My Ford Explorer starting acting up recently and is making a lot of noise. I can't figure out why and need to have it looked at. The last two places I have gone to in the past, for issues on other vehicles, were absolute nightmares. I'm either way overcharged or the vehicle is worse than before. I would like to avoid this a third time.
Do any of you, in the Arlington/Falls Church area, have any suggestions on a good place to go to have my Explorer looked at?
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Merv's Auto in Springfield is worth the drive. Extremely honest and they do great work.
Yes.
My parents live in Springfield, Merv is a friend of a very close family friend and we wouldn't take our cars anywhere else.
When I lived in NOVA, I used to take my truck to A-1 Auto repair off South Van Dorn in Alexandria. Guy who owns it is honest and really fair. My roomate's dad took all their cars there for 20+ years and knew the guy.
I've been happy with Jim's automotive.
I've taken my wife's 2004 Explorer to them and they have taken good care of it.
my only suggestion would be to move out of NoVa at your first chance.
If for whatever reason you're not able to find a place near you, or have reason to be a little further west, I recommend CoHo Automotive in Manassas. Chris & Dan (formerly of Curry's, before Matt sold it to Monro) are awesome and will take good care of you.
My suggestion is: Google, Hayne's Manuel and RockAuto.com. The one thing I learned at VT that has never failed me is that you can Google anything. You are probably not the only one with your car problem. There is probably a video on how to fix it, or a Forum topic explaining how someone solved it. I've kept my car on the road for almost 300k miles.
Personally, even with an "honest mechanic," you buy your parts twice, and the labor is $100 an hour, so if you take the time to learn to trouble shoot your own vehicle you are paying 10-33% of the cost to keep it out of a shop. The larger the job, the more you save. But I live in Alabama, and down here we paint our garage floors with epoxy, get a good creeper, and roll.
I used to do deliveries for my dad's NAPA Auto Parts store when I was in school, so I get a pretty good lay of the land in terms of who is "good" and "bad", both by my dad complaining about people being sleazy and by how people treat you when you're delivering parts.
I agree with the sentiments that Merv's (close to Springfield Town Center) and A-One (close to Landmark Mall) are good places. Haven't been to Jim's Automotive myself but haven't heard anything negative about it.
My entire extended family takes our cars to Jim at Seminary Road Exxon (at Seminary Rd and Van Dorn St., right off of the Seminary Rd exit on 395). Jim is a part-owner of the station and is a 70ish year old badass. He'll tell you what needs to be done right away, and what might need to be done in the near future. He also lets me pay him in bourbon (although I don't think he'd let other people do that). I highly recommend it.
I'd trust a 70ish year old badass who drinks bourbon any time. The analysis alone could be fun.
I had a good experience at Joe's Auto Works in Sterling.