American Auto Care and Transport at 148 Main Street, Youngsville, North Carolina.

I decided to use AACT because of the great reviews posted here, to get a second opinion on the recommended maintenance from brand dealership and to try and save a little money. I expressed to AACT my concerns and annoyances from the dealership prior to agreeing to any service, those being over charging for labor and parts at every turn.

After sharing with AACT what the recommended maintenance was I had them give me their opinion and they felt that those repairs were unnecessary (Tie Rod Service, Bushings). In addition, I had them price replacement of one of the seat belts in the car and requested if they could locate an engine noise that the dealership seemed to have difficultly doing. I was happy with the result, they quoted me slightly less than the dealership on the seat belt (both labor and parts) and managed to find the noise in the engine (alternator and belt) so I agreed to have these fixed.

The price given for the alternator caught me off guard at $290 for the part. I didn't managed to price it myself until the day before pickup and really quite frankly didn't apply any urgency on it due to the reviews. But when I did price the alternator I found that it was being sold for $100 less from the same place they bought it from. I can appreciate and understand some markup, but I wouldn't expect this much given that I had already expressed some concerns to them about this very issue with dealership service.

It wasn't until after the delivery of service did I learn that I could have bought the parts myself and had them do the repairs to save in the 100% markup they give. Of course this would void their warranty to fix the issue should the part fail.

So my recommendation to those in my situation, looking to find a good repair shop as an alternative to expensive dealership repairs, is to look at purchasing the needed parts on your own. My one experience is that the work provided was good, they fixed something that had been driving me nuts for quite some time and which the dealership didn't seem to be able to or didn't feel was of value to fix. But I was disappointed about the 100% markup of the alternator.