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Try-It-Out Tuesday: Finding An Auto Shop You Can Actually Trust

If recent studies are any indication, consumers and auto repair shops do not have the most trusting of relationships: according to one survey released in April, 66 percent of consumers who own or lease a car think they have been ripped off by a repair shop. Another survey released by Northwestern University at the beginning of the month showed that customers who indicated they didn’t know what a repair job should cost were quoted higher prices than customers who gave accurate estimates — and women were consistently quoted higher prices than men.

The good news for consumers is that there’s a new resource looking to add some transparency to the auto repair process: RepairPal.com. While RepairPal was started six years ago as a simple repair price estimator, it recently launched its “Top Shop” feature, a search engine that connects drivers with the best trained and most-trusted mechanics in their area.

Screen shot 2013-07-30 at 9.08.02 AMAccording to Art Shaw, RepairPal CEO, an auto shop must go through a strict vetting process before being named a Top Shop: RepairPal checks the credentials and training of all the mechanics in the shop and all the tools in the shop, whether or not the parts being put into cars are in fact quality parts, and whether or not the shop will offer a 12-month, 12,000-mile warranty on its work. Once accepted as a Top Shop, the auto shop has to agree to maintain these standards and keep prices within that of RepairPal’s price estimator.

Bob Croxton, owner of the Lilburn Auto Center in Lilburn, Georgia, has been in business for 25 years and is listed as one of RepairPal’s Top Shops. He says the vetting process was thorough, to say the least.

“[It] was probably tougher to be accepted [into] than it was to be in any other program I’ve been associated with,” Croxton said. “They went more the extra mile than AAA,” he said, explaining that RepairPal asked for proof that his mechanics were not only trained, but involved in continuing education programs. “I really liked that, because today’s cars aren’t easy to fix, and not every shop can do what a Top Shop-level shop can do.”

RepairPal is free for consumers to use, but Top Shops do pay an application fee and, if accepted into the TopShop program, pay a monthly fee to remain listed on the site. This, Shaw says, is how the company stays in business.

“We have two choices: either the consumers pay or the shops pay. For us to provide this service we have to charge,” Shaw said. But he insists that a substandard auto shop cannot buy its way onto the Top Shop list.

“We are a consumer advocacy program and our standards are clear,” he said. “We don’t bend them.”

Don Dixon, a consultant in Atlanta, used RepairPal to get a price estimate for a repair on his son’s car in April — and then used the Top Shop locator to find a shop that would do the repair for that estimate. His son had tried getting quotes himself, but the shop Dixon found through RepairPal quoted him a full $400 less than the other shops — and stuck to that. Dixon was so happy with their work (and the savings) that he’s since returned to the shop with his other cars.

A few weeks later, when he took his truck into the shop because of a squeaking noise. He didn’t know what was wrong, but suspected something was up, possibly with the brake pads. It turned out the squeaking was nothing to worry about. “[The shop] said no, those are actually relatively new bake pads,” Dixon said. “He didn’t charge me a nickel. It would have been real easy for them to sell me brake pads.”