Good garages in Montgomery County MD?

What kind of work do you need? My wife works in Rockville and she takes our

2000 Legacy GT Sedan to a place over by Gude Drive (Rockville) for all of our maintenance (brakes, tune-ups, etc.) issues. I believe the name is Thunderbird automotive (301-279-7059)

Fred (the mechanic) is a very nice and straight forward guy. Good labor rates. I trust him with just about everything. The only thing that I didn't use him for was a recent engine gasket leak.

Fred can do engine and transmission work but, I've learned through the experience of many of my mechanic friends that when it comes to jobs in the power trane area for automobiles that are not in the top 40 most sold autos list-- it's best left to the Master Mechanics at the dealerships--like most Subarus.

Those guys have so many hours of specialiezed training and labor experience that it's worth paying the higher labor rates. Not only that, but they can ussually fix the problem faster. Where dealerships get you is on the parts. They normally offer incentives to the mechanics to replace more parts than the absolute minimum. If they replace more parts they can increase the billable time portion of the bill. Plus, they never sell you the part at dealer cost.

I took my Subaru to Don Beyer Subaru for the engine gasket leak I had and the car is performing nicely (This was done about 3 weeks ago). Granted, it was covered under waranty, so I don't know how they would bill you for an out of warranty repair. Call arround and ask them what are their labor rates, then make your decision based on that. Sometimes you can get them to lower their rates if you can get a quote from a competing dealer.

Cordially Joaquin J. Rosario Stafford, VA

Thanks, Joaquin,

I've found the same thing with my Honda. I hate taking it to the dealer for anything other than warranty work and have found a place (also off of Gude) for my Oddysey. Just hadn't found guys who like doing Subarus.

I'm looking for someone for routine maintenance, so I might give Thunderbird a try.

If you have a Honda or Accura, let me know and I will give you my guy's name. Oh heck, it's Motor-Works.

David