Sterling Automotive - the place to go

This is going to be a shameless plug for a local auto shop (Sterling Automotive), but only because we had such amazing customer service. It was the kind of service you dream of from an auto shop. The customer service started on the phone and lasted through the whole visit. It was unreal.

Lets be honest, how many of us dread going to the auto shop? I know I do. At least I thought I did. Unless you're a mechanic yourself and have an intricate knowledge of engines, you usually feel belittled and cheated with most shops.

I met one of my neighbors a couple months ago and while we were talking I learned that he owned his own auto shop - Sterling Automotive. Guess what his name is? Sterling. It's his first name. I told Abby that next time we had a car problem that we were going to go there. It couldn't hurt to know the owner of an auto shop, right? Right. The best part is the shop is like a half-mile from our house. It's super close.

Our Jetta check-engine light came on when we were on the freeway on Thursday. The car was running fine, so we didn't make calls right away. Abby got up this morning and made two calls. I won't name the first shop because they were going to charge us $50-$100 to read the on-board computer and they couldn't get us in until Tuesday. The next call was to Sterling Automotive. Guess who answered the phone? Sterling. Abby asked him if they specialized in any specific cars, and he said, "No, we like them all." Then she asked, "Our check engine light came on, how much would it cost to get it looked at?" Sterling said, "Nothing. It's free. Bring it on down." Abby asked, "Today?" He said, "Yeah, we have time."

We arrived at Sterling Automotive within 15 minutes. Sterling greeted us, had us pull our car into the garage and introduced us to Jeff, who was going to check our car. Sterling offered me coffee or tea in specialized Sterling Automotive mugs. I took some tea. While I was sipping my tea and watching Jeff go to work, I noticed that they were playing Praise 106.5 over the radio. That's weird. When have you ever heard an auto shop play Christian music? Normally it's AC/DC or some sort of rock.

According to the computer and Jeff, our Catalytic Converter is going out. Jeff said that if our car was still running well, that we didn't need to replace the CC right away. We asked what the consequences would be if we didn't. He said that our fuel mileage would probably go down a bit, there might be added wear on the spark plugs, and eventually the car would start to run a little more rough. We would need to replace it eventually, but not right now if the car was running fine. I then asked, "What it would it cost to replace the CC?" He said, "Expensive!" I asked, "Expensive like $200 expensive, or expensive like $800 expensive?" He said, "Probably somewhere in between." He then looked it up and asked, "Remember how I said it would be expensive?" Turns out that it's almost $1,000 expensive. Ouch.

I still have to double check these CC details with my father-in-law, but they seemed pretty reputable.

We're going to wait to replace the CC until we notice the slightest bit of roughness when we drive it. Guess where we're going to take it when we get it replaced? Sterling Automotive.

We were in and out in less than 15 minutes. I didn't even have enough time to finish my tea. It barely had enough time to steep. Oh, and the kicker was this. I asked where the dirty mugs went. Jeff said that we got to keep it. What?! Keep it? No way! Now we have a Sterling Automotive mug (with an extra big handle) and we didn't even pay them.

Now, technically we haven't had them do any actual work on the car. So we don't really know how good their repair skills are. But if they're half as good as their customer service skills, then they'll be really good.