Martin Automotive

Very professional, friendly and trustworthy! Awesome customer service and fair prices for the work that they do. I would not take my cars anywhere else! Thank You Martin Automotive!

Brought my car in yesterday with concerns about the brakes. Many service places would see this as a great opportunity to «find» issues with someone’s vehicle, so I was kind of expecting a nice bill but figured better to let them fix whatever is wrong.
Anyway, the call came about 2 hours after I dropped it off, and to my surprise they said the only thing that it needed was a good lube, which they did as part of the inspection, and said I needed wipers (which was accurate).
On top of that, they even offered to come pick me up when the work was done. All in all, great experience. Thanks!

Cliff notes:
–Good tire balancer for touchy vehicles (my BMW’s like it).
–sketchy experience with alignments.
–if you’re not a car enthusiast — the front desk people are really friendly and helpful.
–if you’re a car enthusiast — the front desk people ARE SMARTER THAN YOU. They will do what they want, will not take your direction (very irritating).
Ok, this might be a long one, but here goes! Before you read, I am an avid DIY’er in the automotive world and only go to shops when I do not have the tools to do the job (tire machines, alignments, etc).
I originally found Martin Auto because they were the nearest place with a Hunter Roadforce Balancer — the best in the biz. Their prices for mount/​balance weren’t too bad — however I would always drop off wheels/​tires loose and pick them up at the end of the day.
After having 3 – 5 sets done, they only messed up twice — once they damaged the lip of my wheel (said they had to grab it by the outer lip because of the tires I was using). The other instance was they mounted a tire inside out (asymmetric). Both occasions I wasn’t pleased however they took cost out of the job for the damage and reversed the tire free of charge.
I then decided to let them do my alignments (3 vehicles over the last two years). Each vehicle I gave them my own specs because OE specs ate up tires and were less sporting (I.E. 0 front toe, lots of camber) — vehicles were all smaller ‘darty’ cars. The first alignment I had them do was on a previously wrecked vehicle that I had repaired. They were good to work with as I described the situation and asked that it be as close to my specs as possible. However, 15 miles after driving out of the shop I had a loose wheel. For an alignment the wheel should not be removed so I blame myself here.
Next vehicle I had them do they forgot to tighten a tie rod. After two days of driving it had opened up and the car felt very touchy (hard to keep going straight). I brought it in and sure enough it was at 2* toe out. I was pretty unpleased — if a non-​enthusiast was driving and didn’t realize it eventually it would’ve opened up completely causing an incident. The fixed the issue free of charge.
Last vehicle I brought them was fine, no issues.
Now to the most recent trip — I brought my truck in with loose tires to be installed (found good used tires cheap). They were wider but smaller in diameter and a very common size for my vehicle. I explained this to Todd and that if they rubbed at all that I would trim the inner fenders if needed. Later that morning they called and would not install the tires — they didn’t rub but ‘were close’. I told them to carry on as I understand the risk. They proceeded to neglect this option. I even told them just to do the rears (only the fronts were close to rubbing) but because of the size difference they wouldn’t (it could cause an issue in 4WD — again I told them I understood the risk and would sign any liability waiver if need be). No go.
So I wasted an entire day of dealing with that. I brought those tires to another shop and they helped my much more. (They don’t rub at all… just like I figured).
Their machine is no longer worth it — I’m not going here any more.