I’m an engineer by training and a shade tree mechanic by pure enthusiasm. Realistically, though, there are a great many jobs that I find myself unable to realistically achieve in my own backyard. When this happens, I’m forced to hand my pride and joy off to a real mechanic. But how do you find a good one?
There are a great many ways in which a mechanic can cause your car harm. They may do sloppy work, or simply not do a job at all while telling you they have. If you’re particularly unlucky, your car might end up worse than it was when it went in. One particularly horrifying story saw a friend of mine leave an alignment shop, only to have his suspension fall apart just a mile down the road.
Then, there’s the simple risk of being overcharged. Nobody wants to pay too much for a cheap job. At the same time, you don’t wanna go too cheap and risk getting substandard parts that aren’t up to scratch.
The one mechanic I trust above all others is my good friend Alexei.
He tackles the most difficult jobs with methodical intensity. He'll buy a used car and within six months, have it running like a top.
He fixes watches in his spare time. For fun. He's that good. pic.twitter.com/QfMortupKP
— Lewin S. Day (@rainbowdefault) April 26, 2024
In my own automotive life, I’ve been lucky to find a few good mechanics over the years. These all came to me via the recommendations of the car communities I was in. The MX-5 club introduced me to a guy across town who knew the cars inside and out. I threw quite a few jobs his way and he never let me down. Similarly, a BMW Facebook group put me on to a specialist workshop that tackled the gargantuan task of repairing my car’s air conditioning. The heroic job took three weeks to figure out and yet they charged me an incredibly reasonable price.
And yet, I’ve been steered wrong in this regard, too. A much-lauded Volvo specialist let me down in multiple ways. For a start, my car left the mechanic with a sticker advertising the workshop—something I didn’t consent to. Sticking your ad on my car without asking? That’s absolutely galling. Worse than that, the repairs I’d paid good money for didn’t stick, and I had to chase them up elsewhere.
The reason I ask is because I’ve bought a new ride. It has no service history, so I’m taking the cautious route. I’m having the timing belt and water pump changed, and that’s a job I can’t handle right now.
The problem is that this is a big job. I can’t hand it out to any old jamoke, because if they get it wrong, I’m out an entire engine. I also don’t want to get ripped off; even a fair price for this work is going to set me back a lot of money.
I want to find a specialist in the brand, but so far, I’m not having much luck. There’s one that’s well-reviewed, but I’d have to spend $200 on Ubers just to get there and back to drop the car off and pick it up. There’s another close by that has a good reputation for mechanical work, but half the customers say they’re pretty rude and hard to work with.
Right now, I’m feeling stuck. Go ahead and help me out—how do you go about finding a good, trustworthy mechanic?
Image credits: Lewin Day
You don’t. They find you.
One advantage to me now being older (not wiser!) is that once you pass 50, if you DO eventually find a good mechanic, doctor, or any other professional you are going to need throughout your life, chances are they will be younger than you, so still be around even after you retire. When I was in my 20s and found a good parts shop (have never had an actual mechanic work on my car other than roadworthy inspections) I planned on never going anywhere else, but the guys behind the counter were already in their 50s, and have since closed the shop and retired.
I used to be able to walk in on a Saturday morning (had to get in early before they closed shop to go racing!) and drop something unidentified and oily from a random rare car on the counter, tell them what was wrong, and they could walk straight to a shelf out back and grab the part I needed, or often if the actual part was obsolete, a good substitute that could be made to fit (with advice as to how).
I’ll soon be 70, and this is very true. All of my health providers and my mechanic are younger than me, if not necessarily by much.
Trial and error. So far plenty of errors, but none bad enough to piss me off enough to end up at a trial
I don’t have a mechanic, but I will say the commenters here are awesome and give great advice.
I have a stock answer for this!
I teach a lot of short-form automotive intro classes for beginners, and the two questions tied for most asked are, ‘How do I know when to take my car to a mechanic?’ immediately followed up by, ‘How do I find a good mechanic?’
Unfortunately, much like finding a romantic partner, you find a good mechanic by trying out a lot of bad ones.
And also, like finding a partner, there is no right answer for a ‘good’ mechanic. There is no universal right answer, there is only the answer that is right for you. The shop your friend uses and swears by may annoy you and not feel trustworthy to you.
