Finding a top shop that will charge fairly

Modern cars can stop and steer themselves to keep you out of harm’s way, park themselves, provide directions, connect to the Internet, blast a playlist from your phone — the list of automotive marvels grows every year. But automobiles still need regular maintenance, and they still break down. When they do, all that technology challenges even the most committed do-it-yourselfer, and you need a good repair shop.

Bay Area Consumers’ Checkbook and Checkbook.org have been evaluating auto repair shops for decades, and one thing hasn’t changed: If you don’t choose carefully, you risk inaccurate estimates, long repair delays, lousy work and unnecessary repairs. But not all shops are lemons: Plenty almost always perform topquality work quickly at a fair price.

Checkbook’s quality evaluations of more than 500 shops in the Bay Area are based on thousands of reviews by customers, as well as consumer agency complaint records. Checkbook also compared shops on price — Checkbook’s undercover shoppers collected thousands of prices for carefully specified repair jobs.

Fortunately, there are a lot of top-quality auto repair shops in the area. Checkbook found that more than 200 of the shops were rated “superior” overall by 90 percent or more of their surveyed customers. But there are plenty of shops to steer clear of: Several got such favorable ratings from fewer than 60 percent of their surveyed customers.

Checkbook’s undercover shoppers also found dramatic shop-toshop price differences. For example, to replace the water pump for a 2011 Chevrolet Impala, they found prices ranging from $296 to $835 among Bay Area shops. Hourly labor rates ranged from $62 to $288.

The really good news: You don’t have to pay more for good service: Checkbook found no relationship between the prices shops charge and the quality of their work. There are many top-quality, low-price shops in the area.

Many people believe dealers offer better repair service due to access to proprietary knowledge, sophisticated diagnostic software and high-tech tools not available at independent garages. In fact, Checkbook found the opposite: On average, independent shops were far more likely to satisfy their customers than dealerships — and offered far lower prices. The non-dealers were rated “superior” overall by an average of 90 percent of their surveyed customers compared with only 64 percent for dealers. Prices at non-dealers averaged about 14 percent lower.

Both dealers and non-dealers subscribe to the same databases that provide repair instructions, diagrams and news from manufacturers. Although many car dealerships feature spacious, nifty-looking workstations and offer gourmet coffee in waiting rooms, independents have access to the same tools and equipment. Despite what dealerships would have you believe, local garages can access the same information, software and equipment.

Checkbook’s advice: If the work you need is not covered by a newcar warranty, use an independent shop.

With any shop, communication is critical. Checkbook advises:

If you’re absolutely sure what needs to be repaired, tell the shop. Otherwise, don’t guess. Give the shop a detailed written description of your car’s symptoms. If you mention a specific problem — say, a bad alternator — the shop may replace a perfectly good alternator (and charge you for it), before fixing what is actually wrong.

If possible, speak with the repair technician who will be working on your car. Service write-up personnel at large shops often know very little about car repair, and those who do know car repair may not be able to describe your car’s symptoms to a technician as well as you can.

Either get a written estimate in advance, or write on the repair ticket that no work is to be done without your approval based on a written estimate.

Get a written, dated invoice that details charges for parts and labor, and the vehicle’s odometer reading.

Pay by credit card — you can dispute the charges if things go wrong and the shop isn’t responsive.

If the car is still not right when you get it back, immediately inform the shop, preferably in writing.