A Plus Japanese Auto Repair

This San Carlos Auto Repair shop is the best. They have been repairing my Honda Accord and my wife's Acura MDX for about 4 years. We used to go to the dealership and then met one of the owner's, Eric at a San Carlos Chamber event. He was pleasant guy and thought we would give a local repair shop a shot. I am happy we did.

I have always found that they are honest and fair priced. I like that they send out photos with their recommendations, although I trust them with the repairs and it is still interesting to see what I am paying for. I highly recommend if you need auto repair to go check out A+ Japanese Auto Repair.

I’ve been going to A+ Japanese for about 2 yrs at the time of this review, and have had services ranging from an oil change to replacing the timing chain and other major services performed on my 2005 Pathfinder. I purposely waited to provide a review to them (or any other service vendor) until I have dealt with them more than 2-3 times, as that’s when their true colors seem to reveal themselves. The first couple of visits to any business can always be great (or even awful) and skew the true quality of a business. Additionally, I’ve been dealing with Justin, specifically, even prior to his move to A+ from Boardwalk Nissan and it was a pleasant surprise to find him there when I first decided to try A+.

Recently, I took my Pathfinder in to take advantage of a Fall special which included an oil change, tire rotation, etc. etc. About a week later, I called Justin at A+ to express my dissatisfaction about my most recent visit who immediately wanted to make things right. Without getting into details, Justin heard me out and didn’t try to justify anything that I was upset about; he genuinely expressed understanding and a desire to retain my business. With my truck at almost 100k miles, I brought it back in to have work done that was recommended by their mechanic (no kidding – these guys are good, too), Justin and the mechanic walked me through what and WHY they recommended the work by visually showing me and educating me along the way. They taught and empowered me to make an educated decision versus a blind, emotionally reluctant decision to have the work done. Also, in prior service visits with them, they have actually taken numerous photos of the areas of the vehicle that required service and emailed them to me while I was at work so that I could see what was going on. This was unheard of and really impressed me.

After the walk through, I was more than happy to have the work done (new front brakes, replacing front/rear differential fluids, and various other fluids, new spark plugs, and more), and not only did they do another really quality job, they even bent over backwards and provided me with an overnight rental car on their dime without me even having to ask for it. Now this was true customer service and a class move on their part. They didn’t have to do that. It made me feel like they recognized my patronage in the past and that they really did want to keep my business and were willing to do whatever it took to make up for a poor experience after having established a good relationship with their shop.

I picked up my Pathfinder the next day after work and it was cleaned up and running well. Justin also informed me that they chose to use an upgraded quality part at no additional charge to me. Businesses can and will slip and/or make mistakes occasionally, and it’s great to see that when A+ does, they are not above apologizing and willing to go reasonable lengths to make things right. Because of their demonstration to committing to good customer service, I will continue to support, promote, and bring my vehicle with A+ Japanese Auto Repair. If you’re tired of bouncing from garage to garage, or even dealerships and their outrages prices, take your vehicle to A+. Hats off to Justin and the management/owners.

I had a growling sound from the brakes on my Toyota. I brought my car into A+ Japanese Auto Repair for an inspection based a friends referral. The shop expertly diagnosed that my brake pads and brake rotors were overheated. Apparently I cooked the front brakes coming down a steep hill in San Carlos. Front brake repair & service was performed on my Toyota on the same day and I am back in business.

Finding a mechanic you can completely trust is a rare thing. I came here based on the reviews of members of the San Carlos mothers club, first to get my brakes fixed and to deal with a chirpy sound coming from my engine. They fixed the brakes that needed it, didn't mess with the ones they said could go another 10k miles, and fixed the chirping problem for free.



Next, my wife's car's oxygen sensor crapped out (conveyed to us as a cryptic yellow light on the display). A+ Japanese Auto diagnosed the problem, but then told us to go to the dealership to fix it since it was under warranty and we could get it done for free. Wow.



Finally, my car was making a grindy noise (they actually wrote it down in the prelim eval as 'Customer describes noise as RRRrrrr') so I took it down to A+ Japanese Auto and it was fixed half a day later.



The thing I love about A+ Japanese Auto is that they have your interests in mind when they recommend work. They'll tell you what needs to be done now, what can wait and can even triage work if you can't afford everything. If you go that route, they'll offer to try and fix your semi broken parts instead of just replacing them to save you money. I never got that predatory establishment vibe here like I do with some other places like the dealership where they just seem to do random extra work to make more money, and that's what really matters with a mechanic