lifestyle auto car

by Rob Hopp, Cars for Keeps Owner

Sending your child off to college hundreds of miles from home is always an emotional experience.

Sending them with a car adds another level of anxiety.

You get that dreaded phone call. Later than you'd like to hear from them. The wipers don't work. The oil light came on & they kept driving till it stopped. The possibilities are endless.

When your kid and their car are hundreds of miles from home, you don’t have nearly the options that you do with your home shop. The distance factor and not being familiar with the repair facilities in the town where your youngster is going to school puts you (and your child) at a big disadvantage. Hopefully having a game plan for a garage you can feel confident in can help put you at ease.

This is one of the reasons we have taken the steps to become a AAA and Bosch approved auto repair shop. The standards required to get AAA approval help make sure our clients get consistently ethical and qualified service. The internet makes it easy to pare down the choices in a given community. Simply search for AAA Approved auto repair or Bosch service with the zip code or city and you'll find only one or a few in any given locale.

The better shops we’ve dealt with over the years don’t play games on the phone. They don’t toss out a lowball quote they know is not realistic as bait so they can set the hook and reel an unsuspecting client in. They give them a precise quote for parts and labor (if what needs to be replaced is known ), or if they don’t know what’s causing a problem, give some ballpark figures as to what it might cost based on best-case and worst-case scenarios. As a consumer, that’s very reassuring because it empowers you to make a more informed and intelligent repair decision.

by Dennis, Cars for Keeps Customer Service Manager

I had a customer call me several weeks ago in a panic. They were in Florida on vacation and their vehicle had developed a leak. They didn’t know what to do. They said “Cars for Keeps had always taken care of them”. They didn’t know who they could trust, down there.

I told them not to worry; all they needed to do, was locate a AAA Approved Auto Repair Shop. Which they did, and all was well. So maybe you are wondering, what’s with the AAA Auto Repair Shop.

AAA Auto Repair Shops have strict rules they have to comply with. Some of these rule are as follows. A clean facility, State Certified mechanic (ours are ASE certified, one step above state), at a minimum a 12/12 warranty ( we have up to 36/36). They have to have a history of honesty and integrity. This is found out by AAA surveying up to 200 of recent customers, at random. That way AAA gets an honest opinion.

The shop needs a 98% Customer Satisfaction Rate and to needs to comply with specific training and qualifications. They also need to have specific tools of the trade over and above the basics. These are just some of the criteria that a shop needs to be AAA Approved. I hope this helps you understand what it means for us at Cars for Keeps and other shops to be AAA Approved, and why I felt confident in sending one of our customers to a shop that has this approval.

Until next time, Happy and safe driving.

by Rob Hopp, Cars for Keeps Owner