Palo Alto Auto Repair

My first stop for all of my cars

Prompt, efficient and friendly

Terrific as usual!

Ravi and his team were terrific when I limped in with a vintage Austin Healey whose brakes had seized. They were extraordinarily careful, spending ten minutes locating the jack points on the chassis, putting pads on the jacks' contact points to avoid marring the frame, quickly adjusting the brakes, and recommending further repairs. The work was prompt and cost-effective. I'll definitely return for further work.

Customer service is not their best quality as when I expressed my concern with my car the owner laughed at my over the phone in a time of pure frustration. Pricing is questionable and employees were feeding me all different stories. "The car has only gone through diagnosis we haven't worked on the car" to " I've already worked on the car"..... Nothing is clear thus where your money is going is also unclear. Anyone who laughs at a frustrated customer is not someone I recommend. Take just five more minutes and try a auto repair place up the street.

I usually take my Mazda 3 to Oak Tree Mazda and decided after looking at the reviews to take it to Palo Alto Shell instead. I am very happy with that decision. I dealt with Ravi who was very professional, and extremely communicative something I really appreciate when dealing with a mechanic. He gave me options and sent me timely updates when things were discovered during the inspection of my vehicle that warranted immediate attention. They also allowed me to ship tires from TireRack to the shop which was really convenient, and while their prices are usually competitive with TireRack's there was a closeout sale at TireRack and so that worked well for my pocket. The cost of labour and parts are reasonable at Palo Alto Shell, and Ravi gives you options from different price tiers to choose from so you can gauge your expense. Just got my car back (hoping to take it back in soon to complete some additional work) but my car feels great, driving on the new tires is awesome, my A/C is good and the new wipers they installed feels like butter on the windscreen (well it sounds like butter ). I'd definitely recommend

Made an appointment and service was quick. Good price with online coupon.

Efficient service.

Awesome service, especially Ravi and the tech who first inspected my tire.

I just had an extremely unpleasant experience just now with Ravi K. I have never written a Yelp review before but feel compelled to today. Ravi has terrible bedside manner for someone who is supposed to be interfacing with customers regularly, not to mention customers who are dealing with car issues. What I expect is a courteous and empathetic demeanor. Instead, right off the bat, he seemed annoyed that I had come in with a coupon from the Palo Alto Daily Post while not having an appointment. Sure, the coupon says "by appointment," but it's not like they had cars lined up for smog nor was the shop otherwise busy. I was polite and asked him if he could possibly fit me in. He clicked away at his computer for minutes before giving me an idea of when he could smog my car. For all of that unnecessary attitude, he ended up fitting me in *immediately*, responding in a monotone voice (with no affect) that he would call me in 30-45 minutes when the car was ready. I received a call in 30 minutes, and Ravi informed me that the car had failed due to high Hydrocarbon emissions. I asked him politely what he thought could be the cause. He refused to answer saying, again saying in a monotone, unhelpful tone that he needed to perform a diagnostic. This was odd to me -- certain types of failures will have certain types of root causes. Yet he didn't seem to want to be helpful in any way. Not friendly, not cooperative, not encouraging that he could solve my problems. Instead, he had a tone and attitude conveying that I was asking too many questions, despite the questions being entirely reasonable. I asked if it could be the catalytic convertor or O2 sensors -- he said no. Okay, there you go...you have some idea what it can't be, right? Why not answer the original question by narrowing the scope of components that could be bad?! I then went back to get my car. After paying the cashier for the test, I noticed that re-tests are only free if diagnostics and repairs are done at their facility. This is unlike other Smog Check outfits in the area. I asked Ravi if they are usually able to diagnose the problem in the $140 diagnostic fee they charge. Again, he stonewalled me by saying "I don't know; we have to check and see." After pushing a bit more, he finally did explain further "usually we find the problem within 1 hour, and up to 3 hours are covered in the $140 fee." Why not say this to begin with?! I then asked roughly how much do repairs cost, to get an average sense of what I'd be in for. Again, no ballpark figure. As I told Ravi, he's supposed to be an expert. He should be able to give rough figures, assess probabilities and make reasonable monetary estimates. That's what people expect of me in my job, so why not his? Otherwise, how can I have faith that they will be able to fix my car at a reasonable cost? When I countered by asking if it would be between $300 and $500, he said "sure, you can keep that as a rough estimate." Well, why not mention that from the start?! It was like pulling teeth interacting with Ravi. In the end, I had no faith that he would be able to diagnose and fix my car at a reasonable price, and I started to lose trust in the shop as a whole. As I certainly don't want to have any more of these unpleasant interactions with him, I will consider the ~$40 test fee to have been flushed down the toilet. I plan to solve my issue elsewhere. Stay away from this place as long as Ravi has this attitude toward customers. Incidentally, when I showed up, another customer seemed to be unhappily walking away from this establishment. Finally, I strongly advise management to give Ravi customer service training.