I highly recommend Smiling Chuck's Auto Repair at 1501 S Norman C Francis Parkway in New Orleans. $320 plus tax to replace my axle after Meineke tried to get $531 for the axle plus another $1,500 for all kinds of other things. With tax it was $350 by Chuck. When I went to pay he gave me back a hundred because he said I overpaid. I looked at his paper and said no, it was correct. He had a math mistake and wrote $250 instead of $350. The mere fact that he would have given me back the money is enough to tell me that I can trust this guy.
Here's what happened before him.
I am new to New Orleans and started getting a thumping sound from the front end. I tried to figure it out myself and everything in the front end was tight. I had just put new axles in a couple of months ago so it wasn't even a thought. Since I was clueless on who to take it to, I went to Meineke. NEVER AGAIN!!! My two brothers used to own multiple Meinekes in New Jersey and I had worked with them on the weekends for decades, so I went there.
Now I had done a full check of the front end and everything was tight. I told them I couldn't figure it out and that I had just replaced both axles in June. However it was the driver's side axle. List price for an axle is $200, wholesale to Meineke would be in the low hundred. Book repair time is an hour, $120 is standard hourly rate. So it should have been between $320 on the low end and $400 on the high end. For just that they wanted $531.
But then they said I needed hub with bearings because the broken axle would have damaged it. Then wanted to tack on like another $800. They said it was pot hole damage so it would have damaged the bearings too. First, when I looked at it with Chuck after Chuck fixed it, there was no outside damage to indicate it was hit with force. Second, I had the car up on jacks and there was zero play in the front end. I checked everything including the ball joints, bearings, k-frame bushings, tie rod ends, steering arms, and stabilizer links. Everything was solid! And yes, I used a pry bar. Of course, sometimes bearings can be going bad with no play. But in that situation you would be hearing a whirring sound. There was none.
Of course they also tried to tell me I needed both axles claiming if you change one you should always buy both. They were both brand new and one was just defective. If they were both original she would have been 100% correct. But I had just told her both were just replaced.
Then they wanted to sell me a front wheel alignment at $150. I asked why I needed an alignment and she said it's always needed with front end work. I was like no! You pop the tie-rod out and pop it back in. The only reason an alignment would be needed is if your guy turns the tie-rod end and that there's no reason at all to do that. She replied with, there's no way I can guarantee that. In my head I was thinking, I just spoke to your mechanic and he is definitely knowledgeable. It would take some serious incompetence for that tie-rod end to turn.
Then there was a recomendation to replace my air filter at $75. Yes! An air filter! Which, by the way, you can still see lots of light through.
Next item was an exhaust hanger. The broken piece was a $10 rubber piece with two holes. It slides on and off. One hole slides onto a preexisting metal rod connected to the frame and the other hole onto the rod connected to the exhaust. If you can't go to the bin, take one over to the car, and pop in on in less than 5 minutes, maybe you should stick to fixing tricycles. Worst case scenario is that you need to hit it with a spray of WD40. Asking price, $125. At my brother's shop, he charged $20.
The only thing I really needed outside of the axle were new tires. These were actually reasonably priced. And had I bought the new tires I would definitely got an alignment.
When I went home I googled auto repair shop. When I scrolled down I saw "Smiling Chuck's" and something just said to me, this is going to be a good man so I called and he gave me a great price and didn't try to gouge me. read more
