Since moving to Solvang a couple years ago, I've begun driving on the beach regularly, which has opened up a world of interesting little problems for my 4x4 truck. I had been taking my truck to the Toyota factory, which was fine enough for normal maintenance, but they seemed to have no idea what was wrong with this constant rumbling sound near my right front tire. I took it to about 4 different maintenance visits, they tried a bunch of different things (rotate tires, align, etc.), but nothing really solved it. I had been to Lunde's once for a smog, and was happy with the service. So, I was next door getting my hair cut, and thought I'd at least ask them. Jeff, the owner, stopped what he was doing and got in the truck with me for a drive. Within 10 seconds, he's like, "It's the bearing." All that extra work and time at Toyota and they couldn't figure out what took him 10 seconds to diagnose.
Shortly after that, I had to have some body work done on my fender, and when I was in with the body shop guys,I asked them if they had an idea what this squeaking sound was. The owner thought it might be something catalytic converter related, and told me to go to this other mechanic. I went there, was met by a guy who was nice enough but swore incessantly, and he told me it probably was the catalytic converter and I needed to schedule a bunch of time to not have the truck and prepare to part ways with $1,000 - $2,000. Since my previous experience was so good, I took it to Jeff for a second opinion. I pulled up, and he again stopped what he was doing to take a look at my truck. He got under it, and within about 30 seconds was replicating the squeaking sound. He's like, "Oh no, it's just the box that holds it" - or something to that degree. He fixed it right there on the spot, for a grand total of about 30 minutes of time and $30 if memory serves me correctly. From that point on, Lunde's has been my full-time mechanic for everything.
As you probably have gathered, Jeff is a really nice, easygoing guy, as are his two co-workers. He's always got a moment to talk to you, and even though they always seem busy I always got an appointment very quickly. Coming from a big city, any sort of personal service is an improvement from your typical large dealership, but I can tell you that Lunde's is more than just your typical small town mechanic. They do VERY good work, offer very decent prices, and are simply the most HONEST and easy-to-talk-to mechanics I've ever dealt with.
For example, there was a case where I was having a steering issue. It was a complicated problem that required a bit of narrowing down to find out what was really wrong. In other words, it wasn't an obvious problem; it was sort of "it has to be one of these three things" type of problem. So Jeff began work on the most likely of the three causes, but it ended up being something else. So, as any good person involved in customer service should do, he didn't charge me for the work he did on the initial diagnosis, and then immediately got to work to fix the problem properly, which he promptly did.
I haven't know him long, and I basically only see him during mechanic visits (which, due to my beach driving, is more often that I'd prefer), but I can honestly say I feel I've made friends with Jeff and his crew already. They're just nice guys to talk to, and I couldn't recommend a mechanic more highly. Feel free to contact me directly if you want more info. But I guarantee you that you'll get an honest, fair, and hard working crew working on your car if you take it to Lunde's. read more