• Prepare yourself to take notes.
• Ask whether the shop ervices your make and model of vehicle.
• Explain that you want to find the best independent shop for servicing your car, and you have a few concerns you wish to raise. Ask to speak with the owner, service manager or the technician who is most likely to work on your vehicle.
• Tell the owner, manager or technician the model, year and mileage on your car.
• Ask if the shop has the latest software for your vehicle and, if yes, ask for the name of the program.
• Inquire as to how often they have serviced the make, model and year of your car. An approximate response is fine.
• Ask what the individual thinks are the typical problems with the make and model of your vehicle, and the preventative measures you could take to guard against these issues. Indicate you want them to be as specific as possible.

Training

Competency of an auto repari ship owner and tis technicians can be defined by their ability to work with today’s sophisticated vehicles, which are designed for diagnostics to be performed via computers. The question becomes whether your technicians can hook your vehicle up to a computer, read the codes and know what they mean. When cares are diagnostically tested, they often trigger a combination of code alerts. This requires training and experience to interpret how the codes are related to one another to piece together the actual source of the problem. Technicians with little experience on your make, model and year of your car may have more difficulty formulating the correct diagnosis.

SCV German Car Service maintains and regularly uses computer software that covers all tof the vehicles we service. We are adept at reading and interpreting codes to get to the actual causes of problems. Thus, in nearly all instances, we are able to successfully service the cars we work on without performing unnecessary repairs. This saves our customers from unnecessary expenditures.

Parts

An Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is a company that makes a part of sub part that is used in another company’s end product. These are identical or equivalent to the parts sold to dealerships. They are generally the highest quality parts. However, there are some non-OEM parts that are equal in quality tot he OEMs and carry the same warranty. In suc cases, the independent repair shop can usually offer lower pricing.

What you want is a repair shop that offers you OEM and non-OEM options and is experienced enough to know when there is a difference in quality between them. A shop that offers both products and explains the specific difference in quality is probably being ethical and honest. A repair shop that withholds the quality of their parts from their customers may be using inferior non-OEM parts that may not do the job as well as OEM parts. So, always ask when you receive a quote whether the parts are genuine OEM.

What we do is offer OEM and non-OEM parts that we have found are of equivalent quality to the OEM parts. In such cases, wehre we find non-OEM parts to be of an equal standard, we provide an explanatiion and a choice to our clients.

Estimates and Invoices

Your estimate and invoice should be presented as a computer print out. The invoice should describe the diagnosis and work that was done, and include an itemization of all charges including parts and labor. Invoices need to have the business’s license, bureau of automotive repair, and EPA numbers, as well as the business’s name, address and phone number. Our invoices

Our invoices are presented as computer print outs and include all of the information as described above.