As the original owner of a 2001.5 Volkswagen Passat GLS 1.8T with nearly 300,000 miles on the…read moreoriginal engine, I have way more than my fair share of experiences with dealerships and independent garages. For about the first nine years and almost 100,000 miles of my car's life, I went to two VW dealerships for maintenance. Since then, for the last 12+ years and close to 200,000 miles, all of my services - with the exception of rare warranty and insurance-related work - have been done by independent mechanics (https://www.yelp.com/collection/NzFzorS5DsC3jQEIMESmew). I say all this to say I know a great independent shop when I see one and Automotion is that. Boy, am I glad these guys are around.
Simply put, owner-mechanic Gunnar Gronback and mechanic Dan Kearns are honest and highly-skilled. They know what they're doing, at least when it comes to my car with an Audi/VW 1.8-liter turbo engine and all its quirks. As any owner of an Audi or VW will tell you - or any European car really - the cars are difficult to work on and expensive to maintain. What amazes me is all the makes these guys have the ability to work on: "BMW, Audi, VW, Volvo and most Asian automobiles" according to their website. Before I found Automotion, most of the other independent garages I worked with only specialized in Porsche, Audi, and VW (same family). Maybe BMW and Mercedes too.
Automotion has been around for over 30 years. When I met Gunnar, I knew he looked too young to have been the owner for over 30 years. He told me he acquired the business from its original owner, Ronnie, about seven years ago. That would be around 2014, I believe.
The labor rate during my first visit to this shop was $112 per hour. It's lower than dealership rates and comparable to other independent shop rates I'm familiar with.
When I first brought my car to Automotion, there was one item I definitely knew needed to be addressed, a driver outer CV boot tear, and my check engine light (CEL) was on. Due to the age and miles on the car, I asked Gunnar to give the car a good check-over. Due to the amount of work and parts that had to be ordered, Gunnar had my car for almost four full days, Monday-Thursday. That was fine with me. I'm used to it and I understood the amount of work involved.
I believe Dan was the one who primarily worked on my car, but I know Gunnar was involved too because when I described certain details about the intake manifold unique to a previous repair that had been done to my car at a different shop, Gunnar knew exactly what I was talking about and he explained how Dan addressed it. The CEL during this visit was due to the car running lean. Dan smoke-tested my engine and found two leaks, one at the intake manifold and another in the secondary air system. Dan made the repairs, replaced my left front axle to address the driver outer CV boot tear, and also replaced two seals that were leaking, my right-side axle seal and an oil cooler seal. Parts and labor worked out to $1,007.02. It sounds like a big bill, but for all the parts replaced and heavy work involved, the cost was quite reasonable to me. Again, I have a lot of experience with repairs and repair bills for this car over the last 20+ years.
I also have a lot of experience reading invoices from every dealership and independent garage I've had my car serviced at. I've saved every single invoice and keep them all together in addition to creating and keeping digital records (TMI). Automotion's invoices are typed out and very clear with one half page dedicated to parts (part number, description, price) and the other half, labor. The labor portion of the repair order was informative and written succinctly. The past two shops I went to, the guys would write a lot more, which I didn't mind (I like detail, if you couldn't already tell from this review). The invoice from Automotion was more straight to the point.
Similar to some of the other independent shops I've gone to, Automotion is a relatively small, humble shop. I peeked through the chain link fence of the gravel driveway and saw they have two bays (and presumably two lifts) in the back. The wood-paneled inside of the shop's customer areas is dated and what you'd expect of a place that's been in business for over 30 years. The waiting room is also a break room with a desk, table, couch, microwave, water cooler, reading materials, etc.
If you want to drop your car off after hours or on weekends, there's a key drop hole built into the front door. Keys are dropped onto the floor. Due to the height of the hole, I was a little concerned about my key getting damaged as it hit the floor, but the floor has mats and isn't a completely hard surface. I believe it's commercial-grade rubber flooring.
Automotion is located on the Carrboro-Chapel Hill border. It's close to both downtown Carrboro and downtown Chapel Hill, right off of West Franklin Street. If you know where Al's Burger Shack is, Automotion is right around the corner from Al's.
