Cars, Kids & College: the Benefits of AAA Approved Auto Repair Shops

by Rob Hopp, Cars for Keeps Owner

Sending your child off to college hundreds of miles from home is always an emotional experience.

Sending them with a car adds another level of anxiety.

You get that dreaded phone call. Later than you'd like to hear from them. The wipers don't work. The oil light came on & they kept driving till it stopped. The possibilities are endless.

When your kid and their car are hundreds of miles from home, you don’t have nearly the options that you do with your home shop. The distance factor and not being familiar with the repair facilities in the town where your youngster is going to school puts you (and your child) at a big disadvantage. Hopefully having a game plan for a garage you can feel confident in can help put you at ease.

This is one of the reasons we have taken the steps to become a AAA and Bosch approved auto repair shop. The standards required to get AAA approval help make sure our clients get consistently ethical and qualified service. The internet makes it easy to pare down the choices in a given community. Simply search for AAA Approved auto repair or Bosch service with the zip code or city and you'll find only one or a few in any given locale.

The better shops we’ve dealt with over the years don’t play games on the phone. They don’t toss out a lowball quote they know is not realistic as bait so they can set the hook and reel an unsuspecting client in. They give them a precise quote for parts and labor (if what needs to be replaced is known ), or if they don’t know what’s causing a problem, give some ballpark figures as to what it might cost based on best-case and worst-case scenarios. As a consumer, that’s very reassuring because it empowers you to make a more informed and intelligent repair decision.