My car started to overheat tremendously while driving to work, and luckily, I was just close enough…read moreto this Shell station to park and leave it without doing damage to my car. I work right across the street, so I dropped off my car and said 'It's overheating.' and went to work.
I've had extensive, extensive problems with my 2001 BMW 525i. From the day I got it around 7 years ago, there hasn't been a period of six months where I haven't had to replace or drop at the very least a few hundred bucks on something- mostly, on overheating problems. So, I am not new to the stresses of seeing that temp gauge go all the way red and smoke billowing from under the hood.
I handed Botis (the owner of the shop) the papers from the work I've had done in the past, (just four months ago, I paid $600 to get some work done down the street that pretty much fixed nothing). He kept this in mind, and let me know he wasn't going to try to 'sell' me anything I didn't need. From the start, I could tell this was an honest car shop, and they weren't trying to screw me over; I've had enough work done on my car to be able to tell when I'm about to be taken for a ride. I told him I knew my car was a mess (my dashboard is lit up like a Christmas tree), but that I only wanted to diagnose the overheating problem, not the CEL or anything else. I told him I wanted my car to last for another year, and then I am planning on chunking it off a cliff, and getting something more reliable. He told me what I needed to have done to achieve this, and gave me a very fair estimate.
Unfortunately, as is the nature with my car (and old BMWs), things kept piling up as we dug deeper to diagnose the problem. What was one issue, led to a whole slew of other issues, that, if not fixed, would compromise the work he was doing in the first place. Each time he called me to let me know what else he needed to do, he was very calm and nice, reminded me again that he's not trying to rip me off or screw me over, but that I needed an extra x,y, z part.
He ended up doing beautiful work on my car for a VERY fair price- and it drives WONDERFULLY. I almost ended up being emotional when I finally went to pick up my car, as my Dad is usually the one who handles my car issues for me, and I just moved from a few states away from him to Houston. This is really the first time I had to make educated decisions by myself about repair work, and this automotive repair shop always made me feel safe about my decisions and were very reassuring and helpful.
I plan on returning to them in a few months to have my oil changed.
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