VW manual and service personnel I’ve ever spoken with, if the “check engine” light blinks, if I understand this correctly, you’re supposed to pull over immediately and stop driving the car.

We didn’t pull over the sputtering piece of “!.” I had my wife drive it home and then I drove it to work and then onward to Precision Automotive over in Palo Alto. I took it there because they have proven to me on multiple occasions with all of our vehicles, that they take a no-nonsense approach, with MY WALLET in mind.

I pulled… no, make that, I sputtered in and pulled up. Even though they were slammed, I pulled in right as they opened and they were gracious enough to not only take a quick peek, but also fix my small issue before noon of the same day.

Yes, I said small issue. And here, that “blinking check engine” light was actually terrifying me.

When they hooked up a computer to the VW, they had a readout of a misfire in cylinder 2. But then the Precision Automotive gang had an idea and tried something.

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This is a consumer service review of Precision Automotive… again. But with new stories and a comparative look at another highly rated mechanics garage. But first, Here is a conversation I had with one Volkswagen mechanic a few months back:

“You need a LF tire… but you should get all four because you need it.”

Are you saying they all look as bad as the LF tire does?

“They all need to be replaced.”

So they’re all showing metal through the rubber like the LF is?

“No, the RF has 30% life left, the RR has 50% life left and the LR has 70% life left.“

If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can be so susceptible to well meaning mechanics. They’re only doing their jobs and trying to drum up business, but if you go into any automotive shop without a clue, without having done your research on your issue or had comparative visits, you WILL get financially depleted wrongfully, as far as I’m concerned.

Let me tell you of another tale of an almost huge financial whoa for myself.

About 16 months ago I had a problem with my truck engine. I went to a very highly rated mechanic, via the Bay Area Consumer Checkbook website. The mechanic is located on El Camino Real in Menlo Park. Keep in mind, Checkbook is updated by folks like you and me. Not professional consumer advocates, so reviews can be biased and/or a bit ignorant in some regards. And I don’t mean any of that in a bad way because I do depend on review sites, but I read them with a grain of salt.

The first time I went to this highly rated mechanic, they were incredibly professional, called out my problem quickly and though, through circumstances not totally their fault, I had to wait almost a week to get my truck back. But I did. It cost around $1000, which I thought was odd for the job, as in, oddly over-priced, but they did fairly good work.

I want to point out that this highly recommended mechanic operates in a zone between Menlo Park and Atherton. Atherton is the most expensive zip code in the United States. The homes are so huge, they make movie mansions look, well, normal. So when something costs $1,000 for someone who might spend $150k a month on a mortgage, well, obviously to them, that $1k is cheap.

I think that above distinction is a very important one to make here and you’ll understand in a moment.

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