South Street Auto Care

Address:	216 South St, Rochester, MI 48307, USA
Phone:	+1 248-650-1100
Site:	southstreetautocare.com
Rating:	4.6
Working:	8AM–6PM 8AM–6PM 8AM–6PM 8AM–5:30PM 8AM–5PM 8AM–4PM Closed

Location

Photos 100

Reviews 4

timjohara

Friendly people here and a well provisioned garage but I have had several unfortunate experiences with them, particularly as regards to refilling and checking fluid levels after repairs and then warranting against damage caused by their negligence. I brought my 2002 vehicle with 53,000 miles in 10 months ago to change the transmission fluid. Several days later, I noticed trans fluid on my drive and on checking the fluid level hot, the fluid was all the way up the dipstick and frothy from overfilling (bad for transmissions). Had to make an extra trip back to get this rectified, assured it was a one off mistake. December of this year, notice trans fluid on the drive again, took it back, turns out it is a trans solenoid leak which had occurred with age. $450 to fix, find that it needs a new water pump, another $1000. That’s all fine, repairs were done. My teenage daughter drives this car, so about a week or so later she mentions the car slipping and having trouble going into gear when cold. I thought it was due to ice in the street, I finally drive the car and yeah it slips, won’t go into gear until it warms up. I check the trans fluid and it is bone dry, won’t even read on the stick. The leak had been repaired, no more drips on the drive. They obviously didn’t refill the trans fluid after doing the trans repair. The car has been driven 2 weeks on very low trans fluid, doing whatever damage to the trans and undoubtedly lessening it’s life. When I took it back again, I was adamant that I wanted a lifetime or at least a 3 year warranty on the trans which was refused. They fell back on that I should basically verify their repairs and that my car naïve daughter should have told me sooner and more stridently of the problem. I appreciate that they rechecked the coolant and refrigerant levels from the water pump repair since I now didn’t trust them on that, but I can’t get past them not offering warranty on damage caused by their negligence as well as that I have to take the car in twice to fix their deficiencies every time I have a repair done. After these 2 consecutive occurrences, I can’t say that I trust work that these guys do and to do the very basics of checking fluid levels after repairs. Then refusing to warrant for damage that their negligence has caused. Takeaways: Courteous, friendly shop with free loaners but pricy. In past experience, I always get a call that they found some other things that will basically double or triple your cost. This can be good I suppose. Repairs that you will have to personally verify and check yourself, especially fluid levels which if they forget to restore, they will not take responsibility for nor warrant for damage caused to your vehicle. To me this is inexcusable.

John Azoni

Kirk, Joel, and the rest of the team there were awesome when my wife and I were in the process of buying a used minivan. We took it in for an inspection, and they did a really thorough job checking everything out and advised us that it was a great purchase, and some things that needed to be done on it eventually. We bought the van and brought it back in for a brake job, and to get another thing fixed they had initially recommended, and when Joel called to give us a quote on the brake job, he mentioned the other thing (something with the flex pip) really didnt need to be fixed right away if we didnt want to, that is was just a cosmetic issue. I thought that was really respectable as other repair shops wouldve led me to believe it had to be fixed just to get the extra money out of me. These guys were just super friendly and honest throughout the whole process and my wife and I couldnt be more thankful and appreciative. Another thing worthy of noting is that when my wife went in to pick up the van from the inspection, there was another guy in there who was a previous customer who brought in bagels for the whole crew there to show his appreciation for whatever it was they did for him. Also, when I went in to drop the van off for the brake job, in the waiting room was an elderly lady who was waiting to hear the word on an issue with her cars wheels (or something). The repair tech came out, and knelt down on her level and just really nicely explained what the problem was, and offered to fix it for free. She seemed so appreciative and was like "well I guess Ill just have to bake you all more cookies then!". That stuff really says a lot about the people you are trusting to be honest with you about the repairs on your vehicle. I cant recommend this place more highly. Kirk also owns another location in Livonia called Kirks Auto Care, and from what Ive read in the reviews of that location and heard from friends is that the experience is the same as North Hill.. just super friendly and honest.

Kunpeng Li

I used to love this place and be a regular customer until last month when I tried to bring my car and my girl friends car together there for a regular oil change. It is nearly noon on Saturday, I asked to do oil change, the guy told me it is impossible that day because they are too busy and asked me to drop my car there. I dont want to drop my cars there because I need them for commuter. Then I decide to do it on Monday for both cars, then I am surprised to be told that they dont accept two cars for one customer in one day. That really shocked me and it is my first time to hear this kind of policy. That is one point that I am disappointed to their new policy. Because it makes no sense, because my girl friend was also there, does it work if she pretends to not know me and to create a new account?? Then we can have both cars maintained in one day?? Does you really need to accumulate your customers account in this way?? At this time, I am already frustrated. I have to drop my car there and decide to let my girlfriend to bring her car back to store on Monday. Because I need to take my car back, thus I request to have pick up service on Monday, so I cant drive one more car there. Then I am surprised again to be told that my place is too far away. Come on, 20min, and previously it is always no problem for them to do so. I used to be pick up in my place several times. Then I am completed fired up, I get my key back and complain their new policy, which is really terrible and not considerate. I will never be there and just express my feeling: a merchant cant be like this: nice to customer when they are in developing stage and mean to customer when they are getting bigger and bigger. I really hate this kind of merchant!! PS: The merchant called me and tried to persuade me to change the star rate. I changed it from 1 star to 3 star considering the good work I got previously even though I will never be there in the future.

Will T

Took a car in that struggled with maintaining an idle. That was day 1. Technician said it was 2 sensors that were the issue. South Street charged me $108 for diagnosis and wanted $169 and $89 for the very same sensors at AutoZone for $59 and $39. They also wanted 2 hours in labor ($100+). I understand theyre a business and they mark up prices, but they more than doubled the price of material on me. It took me only an hour to replace the sensors and Im not used to working on cars. Upon restarting the car after sensor replacement, the same issue with the car maintaining idle returned. I called South Street and they requested to see the car again. They gave me a loaner car, which was very nice since I didnt have a vehicle. They kept my car for 2 days and charged me another $100 in labor to tell me the sensors are fine but now the alternator is bad. They wanted $500 to do the alternator but the shop right down the street called Action One said they could do it for $300. Alternators are generally $150 and take a technician about an hour to replace. $500 is ridiculous. At this point it time, South Street had me $200 in the hole with a car that was not driveable. I took my losses and went to Action One (which is 500 feet away). Theyve got alot of nice guys who work at South Street but theyre sub-par in diagnosing issues and theyre very highly priced. When I spoke to the mechanic upon picking the car he simply stated "good luck". This dude also smoked in my car so reselling this car is going to be entirely difficult. One of their mottos is that they dont want to seem shady but I definitely received that vibe. Ive got alot of family and friends that will not be attending this shop for the reasons listed above.