sigmaTec Automotive

If I could give these guys 6 stars I would.
Was referred to these guys by the head of the Columbus Subaru Group as I had been taking my wife’s legacy to a national chain for some time. Its so hard to find a good mechanic and I have the type of anxiety about car issues that gives me night-​sweats. But I digress…
Called them up on a Thursday because the Legacy was making a weird humming noise. The guy on the phone (Todd maybe?) told me they were a bit backed up (totally understandable) and initially said it would be a week for an appointment. No big deal because of the great referral I got for this shop. I think he took pity on my panicked voice on the phone though because he then said he could take a look at the noise on Monday but maybe the repair wouldnt get done until later in the week. Again, this was all perfectly understandable and I appreciated the polite/​transparent way he communicated all of this info.
Dropped the car off Sunday night and received a call by 11am or so the next morning telling me the noise was being caused by a bad front wheel bearing. The price he quoted me was significantly less than a similar job I had done on my old Lancer a few years back at one of the national chains.
They earned my business from this experience. Subarus are finicky machines and I am so so happy that we found someone we can trust who knows what they are doing with them in Columbus!

Terrible. Would not recommend. Took advantage of my wife. Reporting to BBB.
Quoted good price upfront for front and back brakes to get us in the door. Once in they increased price for front brakes and said that back brakes did not need to be fixed despite the fact 1 mechanic before them and 2 mechanics after them said the pads were «metal on metal.»
When I asked them to fix the front brakes for the quoted price they refused. They said «the back brakes never need to be changed so we cleaned them as usual» They then tried to charge us for cleaning the back brakes.
Terrible. Would not recommend. Took advantage of my wife.

I have been a car guy my whole life and ZB is hands down the best mechanic I have ever seen. Not only is he highly skilled, but he treats every car like it’s his. He is very sensitive to the cost of the repair. My most recent experience concerned a 1986 Fiero GT that was in very rough shape. ZB not only brought it back to life for half of what I was sure it was going to cost, but explained what I could expect in the future as far as repairs and costs. (although as a favor to him I think I’m going to sell it rather than subject him to working on it again)

Z.B. is hands down the greatest mechanic I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with. I am more comfortable taking my car to this guy than I am to my own family members who own car garages.
Price: very reasonable, I always anticipate having to pay more than what he ends up charging me.
Communication: ask questions, get straight-​forward honest answers. Answers phone calls promptly, or returns voicemails in a timely manner. Not your stereotypical cheesy car salesman/​mechanic type.
Workmanship: so far, he’s taken care of an O2 sensor, injectors, spark plugs, brakes, drivetrain and engine mounts, and some other random things for my car, and everything that he worked on works better than when I first got the car.
Z.B. has a sincere work ethic. I seriously respect this man!

The estimate I was given was actually about a third higher than the final cost, and the estimate was much lower than I would have paid elsewhere. So often I have found the opposite to be true.
The work was done quickly and perfectly. This was my first time taking my car to SigmaTec, and I’ll be back. I’ve had too many other places try to up-​sell me or talk to me as though I’m an idiot about cars (maybe it is that stereotypical thing that women can’t know anything about cars), but none of that happened here.

Skilled, experienced, super honest, and friendly. You should know that I am super neurotic and borderline OCD. ZB is the only person I trust to touch my cars.
He always gives you a fair price and won’t let you spend you money on something you car doesn’t need. He has rebuilt my engine. He wasn’t happy with what the machine shop did so he sent it back to them and had it fixed on his own dime.
One time a friend of my wife had her car fixed by ZB and it was running rough the next day. He came to our house on a Saturday morning on his day off and fixed the problem that was not related to his repair for free.
I can’t say enough about this guy. The only reason I hesitate to post this review is because I want to keep ZB for myself. :)

ZB has been working on my cars for about 3 years now. My husband is a mechanic out of necessity and because he didn’t trust any one else to be as picky about his cars as he is.
We met ZB during our stints as rally-​cross and auto-​cross sessions with the local OVR-​SCCA. ZB is knowledgeable ind funny and straight shooter.
My husband gave up his cars to this man, and I can’t stress how much trust that is from my husband. This man can work a good deal for you, and also get the job done right, THE FIRST TIME.

It’s hard to find people to fix your car who are both skilled and honest. There are so many people in the car repair business (both dealers and independent shop) who are less than honest… so when I found sigmaTec I had to write up a review for them.
sigmaTec is a small independent and slightly hard to find auto service facility in Hilliard. They are setup to do most repairs and handle all makes (although Subaru’s are one of their specialities).
The place isn’t fancy at all, and doesn’t have a large staff… both things I like because that means less overhead and lower prices compared to a big dealership where the customer is paying for the fancy building and legion of employees who are standing around staring at you.
I’ve owned a few Volkswagens and with them being less than reliable I’ve gotten quite used to getting it serviced. I’m a bit of a car nut and took a few years of automotive industrial arts classes in high school and would say I know a decent amount about cars (but am far from being a mechanic). But I usually know enough to sniff out BS that the repair tech’s and service managers try to sell me at both the dealerships and repair shops… so I was more than pleasantly surprised when sigmaTec both didn’t try to up sell me into repairs I knew I didn’t really need and instead told me that somethings I thought would need replaced *didn’t* in fact need replacing. I really value repair technicians who make smart decisions and don’t just have a ‘replace everything’ mentality (even though that kind of thing makes them more money) and the owner of sigmaTec is definitely one of those who makes smart decisions.
My first repair with them was on my 2005 Subaru WRX STI, they performed a timing belt change and brake change. The timing belt change is one of those repairs that if not done exactly right would ruin my engine. It’s also one of those repairs where lots of little parts need to be checked and are potentially effected (while the engine is apart it makes a lot of sense to check other items and make sure all is well before closing things up). SigmaTec checked parts like the water pump, pulleys, etc. individually to see if any component needed replacing and only replaced what actually needed serviced.
Another great thing about sigmaTec is that they allowed me to source and use my own 3^rd party aftermarket parts (they also specialize in aftermarket tuning). I didn’t want to use the OEM (i.e. stock Subaru part) timing belt and instead wanted to use a Gates Racing belt, install an aftermarket lightweight crank pulley and use Hawk HPS high performance brake pads, and sigmaTec had no problems with installing aftermarket parts.
I couldn’t recommend Z.B. and sigmaTec enough, I’ll be back to have my Subaru serviced again and will now likely be bringing them my Volkswagen Passat 4Motion.