Get recommendations, read reviews, and try out some different mechanics if you can. Test the waters with smaller projects before big ones. How they act on an oil change, brake job, or even an inspection can give you a feel for the kind of work they do, how they interact with customers, and if you like dealing with them.
I do have some red flags that I think are reasons to immediately drop a shop:
-Not being willing to answer questions or provide detailed explanations.
-Making you feel bad for asking questions or not knowing things.
-Giving your car back with handprints on it or dirty from the work they performed.
-Having no recommendations for further/future work. Unless your car is new there is something wrong with it.
-Just as bad is being pushy about recommendations for future/further work. A good shop should be able to inspect your car and give you a list of stuff to do now, do soon, and do eventually.
-Overrunning an estimate by more than ~10% without notifying you before increasing the scope of work. Not only is this illegal in many states but it is terrible customer service at best and predatory at worst.
-Not being able to give or meet a timeline.
For the last few years I’ve been doing everything myself- but since I drive a VW that’s not always possible. I found my guy first though his goofy shop name- Lord of the Rings (he works on Audi too), and because the first time I went in there to ask about my turbo that I thought was going out, he drove my car around for a few miles and told me it was fine. Zero cost. Who else does that?
Start with word of mouth and then take a drive by the place people recommend. If there looks to be a 3-week supply of cars sitting around the place, it may be worth checking out further. I’ve generally been my own mechanic, but in the past when I did need to find one I had the best luck with the recommended independent places that seemed to be overflowing with business.
Nowadays I still get asked where to go and I’m running low on recommendations. I only know of a couple of decent places left in the area, and the one doesn’t service anything newer. Others have changed hands, in some cases keeping the same name, but being run (not nearly as well) by different people.
What’s really unfortunate is the loss of the local “wizards”. Like the place that specialized in automotive electrical items. That guy was a genius – he actually understood what was going on at the atoms-moving-around level and only ever charged for exactly what he did. When he retired people hoped his son would take over, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. Similar story with the local radiator shop.
Also, if you do find a good place, try to pay in cash and support them as much as possible!
I’ve always tipped—even when poor—at mechanical establishments. Click & Clack always said to bring your mechanic brownies. I would talk to whoever was doing the actual work, find out what they drank, and bring a 6 or 12-pack when I came to pick it up.
In today’s times, I now just use cash—most lately a Jackson in the box containing the bearing I was having them press into my hub. Surprisingly, they didn’t even run me a ticket: I guess $20 was enough for that job
Go to your local parts stores that are like NAPA and feed the local garages. The less fancy the store the better.
Ask the counter guys who they recommend.
Rinse and repeat with a few other stores.
I always let my dad work on my car when it was needed, which wasn’t often in the latter years of his life. That was a good thing, because even though he insisted on doing my brake job after I got a probably reasonable estimate after it failed state inspection, it took him quite some time and it felt like there was air in the brake lines or something after he was done. My brother can do the work as well as my dad if not better (fewer shortcuts), but he’s not really someone I’d feel comfortable asking (and also accepting free labor when your father forces it on you is different than leeching off someone.).So nowadays I’ll cobble together some references from friends and do minor things myself, or get something that’s new enough to have few problems to fix.
Found ours at church when our car would not start. He jumped us off, then after my wife casually mentioned her brakes pulling slightly on one side, he got down and looked at them. We were going to Disney the next week, driving down from Atlanta. He said to us “You’re not driving to Disney on those brakes,” and told us to drop it off at his house on Monday. By Wednesday we had new brakes, and he wouldn’t take more than $100. Since then, he did brakes, spark plugs, 3 alternators, 2 batteries, a starter, a belt tensioner, water pump, etc. Oh, and he fixed my A/C in my civic by showing me it was a $8 fuse that had blown where the other shop wanted to charge me $1600 to replace the compressor.
Still does work for my in laws. Always tells us order this part on rock auto or go to O’Reilly and get this part, and never upcharges on parts. Really under-charges on labor. He’s got 40 years working for Ford, Jaguar, Lexus under his belt.
Step 1: Figure out which mechanics in town have boats.
Step 2: Go to someone else.
Along the same lines, avoid the mechanics whose kids have straight teeth and private school educations.
I feel like ‘don’t go to a successful mechanic’ is terrible advice.
Shopping for service work by price is the worst possible idea.
