Park St Automotive Service

Ignore any review before 2011 completely new owners who are customer friendly and do good work for reasonable prices. Junior, the owner fixed my headlight on drop in for $ 10 in a 15 minute timeframe

«Are you telling me you won’t stand by your work?» I asked him, clearly exasperated. «Yes,» he said. «That’s correct.» Nuff said. Hung up the phone. Thought immediately of what a negative review he is going to get on Unilocal.Then, saw all the one stars. Word to the wise. Be forewarned. I agree with all the people before me who say if there were any way to give his guy a NEGATIVE rating, he surely would. (Not sure if he could get any mitigating points for honesty, or whether — more likely– his attitude was we don’t give a s_​_​_​about you. We don’t have to.”)
My story? Went in because guy at local bank recommended I check him out, had an oil change coupon for $ 20. Ok, Well, he was not there the first time I went over, closed shop, took off early. The second time there was some run around about yo hae to make an appointment. Third time, OK, already, I am here at 8 o’clock in the morning. NOW will you change the oil on my car?
So, few thousand miles later, I figure I will do this myself this time. Get the car up on jacks, drain the old oil out. I CANNOT GET THE OIL FILTER OFF. They’ve put in on so tight, (not only can I now not replace it myself, but this is bad news long term for the threading on this part in the motor)
So I call him up. Will he just please at least start it getting unscrewed, loosened even a little bit, so I can take it off myself? No, he won’t. No options. Come in for the full work or nothing. «You don’t stand by your work??» «No.»
Wow, end of story with him. I see by all the negative ratings that he is now out of the business, they’ve sold it to someone else? Ventura? Hey, good luck guys. Hope you didn’t pay much for the «good will» of his customer base !
Oh, my recommendation? Met this guy Gustavo, who runs GV Automotive in Richmond… (right next to, behind O’Reilly Parts) — 243 23^rd Street. Definitely gets my vote. Friendly, competent, much less expensive, willing to work with you…
Wow.
Yeah, thank you Unilocal,
— for letting us get the feedback to the shops that don’t care.
And to point to the ones that do!

It is now Ventura Auto Repair. They are under new ownership and seem eager to please. Had my rotors turned on a Saturday for a decent price. Most place don’t do work like that on weekends. I wish them the best of luck.

I have been on Unilocal for a while, but have yet to review anything. It mainly came down to not having the free time, or desire to make the time. Alas, I am ready to start reviewing things and have jumped in the ‘way back machine’ to start off with an auto shop that is in sore need of an updated review.
The fact that this Park Street Auto has such a low rating is rather sad. When I first moved to the area, my 2003 Nissan Murano was in need of some serious service. Namely the front motor mounts of my car were shot and needed to be replaced, which is fairly expensive. I called several auto shops and service centers to get a price quote for the work and Park Street came up aces, so I took it in. Typically, when you take a car in you are ready to hear that other things need to be replaced, or thing are far worse than you knew.
I experienced quite the opposite! Not only did the staff take care of me, but it cost way less then I was quoted. I felt that they totally hooked me up!
About a year later I was having another issue with my Murano and took it in. Again the services and professionalism were great! First class auto shop! I think this shop is worth trying out for yourself.

I have taken my car to Park Street since the day I bought the car. I continued my service at Park Street even after moving away from Alameda. I recently brought the car in for a brake check. After the check, I noticed a clunking noise when I brought the car home. After a couple days, the noise got progressively worse so I brought it to a nearby auto shop to get it checked out. The auto mechanic began checking the bolts around my tires and found them all to be incredibly loose. Apparently none of the bolts were tightened after my brakes were checked which is incredibly dangerous. I will not be returning my service to Park Street.

Took my Honda Civic here as my old garage had closed.
I had a roaring noise coming from the front of my car and I needed an oil change. They charged me 100 bucks just to diagnose and wanted 50 bucks on top of that for an oil change.
Figured out wheel hub and bearings needed to be replaced. They wanted to charge me over 800 bucks for the replacement of wheel hubs/​bearings on both sides of the car which is even more than the dealership would have charged. They also wanted to sell me a wheel alignment I did not need. Plus the sales tax in Alameda is 9.75% which is ridiculous– why would anyone do business there?
I called around and found a garage near me (Torchio’s in downtown oakland) that was very highly rated on Unilocal that could do the work for $ 401 out the door.
I went ahead and paid Park Street for the diagnosis, skipped the oil change, and went to a real garage that doesn’t try and screw you.

