Caton Auto Clinic

6013 Baltimore National Pike, Catonsville, MD 21228, USA

Address:	6013 Baltimore National Pike, Catonsville, MD 21228, USA
Phone:	+1 410-788-3838
Site:	catonautoclinic.com
Rating:	4.7
Working:	7:45AM–5PM 7:45AM–5PM 7:45AM–6PM 7:45AM–5PM 7:45AM–5PM 7:45AM–1PM Closed

Location

Photos 90

Reviews 4

Gigi Vasquez Hall

I took my Jeep in to have electrical work done as Firestone couldnt do the repair and they recommended this shop. I was told that I had to bring the vehicle in to get an estimate. Given the fact that it was electrical work, that makes total sense to me. I dont know how I would have felt if I got the same answer if I was calling in to get a price on brakes though. I was quoted $169 to have the diagnostics done which would cover up to 1.5hr of labor and the fee would not be applied against the repair work if I decided to use them. Seems pricey but it was told it was to cover the technicians time - so I agreed. My final quote came back $1300 and the part would have to be ordered. I was crushed as I wasnt expecting the repair to be this expensive but then again, I knew it was possible as I had no "ball park" to go by (In my head: best case: $600-$700; Worse case thousands of dollars! ). The next day, my car was ready by 11am and the total repair job was $1032. including 2 bulb replacements (headlamp and rear brake light). The repair job itself was $700 so basically it took them $169 to figure out a $700 repair. In my case it was a matter of locating where the short was - I assume the repair from there was pretty straight forward. Clearly they *COULD* have charged me the full $1300 for the repair work alone - but they were able to do the work quickly and charged me less than the estimate. I dont know if I would bring my car in for regular maintenance - yes, the "quickie-lube" places are fast, and moderately priced, and Ive never had problems with them and their hours are more convenient. Plus the Firestone replacements (brakes, alternator, starter) have always been problem free and on credit for me. But if I have a repair - an actual like "oh this thing is doing this weird thing" kind of repair - hands down I would take it to Caton Auto Clinic. They were very friendly, they did try to get me a loaner (they were out that day), I got an "Eclipse day" discount on the bulb replacements and they can handle more complicated work than your chain shops. And the dealer is a definite No-No!! (BTW, mine charges $182 for diagnostic work). If youre calling around to price shop - well, then quality work might not necessarily be at the top of your list. Or the work is fairly simple enough - that price is only going to vary by a modest amount so why bother? One shop was going to charge me $132 to do the diagnostic but they couldnt guarantee they could fix the issue. So I basically would have wasted my money had I gone to that place. At least with Caton Auto Clinic you know theyre going to fix it and fix it the first time. Thanks guys! In the end you really were a big help.

Ryan Gardner

Ive really had to push at this place not to be charged for dishonest work. In short, they are heavy on the sales and dont seem heavy on the technical effort or skill. As one example, they failed to correctly install a tire pressure sensor and attempted to charge me a lot for it (over $120, I think, for the installation that didnt result in a working sensor for no reason other than because they didnt know how to do it even though they assured me they could beforehand). They partially corrected this error by giving me a free oil change coupon _after_ I pushed them hard (and finally explicitly asked for at least some symbolic acknowledgment that they messed up). Even this straightforward case took a huge amount of effort as the owner tried to smooth talk me while I tried to be very direct and say "Look, you messed up because you didnt know what you were doing and you charged me a lot of money for it." Most recently, I tried to call just to get a rough price range on a simple brake pad replacement job. No matter how much I begged, the guy refused to give me even a rough price range. He said "we have to see it before I can tell you". I said "Well can you just give me a price assuming the rotors just need to be turned and not replaced and nothing unusual is wrong; you just replace the pads and turn the rotors. Ill understand if the price goes up because you realize there is a deeper problem." He insisted no. Thats typical of the business conduct of this place in my experience.

Mark Reynolds

I called to get a quote about replacing wheel studs because my regular mechanic didnt torque the nuts correctly and I nearly lost a wheel. I obviously wanted to switch mechanics. The guy (Sam?) refused to give me a quote because he said they needed to put it on the lift and pull the wheel to see the extent of the damage. I acknowledged there certainly could be more damage, but for the purposes of choosing a new shop with reasonable rates, I politely asked him to *assume* that I only needed new wheel studs. He started to get an attitude with me, and when I reminded him I wasnt going to hold him to the estimate (this was verbal after all), he said "thats right, because Im not giving you an estimate!" No matter how I asked, he persisted in being uncooperative. I eventually said I would take my business elsewhere. I was pretty disgusted with the amount of attitude this guy gave me. Why would I take off work to put my car in their shop for an estimate, when all I wanted was to compare prices? It seems like their goal is to put you on the spot once your car is on their lift; at that point, you may as well have them do the work, otherwise youre going to waste more time going somewhere else. Its a clever strategy, but when the customer doesnt bite, dont respond with even more attitude. I called another shop and they gave me a quote with no difficulty. [To the owner: since Im not 100% sure of the guys name, I called your shop at 10:24am on Tues Oct 20th, 2015]

Anonymous User

I was completely blown away by my experience with these guys. Let me start from the beginning and if you wanna read a good story now is your chance: About a week ago I got this knocking sound which seemed to come from the transmission. I thought "bad clutch" because the car never had a clutch change (now with 150k miles). So I took it to another garage (which the will go unnamed) and they proceed to tell me that clutch is worn out and a bunch of stuff is leaking from many places. Total cost = $2000! At this point Im pondering to just get a new car, but upon driving through Caton Auto Clinic/Lee Myles, I decide to give them a call. I call them and tell I have a bad clutch. They say the assessment is free and they can check if its really a bad clutch. Guess what? Get a call a few hrs afterwards saying no bad clutch just a loose heat shield. Everything else is just fine. Total bill = $50! Get that? $2000 vs $50 So any other shop would have taken the wagon and just say "yeah pal bad clutch, but we can do it for $1000" and take me to the cleaners. Instead they did the right thing and they didnt jump on the wagon. For that they deserve a 5 star rating. Now I like cars, I really do and I know A LOT of people who also love them and you can rest assured I will recommend these guys and I will also totally dish out the "other shop" that quoted me the $2000. I mean a heat shield was causing the noise?! Come on, thats kids stuff. Shame on you!