Houska Automotive Services

These guys are the best. Excellent work, great advice, super friendly, community supporters, and complimentary ride service when your car is in their shop. Have had nothing but excellent service from them for ten years! Highly recommend.

The service was OK, nothing really good or bad to comment on, however the prices are outrageous. We brought a Honda Pilot in and should have known when they charged us for an estimate! ($ 50) Nowhere else has ever charged us for an estimate, whether it be a dealership or a local place, but there was an urgency to finding the issue and we weren’t sure if the vehicle would make it back home, so we decided to proceed. About 3 hours later we got a call that the issue was the alternator and it needed to be replaced. Quoted us $ 652 for the part (re-​manufactured) and labor. So I called the local Honda dealer and was quoted $ 500 for the same job, called another Honda dealer, same thing, $ 500. So much for the idea of «Avoid paying dealer prices». They are apparently better priced than Houska and then I get the job done at a Honda dealer by a certified Honda tech. In the end, it made it back home and I paid $ 162 for the part from O’Reilly and just did it myself in a couple hours… Saved me almost $ 500! In the end, just be sure to shop around and get your estimate done somewhere else…

When I drove my Ford Explorer they were great. It needed a lot or repairs and they did their best to not take advantage of me.
With my new car I was having issues with the oil sensor and after getting it repaired elsewhere it was still being problematic. I brought my car to Houska Automotive hoping they could fix it. Instead I paid almost $ 200 for them to do an oil chance. I just had an oil change done, it did not fix the problem like they thought it would, and they may have put the wrong oil is (my car only is approved to use synthetic and I am convinced it was non-​synthetic they used). I will never go here again, I wish I wouldn’t have wasted my money on a useless oil chance which may lead to problems in the future.

My family patronized Houska for years without any issues (as far as I know… I was pretty young), but problems with my car a few years ago have led me to boycott Houska for life.
My car was having overheating issues, so I took it to Houska. They did something with the radiator for quite a bit of money and sent it back to me. (Full disclosure — I was 18 and my dad both paid for and knew all about what they were fixing. I didn’t care about the details so I can’t specify them here.) That didn’t solve the problem. I took it back, they did something else for a lot of money and gave it back. Guess what? That didn’t work either. Car still overheating every time I drove it. Totally fed up with spending unnecessary money, I took it to Summers Auto. They told me I had a cracked engine head and they’d be willing to repair it, but it would cost more than my car was worth and they’d recommend just getting a new car. How’s THAT for full disclosure and honesty?!?
Houska was either completely incompetent, or totally happy to continue bleeding money out of us by fixing and replacing unnecessary parts. Boo Houska, boo. I’ll stick with Summers.

My engine light was on, so I needed them to hook up my car to the machine to figure out what was wrong…$ 100 later (after talking to my husband), I found out that this is a service that is normally performed FREE OF CHARGE. Also they tried to talk me into buying a new engine for $ 3−4k. My engine is not perfect, but according to several other mechanics, it does not need to be replaced.
The guys at Houska are friendly and knowledgeable, however if a car is not in mint condition, they try to find everything that is wrong with it that absolutely *must* get fixed. If I had a really expensive car and a lot of money to burn, I would go here. Otherwise, go to Hawker’s on E Mulberry.

The guys over at Houska are efficient, honest, and do great work for a fair price. I’ve always had good luck with their repair work and feel that I’m getting the straight story and am not being ripped off like many mechanic shops will do.