This shop is fantastic. I wish I could rate them higher than five stars. Summary: fixed my messed up car in two working days, made the whole car better than when I got it, did a lot more work than they originally estimated, charged me exactly the estimate.
The long story:
I just moved to the Santa Cruz mountains from San Francisco. I've lived my whole life on bicycles and public transit, but I needed something to get me around in the mountains and south bay, so I bought my first car. A fun, sporty, totally impractical car. Then I took it out driving on the mountain roads. I had a great time, it's fun as hell. Also, when it loses control, it REALLY LOSES CONTROL. So, I ran it into a tree. Yay.
I had really messed up the left rear wheel well, but after a tow truck winched it back onto the road, it ran fine and limped home.
The next day, I looked around on Yelp for some body shops or mechanics, and called a highly reviewed mechanic to see what I should do. They mentioned that if it was running okay (it was) then I should take it to a body shop first, since they wouldn't be able to do anything to repair suspension or such until the body was out of the way. I asked their recommendation, and they referred me to Nor Cal Auto Works.
This place is wonderful. I brought my car in on a Thursday after a brief phone call, and was met by that beautiful solvent smell of model airplane glue. Their shop is full of classic cars in various states of disassembly, all beautiful and getting more beautiful. While I was standing around, I overheard a phone conversation with someone who was bringing in their classic, rare Bentley for some work.
The owner, Ryan, met me and looked at my car and gave me an estimate for checking the alignment, then straightening and cleaning up the panels. I was skeptical of whether or not it would be possible to straighten the existing panels (which were metal), and I asked to confirm that it wouldn't be better to just replace the panels. Ryan said that they could replace them if I wanted to, but it would be a lot more expensive, and that they should be able to straighten them no problem.
I've since looked around and got estimates from other shops after the fact, and it was a great deal. I left the car there and got a signed estimate, and went on my merry way.
Just a few hours later I got a call from Ryan letting me know that they'd tested its alignment and that everything was okay with the wheel and suspension, so they were going to start working on the body. Great, and quick!
Friday passed. Saturday too, and happily Sunday. Monday morning I got a call from Ryan saying "it's all done, come by whenever you like to pick it up!" Awesome! Crashed to all better in 2 weekdays!
When I arrived to pick up my car, it was better than before I crashed it. The paneling was perfect, the whole car gleamed -- not a speck of the roadside mud was left, and the interior had been vacuumed and polished. They even repaired all the other random scratches on the doors that weren't from the crash, and weren't even near the damage. Ryan came out to walk around the car with me, and explained that they had started straightening the panels, but decided that it just wasn't going to look all that great, so they had gone ahead and replaced the panels outright. I was nervous to hear that, since when I brought the car to the shop Ryan had said that replacing the panels would be a lot more expensive, but they charged me exactly what they had estimated! Wonderful!
To top that off, the paint they applied to the new body panel was better finished than the paint on the rest of the car. Take that, manufacturer!
A+++, will buy from again. read more
