Promotive Performance & Repair

Rick is the best! I My air conditioner had been out on my blue 1984 ford f150 for 5 years. I brought it to Ricks on a referral from Andy at WC smog, with 1 hour I was cruising down the road with my ac charged and working great.
Thanks again Rick
James

Rick is the best. Nice to find a trustworthy mechanic who knows his way around the old 60’s cars as well as the new ones. He made my 69 AMX purr again.

Long story short, I will be a customer for life. You’ll know and understand once you go there yourself.

Ric has been maintaining my 1999 Ford Explore for several years now and has done a great job. I completely trust him and his prices are very reasonable.

We went back to Ric for another service and we are still happy customers. We found an honest and fair owner. We trust what he says and does not rip us off like the dealers. We had to have our air conditioner fixed and complete tune-​up. Price was much better than we would have paid else where. I hesitate writing an update as he is pretty busy and as people find out about this place, it will be hard for me to get appts. :-)

Rick worked on my 73 bronco. My bronco has been worked on by various «performance» specialist. Everyone took advantage of my limited mechanical knowledge. Rick was the first mechanic that delivered what he said he would, he was very fairly priced. My bronco is exactly where I want it to be mechanical wise. I can’t say enough good things about Rick. I will tell my family and colleagues about him. Once you find an honest mechanic you keep him!!! He will be my mechanic for a very long time!

Rick is the absolute best mechanic I have ever worked with HANDS DOWN. His technical expertise and no nonsense approach to running a business sets the standard for excellent service and commitment to customer satisfaction. Rick has been my go to mechanic on my low miles 93 cobra since i purchased it 3 years ago and I would never let anyone but him work on it. He has gone as far to teach me about cars before and after doing work so I understand exactly what he will be doing and exactly how it effects the car afterwards. You wont find a better mechanic than Rick!

I had such a great experience with Ric this morning. He showed up right on time with a smile on his face and got to work on my car almost immediately, but not before he gave me a tour of the place (to my request) and showed me some of the amazing classic cars he’s working on. What a treat! He is professional, experienced and very friendly. The price was right, too. I will definitely come back to see him the next time I need to have some work done on my car. Ric is a stand up guy and I highly recommend him.

I saw the reviews here on Unilocal!and thought I would give PP&R a shot.
I have a classic 1964 ½ Mustang that was recently restored.
It was not running right and so I dropped by after calling on the phone.
He diagnosed as running on seven cylinders very quickly.
My original mechnaic fixed the issue, but it was nice to find an honest mechanic.
He suggested that I take the car back to my original mechanic and «get my moneys worth».
This is a shop that you can trust.

Finding a good car mechanic is not easy. You want one that won’t do unnecessary repairs, one that will be able to repair that thump your car makes, and one that won’t pull your pants down and laugh while he grossly overcharges you.
To do this, I called 8 highly rated Unilocal car mechanics around here and asked them questions about my drive belt and brake fluid. I wasn’t necessarily interested in their pricing because they were all in a certain price range, but more interested about their answers because I already knew them. Ric was great and called me back even though I didn’t leave a message and from what I can tell, extremely busy. He answered my questions easily and intelligently and also gave me some tips on doing value oil changes. He told me when was a good time to come in, and where to hang out while my car was being serviced. There are a couple plazas nearby on North Main Street that include Starbucks, Wendys, IHOP, and Sprouts.
Yes, you do need to flush your brakes and not just change out the main reservoir; the fluid in the lines that needs to be changed doesn’t mix well with the main reservoir. Also, your drive belt does need changing eventually to prevent it from breaking. You can’t always tell visually, but after 100k miles you probably want to change it for breakdown prevention.
Promotive was easy to find, and Ric was very nice. His place of business is pretty clean and you can tell he knows a lot about cars. I definitely trust his judgment when I asked him some other car questions.
In short, Ric’s nice, loves cars, intelligent, competent, and his prices are fair. What more do you want?

