Japan Auto Repair

I have been a customer since 1989. My previous car was on the road for 34 years thanks to Japan Auto Repair. I had total peace of mind with Japan Auto Repair taking good care of my car, getting it ready to pass SMOG when it got very old and needed to go to SMOG only places. I had a new transmission and all kinds of must do repairs after the car was 25 years old which is to be expected. It was a 1985 Toyota Tercel Hatchback and I drove it from Key West FL to Vancouver BC and X- country 5 times too and I just ran it into the ground. Japan Auto Repair got me the parts it needed and kept it going. I liked not having car payments and cheap auto insurance due to the model & year of the car and I liked having manual transmission and nothing fancy. I was the original owner. My new used car is a Toyota Corolla 2008 and Japan Auto Repair is taking good care of it too. I just like everything about the place, the people, their knowledge, patience with me, great customer service, just everything they've done for my cars all these many years. I highly recommend Japan Auto Repair at 48 Front Street off Hoag which is off East Francisco Blvd. in San Rafael CA 94901. I feel lucky that I happened to find them so early after moving to Marin County back in 1989. I highly recommend Japan Auto Repair and I am happy to write this review for them as a long satisfied happy customer ! ! ! I feel they are Excellent in every way.

I also wanted to add Don't let the "Japan Auto" deter you that they only work on Japanese vehicles, the also service my Volkswagon Bug! they are great!

Best auto shop in Portland hands down. Always quick, easy and reasonably priced. I cant count how many times I've had to drop off my vehicle with no appointment in an emergency, and had it fixed day of. Johns the man.

Imho, still the best/only option for one to take a Japanese car in the North Bay. Ray, Dario, Josh and others who work here are communicative and professional.
If you're looking to support a small, local-owned business where people have integrity and care for the quality of work-this is the place to go.

after my mechanic sold his shop, i went looking for someone that could work on hondas reliably. these guys replaced my shocks with really cheap crap, that fell apart in a year. my front brakes were shimmying. they planed them down and that only lasted a year, and that was only a little over 12000 miles. then the guy phoned me to tell me i needed to replace my battery. that was about two years ago. i said no, because by then i felt they thought i'm a real sucker. the battery is still fine. last year, i went someplace else and got new discs for about the same price as the planing job.

We've taken our newer and older 4Runner and Pilot's here for their routine service and have been very happy. They have many long time and loyal customers. Japan Auto Repair earn that with great service, honesty and value.

There are by the book mechanics, who learn their trade from trainings or manuals, and are competent. Then, at the highest level, there's a master mechanic like Dario from Japan Auto who has the ability to find a working solution to a recurring car problem which cannot be found in the trainings or the manuals.

See, what caused our car problem is one or two members of the multitude of field rats we have in our otherwise fine hillside wooded neighborhood ventured into our Honda Accord, where we usually had kept an energy bar or such in reserve for road trip emergencies. ANd so at least one very large rat got into our Honda and did plenty of chewing damage this winter to get the interior of the car to those that energy bars. And they also leaved natural droppings by which it was easy to tell it was a very big rat doing a lot of damage. ANd by the time we I noticed a hole in the front center console area, rats (or large rat singular) had also chewed their way through our trunk lining to access some other temporarily stored food in the trunk.

So I asked an old independent mechanic friend of mine who doesn't work on Japanese model cars who to go to, and he recommended Japan Auto, which I did, and met Dario the mechanic there for an inspection of the rat-damaged parts. However,between the time Dario inspected the damage, ordered the replacement parts, and the parts came in, the rats apparently returned and did more damage to the vent system wires, even though there was no more food in the car. And then our ventilation/air conditioning system stopped functioning completely..

So upon further inspection of the new damage, Dario got creative and figured out where the rats were ingressing the car. It was through a section of the engine compartment that leads to the back of our glove compartment, which also gave them access to the vent system wires. So he ordered parts for a truly industrial-quality metal blocking grill to fit that roughly 8 inch by 4 inch easy-rat access hole to the interior area. And a week later he installed the grill, and made it fit right , so it looks just like an standard OEM part. And then he also expertely soldered and custom-reworked the damaged wires with new shrink wrap, so that we didn't have replace the entire vent system wiring harness module, which would have been much higher cost.

Five weeks later, the rats appear gone for good, thanks to to custom grill blocking rat ingress.

There's no way a basic mechanic was going to diagnose and solve an unusual problem like this so effectively, painlessly. Painlessly, because the cost was quite reasonable, and, surprise, there were zero extra non-estimated in advance charges, even though I expect his work in sourcing the custom grill materials, and the shrink wrap for wires took some extra time for him.. But Dario did all that.

