RepairPal

For all those high priced shops trying to discredit repair pal all I have to say is how do you sleep at night? Is your making all that money at the consumers expense really more important than honesty and integrity? You should be ashamed of yourself and if not I will make it a point to let others know that you and your family can rest assured that you are making a world without values and morals. Hope you enjoy what you create. I wish a big red light would appear over your heads to identify you because like other bottom feeders you always seem to lurk in the shadows. Repair Pal is the real deal and it needs to grow so these bottom feeders can go back to their pits and stop trying to screw up this country more.

As an Auto Repair Shop, I feel the need to give consumers some information they may not know. My shop has been in business since 1995 and we ALWAYS make sure to EDUCATE our customers regarding the particular repair they need. We have been contacted by RP to "join" their "service" as well as Google (which will put you at the top rating for a meager $400-$500 per month). So Consumers should know going into their research that just because RP or Google or any other website recommends a shop does not mean that will be the shop to give you the biggest/honest bang for your buck because they PAY for these companies' "services" to be a "recommended shop" or a shop "at the top of the list". Do not know whether RP is good or bad hence the 1 star... this post is for CONSUMER EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. ALWAYS shop around first... it pays to get a 2nd or even 3rd opinion prior to parting with your hard earned money.

The cost estimator seems too expensive. The estimates seemed really high when checking against things that I had repaired on my vehicle. So just to be sure I checked the estimate against something I was familiar with, spark plugs. You can purchase extremely nice spark plugs for $8 to $10 a piece and replacing them is super quick, and a much faster job for an experienced mechanic. The price quoted by repair pal for the 8 spark plugs was $96-$144, I don't know what kind of spark plugs they are using but auto shops usually replace with aftermarket parts and I highly doubt they get the spark plugs for more than $7 to $10 a pop. That is $56 to $80. Then cost for labor is stated at $182 - $233 an experienced mechanic will replace 4 spark plugs in 15 minutes so lets say 30 minutes for the job, that means the mechanic is making $364 to $566 per hour! According to national average labor rate for auto mechanics the hourly rate for an automechanic is $75 to $100 an hour. This puts labor at $50 for the spark plug replacement. In reality this job at a mechanic shop should be no more than $130 that is less than half of the minimum price quoted by repairpal! If I am wrong about this then I would appreciate someone justifying $278 to $377 for spark plug replacement! Don't trust this sites estimater, this site has a lot of potential to do good and help keep mechanic shops honest, but not when their estimator is less honest than the mechanics! AutoMD.com is a much better option then this site. For the same repair it quoted me $235 to have 8 spark plugs replaced at a dealership, and $152 to have them replaced in a shop, this is much more accurate

I just saw this story on the news about this website. You can go to it prior to taking your vehicle in for repairs or maintenance and type in everything about your car and it's issues and it will give a an estimate that you SHOULD get. (Channel 13 Eyewitness new ran the story and they'll probably have something about it on their website.)

In other words, you will have a little insight or ballpark figure for what your repairs or maintenance should cost and then you can weigh that against the actual estimate to see if your auto repair is trying to stick it to you or not.

They also list repair shops in good standing, sort of a BBB thing. So, before you give into the grease monkey's, check this site out and get an idea of what you should and shouldn't be charged. Forewarned is forearmed!