I took my daughters car there by tow truck. Her car had a water line that had a leak. He changed the small hose and charged us ZERO. What a great guy! Very fair, doesn’t want to rip people off.

There are hard to find people or places like: knowledgeable physicians, compassionate dentists, experienced and precise car body shops, skilled and honest car maintenance and repair specialists, etc. Ric’s place in Walnut Creek, CA, is one of those hard to find places that you can trust for your car maintenance and repair jobs. Promotive was recommended to me by Frank and Paul’s Auto Repair who as of today (May 29, 2012) has 80 5-​star reviews on Unilocal,so I trusted them and brought my car for a scheduled maintenance to Promotive. Ric, the owner, is skilled and honest. So from now on all my car maintenance and repair jobs will be done at Promotive Performance & Repair.

Another 5 stars for this guy who, I am absolutely convinced, truly cares about his clients and the quality of his work for them. He took the time this week to assess the car I’m handing down to my son and triaged the work to be done.
He even ended up fixing things that hadn’t made the triage list at no charge just because he didn’t want to turn the car back to me with those problems.
He’s the first mechanic I’ve met who does that. He’s got my business for good.

First time I came by, Ric figured out the problem in 5 min. Trustworthy mechanic is a tough to come by. Glad to have found him to take care of my car.
He takes pride in his work. I have peace of mind knowing he’s taking care of mine.
Update on 11/​29/​2012: Its been over a year now and he’s still my go to mechanic. I wanted to also point out his new location is: 1410 Lesnick Lane Unit E, Walnut Creek, CA 94 597.
Lesnick Ln is located in between Chick-​fil-​a and Holiday Inn off of Main St. He’s one of the center shops on the left hand side at the end of the street .
He fixed an annoying rattle in my front shocks area and I haven’t had a smoother ride in years. My 11+ year old Escape is still running thanks to him.

They get super five stars on work, price and customer service. Read the other reviews. There is a reason this place hasn’t gotten below five stars.

Want a trustworthy mechanic? Go see Ric!
I met Ric at Napa Auto Parts while buying a headlamp for my car. He was kind enough to offer assistance to install the headlamp. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the proper tools on him to remove my battery to install the lamp so he had me follow him over to his shop and installed the headlamp for FREE! What a nice guy! I highly recommend Ric as he seems very honest and is passionate about what he does. Go see Ric!

I was referred to Rick by Morgan’s machine in Walnut Creek. He has helped me out with a couple of vehicles now one which was a restoration project. He is a genuine, honest guy and a pleasure to work with, very knowledgeable and thorough in his work and gives a detail explanation of the problem and what needs to be fixed at a fair price. I would highly recommend him. Chris A

My 2004 Chevy Tahoe column shifter broke, fortunately while the car was in our driveway so I called Rick and asked what we should do since it was not in a position where it could be easily towed. So he drove over, did a temporary fix on the shifter, left his truck at my house and drove the Tahoe back to his shop. He said he’d catch a ride back later to get his truck. Besides Frank and Paul who does that? Thank you Rick!
And he picks up his phone right away and is VERY reasonable and fair on pricing. Highly recommend!

I have always gone to the dealer. However, I finally got sick of paying $ 500 every time the car makes a noise. I called another well-​reviewed shop in Walnut Creek (Frank and Pauls). They specialize in foreign cars and dont work on Fords so they recommended Promotive. Rick at Promotive told me more about my car problems after a phone call than the dealer has ever told me. He was able to diagnose the problems and was totally honest about everything; those that needed to be fixed now and those that could wait until money was less tight. He fixed my car in less than 2 hours and charged me less than the dealer typically charges me to hook it up to the computer. An example: my open door indicator bell decided to ring non-​stop. Whereas the dealer would just replace the sensors and probably charge me hundreds, rick sanded off the contacts and, voila! it stopped… and he didnt even charge me for that. The only regret I had was all the money spent, and probably bad information I have gotten, the last five years elsewhere. Good luck!