if i was able to give this place a rating of minus a million stars, i would! NEVER… i said… NEVER (bold, underline, italics!) take your car to this place. anywho… i get my registration renewal in the mail and it stated that i HAD to take it to a gold shield or test only smog station. my lazy self did no research and took it to the first place the DMV listed which was this scam of a place. when the smog test was done the guy tells me that there were a few things that needed to be fixed which included the fuel hose and the fuel injector and that itll cost me a chunk of money… i asked him to show me what exactly it was that needed to be fixed. so we look under the hood and he shows me that the hose is broken off!!! because i check my fluids often i thought to myself… i swear! that the hose was intact prior to me taking my car there!!! after reading the review from ‘Mahadevi S.’ it looks to me like they do this often! freakin SCAMMERS! i would love to bring a case against these fools… man i dont like to be messed with. *breathe*breathe* so anyway i take my car somewhere else because the numbers he gave me were absolutely RIDICULOUS. turns out the repairs that i needed were not what the manager of the shop recommended and it cost ¹⁄₃ of what he was going to charge me!!! *bloods boiling* OMG… i forgot to mention. i went to their site and apparently they are BBB accredited. BULL EFFIN’ S! so anyway. after i got my repairs done at the other shop (AMA autocare in oakland, ca) the owner of AMA recommended that i go to his friends test only station (foothill smog & auto repair) so i take my car there and *oh my* my car passes the smog test!
anyway… so… FELLOW UnilocalERS. DO NOT SUPPORT THIS SCAM OF A BUSINESS. THEY *WILL* SCAM YOU!
p. s. the manager of the shop DOES look very sincere but beware… looks are deceiving.
he also charged me a whopping $ 88.75 for the test and certificate! thanks for nothing asshole. yep. i said it. sue me.
i went to foothill smog & auto repair and it wasnt anything close to what the dude charged me at Park St. Automotive Service
DONT GO TO THIS PLACE. PLEASE.

I had a terrible experience with this car repair shop. They work on CAP cars that have failed smog, and although I realize the repairs don’t cost drivers until the $ 500 mark, it took them over a month to make the repairs they thought were needed. After that time I still didn’t pass smog at their shop, so I decided to go to the smog referee at the College of Alameda who found my car passed. I felt scammed because I didn’t have the use of my car for weeks, and I would therefore not recommend paying customers go anywhere near this place.

There are few automotive places in Alameda, so I decided to try this place that had many coupons and advertisements in local papers and online. I saw 2 previous reviews that gave this place only 1 star, but thought I would give them the benefit of the doubt.
My experience, in short, was terrible. It included one mechanic telling me to bring in a phone book coupon and another one chewing me out for bringing it in when picking up my car instead of at my first visit. The same mechanic promised to match the price of a local dealer (they charged me more for the same job) but the second mechanic would not honor that promise and argued that they don’t give such things. Furthermore, they said that the car would be finished in 2 days. On the second day, I didn’t receive any calls or updates so I finally called at the end of the day. The guy who picked up the phone said he was sorry but the car would take another day bc they were waiting for parts. The next day, I again didn’t receive any updates so I had to call back again. This time, they gave another excuse and when I asked why they can’t at least call me to let me know about the delay earlier, he said they tried, which I’m pretty sure was false because earlier in the conversation he said sorry for not getting back to you. Well, the car wasn’t finished the next day either, and I wasn’t given any reason. When I finally got the car, now 4 days late, I spent over an hour at the shop trying to get them to honor their promised discounts. I left this auto shop very frustrated and won’t ever go back again.
Overall, the customer service was terrible, the work was over priced, the second mechanic, also the owner, said I was trying to lie to him about discounts his head mechanic had promised me, and the service was done very slow.
I would like to suggest another mechanic in Alameda, but I am still looking. But don’t try this one or as the cliché goes, «you’ll be sorry!»

If you could give this place negative stars, I certainly would. Not only did he overcharge us, but he changed our license plate frame without consulting us. How rude is that? We had to take it back a second time because he had messed with the sensor and charged us again! Please don’t ever go here…

God-​awful. That pretty much sums up my experience at Park Street Automotive. My car was in rough shape after my cross-​country trip (transmission line leaked like a son of a b****) and I ended up over a barrel. Labor and parts were ridiculously expensive, but what could I do, my car didn’t drive. So I pay. The manager (who’s name I forget) seemed sincere and helpful and I believed it. Until 6 months later I notice my transmission fluid is dirty. Wait, what? I just had that ‘flushed and filled.’ So I go back, and have them check it out. «Oh well we just drained it and refilled. We couldn’t add the pressure of a full flush and fill then. » Uh, I have a signed receipt of you having already DONE a flush and fill 6 months ago?! Also, low and behold they find a few OTHER crucial repairs that just NEED to be done. «We need to fly in special bolts from Indiana so we can replace your oil pan. There is so much rust there» He said this with a straight face. My car is from Massachusetts jack-​ass, of COURSE there is rust! So I tell him to put everything back in place, I am going elsewhere. See my review on Dan Chin’s for how to actually provide quality auto repair.

Watch out if you take your vehicle here. I was overcharged and under-​serviced. I was charged $ 160 inspection for what was wrong with my car according to the error code. I was given 3 possibilities of what was wrong. When I called a mechanic friend and mentioned what was wrong with my car, he did a quick internet search and also named off the same three things. He asked me to go check to see if a hose was cracked, the most common issue. The hose was completely missing! So I paid this guy $ 160 and had my car in his shop for a day, for him to do an internet search? I don’t think he even looked under the hood, or he would have noticed the missing hose! To make matters worse, when I called him on it, and that he wanted to charge me $ 35 in parts to replace the hose plus labor ($ 80), although he had originally offered to include labor of the hose replacement with the initial inspection. I called the Auto Parts store, and bought a hose for $ 8 and replaced it myself, no tools needed!!! this guy is a rip-​off, I was very disappointed as he seemed a really nice guy.