Specifically with regard to my original comment, back when Car Talk was still on the air (and Tom Magliozzi was still alive), they had a running gag that sometimes, when callers asked how much a repair could cost, they would answer in terms of “boat payments,” because they had observed that most-to-all of the unscrupulous mechanics they knew owned boats.
Spent many a happy Saturday in the garage with Tom & Ray cackling through the radio, so got the reference immediately
I asked all my non-car friends about mechanics & shops who made them feel comfortable & confident in the services offered. Questions like “do they ever try to pressure you into work or services that you didn’t ask for? Do they do a good job of explaining what’s going on when they do recommend services? Do you feel better or worse after talking to them about your car/needs?”
My other car goes to a specialty shop that my grandpa recommended because of their quality of work and attention to detail, and when your Grandpa Who Disapproves Of Stuff says “these guys are real good” you tend to pay attention
I knew my mechanic was the one when I showed up and there was a Phaeton outside.
Agreed but Ferrari! It was a 360 in front of my neighborhood shop. I asked “I thought you needed special tools and training?” He said “I did all the work on my ’87” and I was sold.
Yep. The shop I frequent always has a menagerie of complex European electrical/vacuum nighmares from the early 2000s. When I picked up my Boxster in another state, I (by pure luck) found a shop whose owner used to daily a Testarossa.
Following this closely, even though I do the vast majority of work myself but I’m in a spot similar to Lewin’s where there will be times when I do not have the time or the tools to undertake certain major tasks and the shops I knew first-hand to be good and reputable have all closed due to the mechanics retiring, plus my kid, also a highly competent shadetree mechanic, is embarking on a new career in a city several states away. I used to take my diesel VWs to a local diesel VW specialist shop that was highly regarded and had even been written up in articles in magazines but from the beginning I would have doubts about the quality of their work and then the last couple of times the quality was so atrocious that I was ticked off to the point of scraping their stickers off (if you had one on your car you got a 5% discount) and then I informed everyone in my family and circle of friends that I could not recommend that shop at all. And it’s pretty galling to spot one of their stickers in the background of Humble Mechanic videos on YouTube, gah. (This is not to cast any shade on Charles the Humble Mechanic by any means; he seems genuinely nice and highly competent, especially as seen in the posts by JT about his spouse’s ticking time bomb Touareg, and his YouTube videos are excellent, highly recommended.) It always seemed like the shop only expended the most minimal amount of effort on my cars because they perceived me as not being affluent; it most likely didn’t help that I did not have highly tuned and/or Griots-Garage-level-detailed cars. The best service I ever got was from shops that actually catered to mere plebeians but those shops, as noted already, have closed due to retirement. So this post and the comments will hopefully be helpful (not just for me but for everyone else.)
I found the local good shop via a dealer. My now wife dropped her Civic off for an oil change at the local Honda dealer (courtesy ride and close to her work) and they said the oil pan was too rusted out. Amazingly rather than quote her some massive amount to do the job they recommended a place close to us. While I’m no mechanic I’m knowledgeable enough to have an idea what’s wrong and what would need to be done. They haven’t let me down once on any car and being a 15 minute walk away makes it easy to drop off and pick up after hours. Both our families now use them.
I would say word of mouth is a big factor. If a bunch of people who all have similar cars to yours say a guy is good, he’s probably at least decent. Similarly, if the shop has been there for 30+ years, there’s usually a reason it’s still there. Another option is to call similar-ish shops and see who they recommend. For example, where I work doesn’t touch Land Rover, but we get loads of calls on them, so we know who to refer them to. Occasionally, someone in the shop will know something about the car you’re calling about because they own one themselves or used to work on them once upon a time. We don’t work on Fiats, but occasionally I get a random Fiat call and get to have waaay too much fun in a phone conversation.
Car shows tend to be another source.
Take note of the nicest cars you see there, especially the consistently freakishly perfect ones. If they’re not wrenching on it themselves, they’re not messing around with who they’re having work on it. Ask. When you keep getting the same names, you’ve got some leads to go on.
I would dig a hole about 10 feet deep and 4 feet across, cover this with a tarp and leave a trail of 10mm sockets towards this, you should be able to find one amongst the folks you find in your trap
One way us to look for one that’s been around several years. Decades, preferably. Good mechanics may be hard to find, but bad ones, well, word tends to get around and they don’t last.
