Branciforte Auto Repair Inc

If you are  thinking about taking your car here, you should read this review.

I was made to tow my vehicle from this shop after they were unable to fix it. There is actually nothing remarkable about this car. It is a Japanese front wheel drive V6. A number of parts were replaced that didn't need to be replaced in a effort to locate the trouble. Many hours were spent trouble shooting. More than 10 according to Lou. In the end they say it is the ECU but were unwilling to replace it. Lou was acting strange when I was having a conversation about it and I got the feeling he didn't want to work on it anymore. I asked him if that was the case and sure enough he wanted me to tow it away.

One of the things I found very odd was after they started working on it Lou called me to ask me how old the plugs and wires were. I had literally just replaced both. The wires were so shiny and bright it would be hard to miss that they had just been replaced days before.
Lou replaced the plugs anyway which meant removing the intake manifold (several hours of work.)

They have been very polite and honest as have I. I expressed very little dismay upon being told I needed to remove my car and pay for the repairs. That being said I can't believe what is happening. That I have to tow it to another shop to have it fixed after already towing it here  and paying to not have it fixed.

After all of the trouble shooting  Lou said that it was flooding on all of the cylinders because the computer was bad. So I towed it home and removed the ECU which required me disassembling half of my dash. After getting the  serial number off the ECU I proceeded to search for one. A week and numerous hours of research later I called a Mitsubishi dealer and talked to the service department manager. When I told him Lou said it was the ECU because it was flooding on all cylinders he said he had never seen that happen due to an ECU. Flooding on one cylinder due to an ECU happens but never all of them at the same time.

So I towed the car over the hill to the dealer to have them fix it. That's another $150 in tows for a total of $350. This puts my unnecessary tow bill at $250. So they put it in the shop the next day and called me right away. It turns out it was the distributor. This is one of the first things you check when you have an ignition problem and it took them about half an hour.

So I paid about $800 in tows and repairs that didn't benefit me in any way and I find out that what was wrong with my car was incredibly simple. I also tore apart my dash and spent a lot of time looking for a part for a problem that didn't exist. One last thing I discovered was that there was a pretty substantial amount of grease on my brand new floor mat and on the door sill.

I waited a while and thought about all of this and decided to send an email to try to come to some kind of an agreement. It seems reasonable to expect that a business that fails to perform the duties it promises a customer, would agree to refund part, if not nearly all of the money. It's an agreement of trade. I give them something they can use for something I can use. Well they didn't give me anything I could use.

So I sent  the email and they didn't respond.
This review is my response to them not responding.
They could lose more money from this review than
I paid to have them not fix my car.
I would be happy to remove this review if they contact me
and refund a reasonable amount of my money.

They have my email address.

We are using them today, just a minute less. Just a roofing service and oil change. I do not know yet. Well, they are basically taking care of our cars for years now. They are acting more like families than just mechanic. They are not cheap but I think they were fixed.

He's very very meticulous and thorough in his diagnostics. He appreciates it when you put together a list of things that you're concerned about. He brought me back some information about some cracks in my hose line, actually showing me the cracks. He tries to educate the driver about the issues and I appreciate that. He's honest, as well. I asked about a few things, and he told me I didn't have to worry about them. He does a lot of the work himself, and he spends quite a bit of time inspecting the vehicle. He also has great coffee.

The woman that runs the office is very knowledgable, so when you call in you are immediatly speaking to someone who knows what they are talking about. They did great work coming up with an estimate before I even came in, and it was very accurate. I was very impressed overall. My impression was quite consistent with all the comments I have read about them and heard from close friends. I don't know why I waited so long to take my car to this shop.

They are conscientious about the service being performed. You get the feeling when you talk to them that they are actively concerned to do the right thing for the customer. Lou is the chief of mechanics and his wife runs the office. You get the feeling that they providing the least cost with the best service. They really are a great operation to do service with.

This auto place has been servicing our cars for >20 years. We have a 22 yr old Honda Accord, an old Chevy pick up and previously a 20 yr old Nissan. They have kept us running for 2 decades on these old "beaters."
These folks have even driven me home after dropping off a car for service.
Always cheerful and a very humorous couple. They are like "Click and Clack" of Santa Cruz County.

When the front end of our 2000 Honda Odyssey developed a knocking sound after completing a cross country drive from our home in Maryland, I brought it in to check the ball joints. Lou, the owner, went on a drive with me after jacking the front end up to find the ball joints were OK. They replaced the front strut on both sides and the horizontal stabilizer bushings at a total cost that was less than they had originally quoted. Everyone I met, including Nadine and Dallas in the front office as well as Lou and Eric, a mechanic that Lou introduced to me as a former Maryland resident, could not have been nicer or more helpful. It is clear that they really care about the quality of their customer's experience and that they enjoy doing what they do. We plan on relocating to this area and the fact that they are here makes the idea of that move a whole lot easier.

We heard of them and decided to give them a try because they are close to where we live. They were really nice. The only problem we had was that we couldn't get an appointment right away. We dropped the car off in the morning and they called that afternoon to let us know the problem. They fixed it for a lot less than we expected. We were satisfied.