We are new to this area and we drive older vehicles as a necessity. So we need a really reliable mechanic. I am a little bit of a gear-head, having taken apart antique tractors and done repairs on an old flathead V-8 Ford sedan, for instance, and I also happen to be a women in my 60s. That means I expect a mechanic to talk to me, not at me, and to make sense. I know I don't understand that much about modern engines, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid. So I expect quite a bit from a mechanic: competence, respect, and real engagement. What I did, to find a mechanic, was go to the gear-head discussion boards where guys who work on their own cars and trucks advise one another about where to go in the event of a problem that's too big or too baffling for a backyard effort. Very quickly I learned that the mechanic with the best reputation in this entire part of New England (northern western Massachusetts and southern Vermont) is a guy in Guilford, VT. -- *and* that one of his chief mechanics, Rich, had recently set up his own shop in Shelburne, MA near the city of Greenfield. Several guys had already been there for work and sang the shop's praises, saying they'd had Rich work on their cars when he was still in Guilford and that he'd brought the same skills and value system to MA when he opened his own shop there. So of course that's where we went. It's literally right down the road, but I would honestly keep going there even if it was several hours away. At one point, we visited the shop and I saw what was going on: it was really actually beautiful, the way they were doing stuff. You know when you see a clean shop where parts and tools are organized that it reflects the underlying attention to care and detail a shop really needs -- especially in this day and age when so much of what they deal with is electronic. Those sensors and chips require care in handling that stuck bolts and nuts don't. These guys were doing it right! As it happens, one of their mechanics is also a used-car buyer for customers, so we even had this fellow, Doug, see if he could find the used car I'd been searching for ineffectively for weeks. Man, did he ever come through for us! This shop is a class act all the way, and every mechanic we met there was first-rate. I've lived all over the country, 8 states from Texas to California and back in the last 30 years (I'm 64), and this is hands-down THE best shop I've found. And believe me, I work hard to find the best mechanic in every place I live. There have been a lot of good ones, too. But Green River Auto and Rich and Doug are the best. You cannot go wrong with them. read more
