“We are currently on a vacation camping at Sandbanks, and on the way up from Oshawa, once we were driving at high speed on the 401, our car started violently jerking from side to side and squeaking like crazy from the back end. My husband had just done a job on the bearings himself the day before, because he insisted on not having to pay shop fees (which I repeatedly warned against), so I was sure he screwed something up during that process. We limped to our destination, 150km from home, with the intention of finding a local mechanic who could advise if we could get it home safely or not, or possibly do any work that was required.I called around to about 15 different places after stupidly assuming I could find someone who had time to look at it with short notice, and got a bunch of responses along the lines of:“we’ll do our best to get to it if you bring it in a couple days, but no promises”mixed in with:“We’re fully booked until next week”from 95% of the shops with the highest Google ratings. This was horrifying, as we only had the campsite for four more days at that point (it was Wednesday and we were booked until Saturday), and had no other plan if we got stuck up here waiting for the car. We also really didn’t want to have to pay for a tow, as the issue was with the back wheels, as we would have required a VERY costly flatbed to tow it 150kms back home, where we’d then have to then pay for the repairs on top of that.So I wanted it dealt with here so I could avoid the extra excessive cost.So we ended up booking with one of the “drop it on Friday and we’ll do our best to get to it” places, which was nerve wracking given the tight timeline.At that point there was just one highly rated shop I had to leave a message with, and was waiting to hear back.That was SWMR Auto.An hour or so later, Steve, the owner, called me back and let me know he would be able to look at it on Thursday! A day earlier than the other place! So based on his high rating, and the fact that reviews indicated he was the only mechanic in town a number of people trusted with their cars, I cancelled the “hope for the best” appt on Friday and booked with Steve.He instructed us to drop the car when they opened on Thursday at 8am, and by 11am I got a call letting me know that the bearings my husband installed had failed, as I expected, and needed to be replaced. He quoted me the price for this, and given the time crunch and lack of other options, I gave him the green light to do the work.Within another hour, I got another call from him. Letting me know that the problem went deeper than originally expected, and that (much to my horror) we needed both rear axles replaced along with the bearings as my husband had chewed up the threading from torquing the bolts back on carelessly when things weren’t lined up properly.He was really polite about it and didn’t want to throw my husband under the bus, but I kinda forced him to be honest, and he confirmed the driveway hack job was more than likely to blame.He gave me a gut-wrenching quote for the work required, but insisted he didn’t want to get into these very expensive fixes before going over everything in detail with me, and even offered to let me come look at the damage myself. Which was pointless as I don’t know squat about cars. But he was never pushy about doing the work himself and never made me feel like I didn’t have options.So I rang my car friend, and he felt the quote was really high, so I called around to shops I trusted in Oshawa, who assured me the work would cost about the same at any of their shops, possibly even more!So I told Steve to do the work.He had one side done same day on Thursday, and just needed to wait til Friday morning for a part for the other side. It was done by noon Friday and even cost $200 less than quoted!Steve was so wonderful and helpful that I’d recommend him to anyone looking for a trustworthy mechanic in this area! Even more, I would drive the 150km to come back to him again if I needed work done in the future. Steve is your guy, trust me.“
Car Repair
“We are currently on a vacation camping at Sandbanks, and on the way up from Oshawa, once we were driving at high speed on the 401, our car started violently jerking from side to side and squeaking like crazy from the back end. My husband had just done a job on the bearings himself the day before, because he insisted on not having to pay shop fees (which I repeatedly warned against), so I was sure he screwed something up during that process. We limped to our destination, 150km from home, with the intention of finding a local mechanic who could advise if we could get it home safely or not, or possibly do any work that was required.I called around to about 15 different places after stupidly assuming I could find someone who had time to look at it with short notice, and got a bunch of responses along the lines of:“we’ll do our best to get to it if you bring it in a couple days, but no promises”mixed in with:“We’re fully booked until next week”from 95% of the shops with the highest Google ratings. This was horrifying, as we only had the campsite for four more days at that point (it was Wednesday and we were booked until Saturday), and had no other plan if we got stuck up here waiting for the car. We also really didn’t want to have to pay for a tow, as the issue was with the back wheels, as we would have required a VERY costly flatbed to tow it 150kms back home, where we’d then have to then pay for the repairs on top of that.So I wanted it dealt with here so I could avoid the extra excessive cost.So we ended up booking with one of the “drop it on Friday and we’ll do our best to get to it” places, which was nerve wracking given the tight timeline.At that point there was just one highly rated shop I had to leave a message with, and was waiting to hear back.That was SWMR Auto.An hour or so later, Steve, the owner, called me back and let me know he would be able to look at it on Thursday! A day earlier than the other place! So based on his high rating, and the fact that reviews indicated he was the only mechanic in town a number of people trusted with their cars, I cancelled the “hope for the best” appt on Friday and booked with Steve.He instructed us to drop the car when they opened on Thursday at 8am, and by 11am I got a call letting me know that the bearings my husband installed had failed, as I expected, and needed to be replaced. He quoted me the price for this, and given the time crunch and lack of other options, I gave him the green light to do the work.Within another hour, I got another call from him. Letting me know that the problem went deeper than originally expected, and that (much to my horror) we needed both rear axles replaced along with the bearings as my husband had chewed up the threading from torquing the bolts back on carelessly when things weren’t lined up properly.He was really polite about it and didn’t want to throw my husband under the bus, but I kinda forced him to be honest, and he confirmed the driveway hack job was more than likely to blame.He gave me a gut-wrenching quote for the work required, but insisted he didn’t want to get into these very expensive fixes before going over everything in detail with me, and even offered to let me come look at the damage myself. Which was pointless as I don’t know squat about cars. But he was never pushy about doing the work himself and never made me feel like I didn’t have options.So I rang my car friend, and he felt the quote was really high, so I called around to shops I trusted in Oshawa, who assured me the work would cost about the same at any of their shops, possibly even more!So I told Steve to do the work.He had one side done same day on Thursday, and just needed to wait til Friday morning for a part for the other side. It was done by noon Friday and even cost $200 less than quoted!Steve was so wonderful and helpful that I’d recommend him to anyone looking for a trustworthy mechanic in this area! Even more, I would drive the 150km to come back to him again if I needed work done in the future. Steve is your guy, trust me.“