Also, Kudos also to David the office manager for making the paperwork and appointment arrangements easy. So you bet I'm coming back to Japan Auto Center for my next maintenance or repair requirements.

This is a review that sucks to write, because our family has been taking our cars to Japan Auto for decades, since Kenzo owned it. Prices were reasonable and they did good work.

Over the last couple years, under the new ownership, the quality of the work has gone down and the prices have gone up like crazy.

The events that prompted this review are as follows: my 2004 Toyota Highlander was taken into the shop for some service on June 26th, 2023. It needed the door seals redone, and the A/C was having issues as well. The A/C actuator was also replaced at this time, which cost a total of $1,804 in labor and another $690 in parts. This ultimately did not fix the issue with the A/C. (see photo 1)

The June 26th visit created a bunch of new issues with the car. Somehow, as the repair to the door seals was being performed, the tech managed to forget to replace the hinge that holds the passenger side front door open. The door would freely swing without resistance.

The A/C would work intermittently, and then randomly start blowing hot air. In addition, the emergency light button on the dash would not turn the blinkers on, although the turn signals still worked as normal. The clock also did not work. The car was brought in to have these issues addressed on July 10th, 2023.

The tech's notes from this visit claim that the front right door had a "broken bolt" but neglects to mention that it was missing a part (that he forgot to reinstall during the previous visit.) This time, his inspection of the A/C claims that the HVAC circuit board needed to be replaced, and that the real issue was unrelated to the previous work they had done. The price quoted to repair the circuit board was $939. After this visit, the clock and hazard lights only worked intermittently. The A/C would only blow hot air. (see photo 2)

At this point, I elected to seek out other options and opinions. I returned to Japan Auto on July 17th to get the clock and hazard lights repaired, and leave the A/C as it was. $175 of labor later, the hazard lights and clock were fixed, although the clock stopped working once again a couple days later.

Yesterday, September 11th, 2023, I brought the car to Beckstrom Automotive to get the A/C serviced. Recall from above that Japan Auto had claimed that the HVAC circuit board was defective and needed to be replaced. The tech at Beckstrom opened the unit up, and noted that someone had been inside the unit previously and that there were screws missing, screws not fully tightened, a plastic tab was broken, and wires were not soldered back together. After this work was performed, both the A/C and clock are back in working order. This cost $400 in labor, with no additional parts needed. (see photo 4)

I went back to Japan Auto today to notify them of what happened and to give them a chance to right their wrongs. They declined to do anything of the sort, so here we are. According to the invoices we were provided by Japan Auto, all the work was performed by "RJ" so hopefully this is an isolated issue with a particularly bad tech. Regardless, my family and I will not be returning to this shop and caution others against the same.

Not what it used to be under Kenzo. We recently brought our Subaru here after our prepaid maintenance plan from the dealership ran out. Our Forester had been making a weird noise which I mentioned offhandedly as I was leaving (it was brought in for something else). They were not able to fix the original issue (needed software update from the dealer - not their fault or failure), but said that they could fix the noise. I was super pleased since the dealer had not been able to locate or fix the noise. I probably should have asked more questions, but I approved the work and paid $450 for it. Of course as soon as I was driving off their lot the car made the noise, so definitely not fixed. A few weeks later my husband went by with a recording of the noise and asked them to listen to it. They refused and said that it was a useless diagnostic to listen to the recording unless a mechanic was actually in the car when the noise was occuring. He asked them if they had actually heard the noise that they "repaired" and no one could answer that question. He then asked them if we had paid $450 for a "repair" that was unneccesary and they shrugged. They were not willing to accept that their initial diagnosis resulted in unnecessary work or any desire to try to make it right. Long story short, we have no idea what they think they fixed or why we were charged $450 for work that doesn't actually seem necessary when it seems pretty clear that they 1) didn't actually know what noise we were talking about and 2) had no interest in actually trying to figure it out. We feel like we were taken advantage of and do not feel like we were treated honestly. My husband had been going to Japan Auto for decades before the ownership changed hands and we were willing to try it out to see if it upheld the same standards but clearly it doesn't. An expensive and disappointing lesson.

I've been taking my vehicles to be serviced at Japan Auto for years. They know what they're doing and do it well. Glad to have a shop I can trust.

I was having trouble with the locks on my car. The man who serviced my car was patient with me and explained how the different pieces worked. He worked with me regarding options for what actually needed to be changed and things that weren't a priority for me to change at the time. My repairs were quoted much higher at another repair shop. I trust Japan Auto Repair because they spent the time to work with me and my budget. Their honesty and customer service have made it clear that Japan Auto Repair is the only place I'll be taking my car for future repairs.