My Jeep is getting up there in age. Dylan the Jeep is in her 10th year of running and is starting to get to the point where she needs larger-sized maintenance repairs every so often. This is one of those years.
Where shall I start? Well, the motor on my back window broke, so for three days I had it duck-taped up. (I keep it classy.) However one day it rained. A lot. And since that window was still down just a smidge, the tape came right off....which I found out when I went to my car on my lunch break at work. Water all up in my backseat. Yay. I took it home, duck-taped the crap out of it, and called my step-dad to ask if he knew anyone good in the area who could fix it.
A few phone calls later and I was on the phone with the wonderful Maria at White Front Auto. She said they could fix the motor, no problem. I told her I was also just a tad voerdue for an oil change. She said they could give me an oil change, no problem. I then asked her if they could also check the back brakes since those were a little iffy. She said no problemo. And the best part? They could get me in tomorrow! I just had to drop off the key and my car that night after work. Cool.
As I was leaving my house to head back to work, I was deep in thought about how finding a place right down the street from me, who could do all of those things at once and who could get my car in so quickly was fantastic. My day was turning around!
And then, I started my car.
Or attempted to start my car. Because it didn't actually start for about 20 minutes. When I finally got it revved up and running, I called Maria back - "Can you also have them check my battery?" Her response - no problem. Nice.
I dropped my car off after work, dropped the key in their mail slot and that was that. I figured I'd hear from them in the next two days.
Nope - Maria called me at 10am the next day! Granted it wasn't with good news: "Your battery is fine." (Yay!) "But you do need a new starter." (Crap.) Apparently my car needed to be running for them to do the rest of the work, so a new starter was kind of a big deal. I gave her the ok to buy it and finish it up. At that point,she also gave me the pricing for the new window motor and the oil change. (I appreciated this as it's nice to have an idea of what to expect to pay before picking your car up and having a mild heart attack at the sight of the "amount due" line.)
By about 12:30pm, she called back- they were finished! I was shocked - my car has never been done that fast for even a simple oil change at the dealer. (Guess where I'll never go again?) I ran by on my lunch break to pay for the work and to pick up my key. It was about $700 for everything - new starter, oil change, tire rotation, fluid top off, new two-piece motor for the back window, and labor for all of that. That was about $400 less than what I thought I'd be paying. Nice.
On top of all that, they checked my brakes, found that I would need new back brakes in the next 2-3 months, and wrote out all the pricing for those - again, it was about $200 less than what I had figured.
Tony, the owner of White Front has owned this shop for almost 40 years. Apparently people from Fenton drive up to have their cars worked on there. And I can see why - great customer service (thanks, Maria!), super fast auto service and decent prices. No one jacked me around trying to upsell this or that, and my car was in, out, done. read more
