Kinney and Lamar Auto Service

13:27:03
I have been going to George for car inspections for about 10 years. In that time, he has never used the inspection to lasso me into a bunch of unneeded repair work and I appreciate that. On my last visit, 2 days ago, I called him «George» for the first time and apologized for seeing him nearly every year for 10 years and not introducing myself.
«I am Kimberly.»
He looked at me like he had never seen me before, but he looked at me in the eyes, and he smiled, kindly. «Well, nice to meet you, but honestly I don’t really care… I mean, it is really none of my business. I do your inspection, you pay. I don’t need to know your name. If you want to let me know your name, fine… but it is really none of my business.»
This is how he is. Curmudgeonly a bit. All business. Not chatty.
«I remember when you bought your inspection machine a few years ago and it cost a mint…»
«Yeah, $ 21,000… but what am i supposed to do?»
«Do you own your building?»
«Yeah, why?»
«You are sitting on a goldmine.»
«Yeah.»
I had decided to time him on my stopwatch. No one was in front of me. As I left I saw him return to his game of solitaire on the only computer in the dive-​y waiting room. Something about that moment reminded me of Casablanca… the keys of the computer, the keys of the piano, tinkling…
«Here’s lookin’ at you, kid…»
See you in a year, George.
13:27:03

go here for auto inspections!

Don’t do business with this outfit. IMHO George, the owner, is not to be trusted. I happened into this shop to have a routine inspection done since I was running errands in that area. It was the last day of the month so I was thankful that there wasn’t a long line of inspections ahead of me. That should have been my first clue. The second clue was that one of two mechanics was sitting in front of the computer playing solitaire the whole time I was there. Well, the car failed inspection due to a defective O2 emissions sensor.
Long story short, I paid for the inspection, came back the next day and had them replace the O2 sensor. They told me to drive the car 45 miles to reset the car computer and come back for a retest. I returned the next day after driving 60 miles (which for this car was $ 10 in gas.) George said, «well I can reinspect it but it may not pass». So, I am assuming he means that something else might have failed while driving the 60 miles that so he can’t guarantee a pass. So, he hooks up the diagnostic computer and runs a FULL re-​inspection. The result: Car computer had not reset yet which meant he could not yet pass the car. At this point he says, well you should drive the car another 50 miles and come back because some cars take longer to reset. Meanwhile my inspection is past-​due and the «grace period» expires in two days. So, this time I call the Dodge dealer and ask how long my car requires for reset. They say up to 200 miles (this would have been nice to know up front George.). So, over the next two days I drive 200 miles to ensure it is reset and bring it back to Kinney & Lamar auto for the reinspect. George hooks up the diagnostic computer and runs a SIMPLE check for computer reset. He tells me it is reset so car should now pass inspection. He then goes on to say it will cost me another $ 30 to run the FULL re-​inspection diagnostic because I have already used up the one free re-​inspection allowed by Dept of Transportation! So here’s the scam: He could have done the SIMPLE check the first time instead of the FULL reinspect which would have shown that the computer was not reset yet. Instead, he knew there was a good chance the test would fail due to car computer not being ready, thereby expecting to get paid twice for the inspection. Not very ethical if you ask me especially when I gave them my business to replace the O2 sensor. Since George would not budge on this issue, I took the vehicle to a shop just up the street and received refreshingly professional, fast and curious service.

Charlie at Kinney and Lamar help me when my car died on Lamar, he check out my car and told me it was my alternator, I did not have the money to fix it but he recharged my battery for free. I have talked with other people who take their car to Charlie and they all say he is a great mechanic, one who stands behind his work. I took my car back to Kinney and Lamar and had the alternator fixed it for a lot less than the auto shop here in Wimberley said it would cost. I haven’t had a problem with my car since. I think that Laura needs to learn a more about auto repair so that she is more informed because when you keep running out of gas the trash that is in the bottom of your gas tank gets sucked into the filter. That’s why you are not suppose to let you car get lower than ¼. Bill should have taken his car back to Charlie when the computer did not reset to find out why instead of taking to another shop that might not have been honest and just wanted money

We stumbled in here because this is as far from our car trouble as AAA would tow us.
They gave an estimate, then lived up to it. The actually found some more stuff, and fixed it for free.
We are happy and think that we will go out of our way to use them again.

If I could do zero stars, I would.
Major fail.
I took in a car I had recently purchased and that needed some work prior to passing inspection.
They did the job, to the tune of $ 600 and told me to drive it for 60 miles or so to reset the onboard computer. I did that and the computer still hadn’t reset before I had to make a long drive.
Their inspector was out of town, so after the long drive, I took it somewhere else to be inspected. They discovered that the work done by Kinney was faulty – hoses had been re-​routed to the wrong location or not hooked up at all, and I’m out another large chunk of change to fix the issue. When I called Kinney, the mechanic insisted, «I don’t make mistakes.»
These guys are, at the very least, borderline crooks who do shoddy work and refuse to own up to their mistakes.
Avoid.

I started writing my review of Kinney Lamar Auto Service two days ago, hoping to add another first to my list. Unfortunately, I was too late. Having just read Laura M’s review, I feel bad for her. I cannot imagine that George was the person that did that to her. I have always dealt with George, who is super nice. Mind you, I have only used this shop for auto inspections. So, my review and rating is only based on that service.
Here is what I can tell you about my experiences at this location… I was originally sent to George by my Alfa Romeo mechanic, BJ. He said he has been using Geoge for years, and George always has nice things to say about BJ as well. I usually show up without calling in advance and they always take my car in straight away. George handles the inspections personally. On my older Italian car, there are a few things that are a bit tricky but George works around the eccentricities and gets my baby to pass everytime. Gotta love that! I can assure you that the local gas station won’t be as ‘creative’.
The facility itself is nothing to write home about. Think dive bar for cars. I don’t care because I am always in and out very quickly.

i’m a particulary independent girl who has just enough auto knowledge to hurt herself, so when my car died right in front of Kinney and Lamar Auto Service i was positive it was an incredibly serious situation. sure my gas gauge was broken and i had to determine my next fill up time by keeping track my mileage, but i was positive i had much farther to go AND the last time i’d run out of gas i’d been able to keep it revived enough to coast into a gas station. this time it was just dead.
some saintly austinites and i pushed my truck into the kinney and lamar auto service and, since it was friday afternoon and they were closed for the evening) i slipped a note with my information under their door, begging them to fix my car.
on monday they called me back to say that i’d simply run out of gas and said that they’d put a little gas in it and it was fine. i did need to replace my fuel filter though since running out of gas damaged it.
i was so clueless and embarrassed about such a simple prognosis that i agreed and ended up with a bill of well over $ 120.
it turns out that running out of gas doesn’t ruin your fuel filter and that $ 120+ is way too much to pay.
taking advantage of less-​knowledgable customers is not the way to go through life, son.