But if you DO find a good mechanic (shout out to Jeff at Precision Auto in Broken Arrow, OK), you don’t EVER let that one go! And you tell everyone you know about them, too!
Well said. My wife ran the office in a small shop. The two owners were certified GM boys and basically refused to touch an import. By 2000 that changed though.
She started in 1985 and stayed on after the owners passed till they finally shut down in 2017.
Almost every customer they had acquired was by word of mouth. Amy would do the customer intakes for the bosses, and write up the work orders. BTW she grew up literally in a family owned auto parts store.
I still don’t know how she did it, but she could diagnose 75% of the customer issues in the parking lot, despite no mechanical training. Just amazing. Some customers called her the Car Whisperer. Several tried to mock her abilities to “driveway diagnose” until they learned she was right most of the time. The mechanics had to do away with charging for machine diagnosis a lot of the time as well. When they did charge for it, the reply was usually “why didn’t you just have Amy look at it?” One of the local TV stations even wanted to do a story on her, but she was too modest for that stuff.
Her last 20 years there were other local shops, and dealers trying to hire her away for better pay. By the time the shop closed in 2017 she was making $40.00 an hour. Seriously. I don’t think she ever really touched a wrench, ever. I have wrenched for well over 50 years. But she could, and did help me hundreds of times to figure shit out on the beaters we drove.
Now that she’s gone, I just pray daily that my cars never give me any crap again. Damn.
Growing up we just used one guy all the time, basically. Away from home, I’ve just found places that seem to be fine. The one I use now is a chain, but they’ve been competent and my car hasn’t fallen apart in any suspicious ways. Maybe my old van, but that was having problems long before they looked at it.
I was particularly impressed one time that one of their mechanics asked me to drive him in my van to show him what sound my brakes were making that I’d mentioned. It was only in very specific circumstances. The repair ended up being listed as something like “repack wheel bearings”, but it did the job, it seemed.
I brought my Prius into a dealership for the 120,000 mile “inspect…” steps written in the manual (I’d had the actual fluids and substantive things done already). My dashcam footage showed them opening the hood…and not doing much, it appeared. But I also don’t usually make a habit of checking that footage to begin with.
Didn’t say anything about it.
I can’t really say if they are good or not, but I go to a place that has cats in the lobby, just hanging out. You can pet cats every time you go there.
Thanks for the laugh and memory.
My wife brought home probably 40 stray cats home from her time running an auto repair shop.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
Sheer dumb luck? I tried going to a mechanic that was recommended by a friend, but they proceeded to tell me they couldn’t hear the clunk I was there for and then tried to convince me there was a problem with the transmission, which to this day I think was nonsense. I never had a speck of trouble with that transmission in the time I owned the car.
The best luck I’ve had so far is taking it to my local dealer. Their mechanics and body shop have done good work every time I’ve been in there, even if their parts department is extortionate with their pricing. They’ve also gone out of their way to fit me in when last-minute problems risked cancelling a road trip. Labor rates seem in line with what I hear about other shops too. About the only complaint (aside from the parts pricing, which can be mitigated by providing them yourself) I have is that over the years it has become increasingly difficult to get an appointment. Last time I think it was around 2 weeks out for something basic like an oil change. I suppose that’s also a vote of confidence if they’re that busy though.
When I started autocrossing, I met people in the field of all types. I now have a mechanic who became a good friend. I also know people to go to for alignments, body work, tires, and all kinds of specialties.
And if I don’t know a guy, one of them certainly does.
You look in the mirror!
Dad joke aside, I feel more confident in my ability to be thorough out of caution than I do in most “professionals” just doing their job.
Beat me to it 🙂
My reasoning is nobody cares nearly as much about getting the job done properly as I do on my own vehicles. It’s not the pro’s fault; they frankly can’t afford to care as much as I do. Thank goodness I am reasonably mechanically inclined… I feel for those who are not and really have to rely on a mechanic if anything goes wrong on their vehicles.
Absolutely! There are good mechanics out there but you live with your vehicles every day, you’re naturally more in tune with them and have a greater investment than any mechanic will.
Here’s me:
“How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb?”
“Two. One to call the electrician while the other makes the Martinis.”
I love my excellent mechanic…
And I’m old enough that I can’t remember if I posted this before on this site.
become one is all I can think of…