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I had been refered to Rick through a few friends and need to get 90k service and to replace a hub bearing for my Toyota RAV-​4 that had been making a thumping noise. I live in North Hollywood, so it’s a bit far for me to go to El Monte, but he came highly recommended.
I arrived at the Smoothlinez shop as early as I could on a Saturday morning. I walked in and saw cars completely gutted out and stripped down to the bone. Some major work was being done here. Rick was doing some work on a car, but as soon as he noticed me, he came over and welcomed me to his shop. I had a ride coming to pick me up so in the mean time he told me to hang around check out what he does. A few more people came in after me, including the owner of an engineless car. They exchanged some good news and they left.
Rick told me he had been working on that car for 2 months (would have been faster had parts not taken so long to reach him) and built a new engine from scratch for it. When I heard this, I felt pretty confident about my car in his hands. I asked him if he could help me save some money by fixing only what was needed and he said he would try.
My ride came and Rick told me he’d have it ready in few hours. So my buddy and I went to go check out the area and grabbed some pretty good dim sum at a place called 888 Seafood Restaurant. Cheap too. We were starving and had stuffed ourselves with everything we could get our hands on and the bill came out to $ 24. I was expecting almost double the price.
3:30pm:
I called Rick at some point to check on my car, hoping not to get some «more bad news.»
Me: «Hey Rick, how’s everything with my car?»
Rick: «Good. Should be done in about an hour and a half»
Me: «Ok cool I’ll see you then.»
Whew. No more bad news. I stopped by around 4:30 and found Rick working on my car. The man is a machine! I didn’t really notice anybody else there working on any of the other cars. Rick is doing his own work. He was finishing up on some spark plugs and said it would be ready soon.
At 5:00pm my car was ready. Exactly an hour and half like he said. Good judge of time. He was explaining to me that he left out a couple of things that he said I could wait on for another 10k miles. He told me that when my hub bearing wasn’t too bad at the time and to come back after it got louder (to help save me money). But after a test drive of my car to see how everything felt, he realized the hub bearing sound was pretty loud and asked me if I could leave it there. He had it on the lift before when he listened to the sound and was quieter there. On the road it was a lot louder. I had been putting of this repair for too long anyway and decided to leave it. I’m picking my car up on Monday at 12noon and heading straight to work.
Awesome place. Great work. Honest man and good prices.

The quote I got from this place was double that of his neighbor’s, but I ended up going with Rick because of the reviews I read online.
He took care in explaining what exactly he would have to do to repair the body to justify the price, which I found pretty important (though if he pulled a fast one on me I wouldn’t even know it thanks to my lack of car know-​how). Just had some bad scratches/​dents on one side of the rear of the car reshaped, repainted, and basically made like new again. His time estimate for the job was accurate, and he even charged me less than his initial price quote!
Needless to say, good call by me to go with Smoothlinez: p. Rick’s really careful about his reputation, which hinges on his work and honesty. I gotta say, he’s definitely earned these five stars.

Smoothlinez.
I’ve been taking my car here for years. My brother and sister too. They’re cool people and I really trust them with my car.
Rick totally saved me when I broke my car last December. He got me an engine super fast and I got Oprah back in just a few days. Mind you, this was over the holidays (day after Xmas) and I had her back before the new year. She was better than ever.
The services are reasonably priced and these people know what they’re doing! Highly recommended.
*note: This place might be a bit confusing to find because the «street» it’s located on (Alpaca) is more like turning into a big parking lot with lots of other garages, rather than a street. There’s a street sign for Alpaca, but just know to tackle the corner when you see the mailbox, ok?