Stress-Free Auto Care

My whole family has used stress free and the service is fantastic! Excellent communication with employees and fast service. I called to make an appointment to get two new tires and they were able to get me in same day. Would definitely recommend to anyone, prices are very reasonable.

We live very close to stress free auto shop. Our car wouldn't start one morning and I walked to the store to ask if they can help.. the lady at the office was so nice!!! She even offered to help us push the car down there!
We ended up pushing it our selves and the fix it the same day.
We really appreciate their help!
The service was 10/10!!
Price was a bit high... but fair. And hi! It's a shop in the middle of Menlo Park you can't expect it to be cheap.
We will definitely come back there.

Super nice staff. Did a great job on the work that needed to be done. Excellent communication.
I will use them again.

I brought my car in for replacement of one tire. The technician found over $5K worth of suspension maintenance costs. Fair enough, as my car is 12 years old and had yet to rack up expensive repairs. But on my drive following pick-up of the car, the dashboard tire light came on again. I can't help but wonder, were all those suspension repairs necessary, or was I completely taken advantage of by a team that wasn't interested in providing the care my car really needed?

Booked the car in for unknown rattle at high speed. Diagnosis was uncertain until technician drove out with me to freeway. Conclusion was shocks and rear tires need fixing due to driving over too many bumps or potholes. Tires were aligned but not rotated for short term. Will return for full fix soon. Everyone was courteous and helpful. Diagnosis takes time, that is unavoidable. Grateful to be able to drive now without fear of a potentially fatal breakage. Thankyou Stressfree!

I liked the appointment confirmation and status updates on the work when the car is there; live garage camera is neat too! Steph at the front desk was nice and really helpful. I came in with a list of pre-sale things to do on my 2023 BMW and we were able to work through them. Very fair price for the work

Dear Stress Free, Sadly we did not have a good experience at all. We took our 2013 Lexus in for new brakes, and it came back with a broken shock absorber. You guys "fixed it" but sadly it's still there. We don't have the bandwidth nor trust to go back to you guys and say hey, this was not like that until we picked up our car from you guys after you installed the new brakes. Super disappointing.

I stopped by unexpectedly because on my way home I got a flat tire. Naeem came out right away to assess the damages and was able to fit me in ASAP, which I was so thankful for. Because I came in towards closing time, he said they would work on my car first thing tomorrow and immediately ordered the tire I needed to come in the morning. He was very transparent on what needed to be done as well as pricing and communicative the entire process. Couldn't recommend enough, it was truly a stress free experience!!

4 stars for the receptionist. She's nice and helpful. One star is for the shop not being able to take 3 min to hook up the handheld diagnostics device. My check engine light turned on, came in at 4:30pm they closed at 6pm. Thought it was a quick fix. I was told to come back tomorrow. Drove to AutoZone immediately after, Had the guy hook up the hand held device. Three minutes later I was up and on my way. Quick and easy. Problem fixed. The shop couldn't take that 3 minutes to hook the device up and see what the issue was. Only thing I was expecting. Definitely not returning. Absolutely not.

I do not recommend this Stress-Free Auto Care at Menlo Park as they have very aggressive sales tactics that border on unethical. Allow me to explain.

I used Yelp to search for an auto care provider near me and the guy who responded for Stress-Free Auto Care on Yelp mentioned it would cost about $110 for oil change and $60 for tire repair (right rear tire). I thought that sounded reasonable, so I went to Stress-Free's website to book an appointment. In the appointment website, I selected the oil change and tire repair as part of my service.

When I arrived, the service person (let's just call him 'John') mentioned my tires were in need of replacement, especially the right rear tire needed to be replaced so he wouldn't be able to patch it or fix it-- no problem, I opted to go with just the oil change. That's unfortunately when things started going downhill. First John and his manager told me the cost would be about $250 (forget exact); after expressing my surprise and explaining the guy on yelp told me $110, they said it's because they included multi-point inspection and a process to 'flush my engine'. They added that it's due to them being a 'full service auto care.' I never asked for this service so please don't justify your actions through that. It would have been more appropriate to start at what I asked and then explain why it is recommended to add those services.

Fortunately, they relented and lowered the cost to $132, which I thought was acceptable. After leaving my car there for 1-2 hours (I went elsewhere), I get a sms/text indicating that they have completed a free multi-point inspection, and, in the attached report it shows *all* my tires are in good condition. Odd that John said my tires were in need of replacement.

I started heading back to the store and suddenly I get a call from John and said he has an updated report. When I look at it, this time, all my tires are *in need* of replacement, despite having tread depth of 6/32 (which is considered good) in 3/4 of them (the last one --right rear-- had tread depth of 4/32-- still 'ok'). Recall, just 10 minutes ago, all my tires were reported fine. John then proceeds to say that my right rear tire is damaged and needs to be replaced immediately and I shouldn't drive at all anymore until I replace the tire as it is unsafe.

I get my right rear tire is not in best shape, but how in the world does that mean all 4 tires need to be replaced? It would have made more sense if John mentioned the rear 2 tires needed replacement but the front 2 were ok. Sure, John may be correct that my right rear tire are in need of replacement, but don't make it sound like it's an imminent-danger kind of situation. That's just pathetic scare-tactics to get a sale.

Note, while this review may seem like I'm targeting one individual at a store, please keep in mind that the manager also was part of the high oil change price (mentioned above) and John represents the store and, I would assume, has been trained that way.

In other words, my experience here has made me very concerned about the Menlo Park branch of Stress-Free Auto Care. Quite frankly if they weren't so aggressive with their upselling and if they provided a more reasonable explanation, I would have replaced my tires with them. However, due to their actions as mentioned above, they have lost a customer-- permanently.