Chelmsford Automotive Svc Center

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while, this is a real honest review of my experiences in the last year at Chelmsford Automotive Service Center. Disregard the bad reviews, the shop is under new ownership and an easy 5 star rating for me!
Dave has saved my bacon twice. Both times he was able to mount my new motorcycle tires for me and the last time he replaced my wheel bearings too. Every interaction has been friendly & professional and every service, affordable with attention to detail. When I picked up my newly mounted tires, he made a point of showing me how he marked the tires so I could see for myself that they were mounted correctly.
To me that is a sign of professionalism, accountability & honesty. Dave is proud of his work, his pride in turn gives me confidence and makes me want to write this review and use his services in the future. I live in Newton, but I happily make the journey to his shop.

Dave is the new owner and I have found him to be cheerful, honest and affordable. I have only used his services for oil changes. He remembers me by name, does the oil change quickly without offering me additional services. Once, he recommended I change my air filter. He’s not trying to sell me anything I don’t want. He will show me the empty oil container (because my mazda requires an uncommon oil type, and I want to make sure I’m getting the right stuff.) and old filter that he replaced. He tells me the price before service and it always matches my bill. He’s also completely honest and will only agree to schedule me in if he has time.

When my Audi wouldn’t drive, I had it towed to Chelmsford Automotive, because the owner told me that he was knowledgeable about Audi’s. Bad mistake. It turned out that the car needed a new clutch. And as a frame of reference, he told me that the dealer would charge $ 2100 to replace the clutch… Long story short, when he was done, he presented me with a $ 2600 bill. I was shocked — that’s a 20% premium over dealer prices! I had to negotiate with him to have him reduce the bill to match the dealer. But he had me over the barrel. The car was taken apart «for diagnosis.» All I could manage was to get him to MATCH the authorized dealer’s prices. Do yourself a favor and find another place to service your car. Because if he can take advantage of you, he will.

I dont think CASC is dishonest. I know that Phil is a «salt of the earth» guy and that rubs some people the wrong way, but he always gives his best to solve the problem in a quality manner. Would you rather have a symptom addressed or your car fixed? Phil knows what he is doing and making sure the car is safe. I have been going there for 10 years with all our vehicles and always received timely and quality work.

I would love to give this place ZERO stars if it was possible.
Let me begin with how horrible this place is. I unfortunately took the advice from my father to visit this place to have my inspection sticker re-​newed.
Upon entering this dirty little repair shop, I requested an inspection. Note this place was dead at the time, yet I was asked to wait until Phil returned. Phil apparently is the owner. Anyway after about 15 minutes he arrives, I pay him the $ 29 dollar fee and he then proceeds to take my car to an «off site» location so he can preform the inspection. I have never gotten an inspection where the mechanic took the car someplace other that the garage you’re currently at. Normally you can stand there and watch what’s going on, in this case you have No Idea what he’s doing. So after 20 minutes or so, he returns. Naturally he’s failed my Accord. Stating that there is a loose tie rod at the passenger side front tire. I said, What? Because I didn’t suspect there was anything wrong with how the car had been handling. And is response was, «What am I talkin Chinese?» Great response moron.
So then I was informed I wasn’t allow to drive cause he place the failed sticker on it and I could have it fixed there, but he couldn’t get to it for a few days. Or I could bring some place else and then return for him to inspect the completion of work.
I asked how much this would cost. He stated that it would run be about $ 150 — $ 200 dollars. So I left him the car and he was to complete the work.
$ 545 dollars later… A few days later, my father picked up the car. And low and behold here was the bill. I suppose this idiot forgot what he quoted us. He stated that he ended up replacing four tie rods instead, used the higher quality tie rods. Basically doing unauthorized work with out our consent. Naturally, his attitude was, it’s a done deal. You can pay it or leave your car here. Since we were at the mercy of this creep the bill was paid.
I would never go back to this jerk. Likewise my father who has been going there for years, also will never return there. I would highly recommend to anyone considering heading over there to stay away. It was an experience that I won’t soon forget, almost as if, things were slow… so he created some work to make some more money. Plus I have never seen a place where the State allows a mechanic to take your car to another location site unseen to preform an inspection, who’s to know what really fails or passes?
Stay away from this place. Sadly I doubt that people who end up swinging in there will read a review on Unilocal.And they’ll find out the hard way.

I’d always heard about dishonest mechanics overcharging people for work, but until going to Chelmsford Automotive, I’d never had it happen to me. My experience with this business has made me wary of all auto repair shops.
After taking my car in for brake problems, I received a call from the mechanic telling me I’d need new front and rear brakes and rotors, and was quoted a cost of $ 1600 (that was the ONLY service being done on my car). Since I obviously couldn’t afford it, I chose to do only the front brakes, and paid $ 800. Later, when a coworker mentioned they were getting new front brakes and rotors done at a cost of $ 250, I decided to investigate further. Ultimately, I found that I had been charged $ 500 above the next highest price I could find for the same exact repairs (this being only the front brake repairs, the quoted price for the front and rear was $ 1100 higher than the next highest price I was quoted).
When talking about this with another person I know, they told me they had a similar experience with this company charging them 4x’s the going rate for the repairs they had done. Stay away!!!