Fred’s Garage VW & Audi

I’ve never felt the need to write a review before, but this time I do. Fred’s garage has done 2 repairs on my 2001 VW cabrio, and from now on, I’ll refuse to take it anywhere else. They gave me the lowest quote for replacing the clutch, and after some other mechanic screwed around while fixing my ignition switch (and grossly overcharged), they fixed my airbag system. They’re always great to deal with, and completely honest about time estimates. Keep it up!

Another great experience at Fred’s Garage. We have moved away, but I was back in town with our VW on business. It died and would not start late on a Friday afternoon. I called Fred’s Garage and they said they could take me first thing in the morning on Saturday. I was there when they opened up, and it was fixed within a matter of an hour or so. Great service, especially for an out-​of-​towner without a big support network in town. I wish I had a «Fred’s Garage» in my new town!

Had to let others know that Tom not only found the fuse problem with our 2000 Beetle within minutes, but fixed it just as quickly. And a pleasure to do business with. Wish that I could add a few more stars!

Family owned business. They do great work although they don’t use any modern communication methods (no email, voicemail or online capabilities). They replaced the engine in my ’98 A4 and it runs great (3 years later). Anytime I’ve had any questions or issues, they’ve addressed them. Highly recommended if you have a VW or Audi.

I write one review every year or so. I don’t share negative experiences — it seems that everyone else beats me to the keyboard sounding the alarm and the superlative experiences happen so infrequently that I seldom feel compelled to share a five-​star moment with the community.
Automotive mechanics is a discipline that I suck at, I’ve always been reliant on the neighborhood mechanic to solve my transportation issues. I’ve had my share of mediocre service experiences where the shop did as little as possible to resolve the issue while charging what they could get away with — yes, the problem was fixed but there was no love, no effort to build a long-​term, mutually beneficial, business to client relationship. I usually don’t wish that the shop owners & mechanics were my friends.
Yesterday, I had the good fortune to bring my well-​used VW to Fred’s.
I simply could not have had a better experience. There was no room for improvement in the way they treated me as a client. The work was completed earlier than promised, under budget, and with a friendly, kind, and compassionate attitude. I look forward to the next time I have the opportunity to take my car in for service.
There is nothing anyone could do to convince me to take my car elsewhere. Thank you Tom.
Respectfully,
J

Fred’s Garage is a classic ‘mom & pop’ kind of garage that is run by two brothers, Tom & John, who took over the business from their dad (Fred). It’s been in business for a very long time (50+ years?), and Tom & John both started as mechanics there. This is not a polished, slick-​looking place; it’s a friendly, old-​school, affable shop where they treat you like a person, never rush you, and always seem to have time to answer your questions and engage in conversation. They don’t appear to keep computer records about the work that they’ve done on your vehicle, but I’ve found their work to be accurate and reliable.
This place has been in business for so long on the peninsula because THEY REALLY KNOW THEIR VOLKSWAGENS, especially older ones, like Vanagons (Westys). At any given time, there are at least 6 Vanagons in their shop, being brought there from all over the area (today I counted almost a dozen of them there). They have encyclopedic knowledge of these vehicles, and can easily diagnose and fix practically anything on those cars. If you’re on the peninsula and you have a Westy, then this is the place to bring it.
They also have great depth with Eurovans, which is an uncommon skill set, and they work on 1 or 2 of them every day. I have a Eurovan Camper, and they have done work that cost half the price that the dealership quoted. I’ve also seen them fix Eurovan timing chain issues that the dealership didn’t want to touch.
If you’ve got a Vanagon or Eurovan, then you owe it to yourself to check these guys out. Don’t expect a lot of flash and a fancy waiting room; instead, look around the shop and marvel at the decades of machines and parts that they have piled to the rafters.

Knowledgable and honest. Having cared for oodles of VWs, the team knows the common issues that arise and are able to fix on schedule at a reasonable cost and obviously without rookie mistakes. A non-​Volkswagen shop might not use the special coolants and oils these cars require. Not these guys. As a result of servicing my VW at Fred’s Garage, it lasted 15 years, got great mileage throughout its lifetime, and I was able to sell it at a better price – all thanks to their meticulous work.

Could not be happier with the service, customer care, and results! Fred’s identified and fixed the problem on my VW Gold that another garage couldn’t even diagnose.

Honest, practical, unbelievably knowledgeable. Tough to find, but once you do, you never let go.

I was driving up from LA on my way to Seattle after having my car worked on by Cory Motors. My mpg had dropped to 12 mpg. I was desperate to have my car checked (it was a Friday). Everyone I called was booked solidly including Fred. But Fred was very kind and offered a quick look. Within a couple of minutes he discovered that the timing was off by 10 degrees, adjusted it and I returned to 18 mpg. He test drove it and picked up on several other things that needed to be looked at but not urgent. I can’t express my gratitude for taking me in at the last moment and saving me. His prices are reasonable and I plan on driving up to the bay area to have him work on my Vanagon. well worth it. These guys know their stuff. Thanks.

I’ve seen some negative reviews about Fred’s on Unilocal (which I depend on greatly). However, shops that are truly qualified to work on VW Eurovans are far and few between and Fred’s happens to be a couple of miles from us, so off to Fred’s we went.
We took our 1995 Eurovan into Fred’s so that a broken driver’s side tail light lens could be replaced (purchased vintage replacement lens on eBay) plus the corner bumper put back on. (Light was broken and bumper knocked off when somebody (? lol) backed the huge van into a concrete pole at work.) The thing to know is that installing the lens on the rear driver’s side is very tricky since you don’t use your eyes to install the lens — it’s done by feeling your way along. The reason is that the rear fuse panel is very close to the side of the van and it takes a very small hand to get up there. In other words, not anybody can do it.
When I first spoke with John, he assured me that he had small hands and had done a hundred or more of them, and that it’s a piece of cake for him. This was really reassuring since I’d taken it to another shop, and the two guys that looked at it had absolutely no idea how to fix it, and had said «we will do ‘exploratory’ work to figure it out.» That’s when I thought, NO WAY, not with MY precious Eurovan!
We left the van for a couple of days since we were in no hurry to get it back. Spoke with John and he said that the work was done without issue. Better yet, he only charged me $ 75 to change out the broken tail light and re-​adhere the corner bumper. Further, the guy just blew us away with his kind and honest nature. I knew that our Eurovan was going to be in the very best hands, and it was. I am now telling all of my friends about their services.
Maybe the people having issues are people that have had Fred’s maintain their vehicles from inception and perhaps Fred’s really is disorganized — I don’t know. Since we were just bringing the van in for a fix-​it and didn’t have to deal with any of that, we can’t comment on it. In a nutshell, for our purposes, we are thrilled. Thank you Fred’s!

I’ve just completed a 2500 miles in my air-​cooled Vanagon over Xmas and New Year that had an engine and transmission rebuild by Fred’s, nearly a year ago. It ran great.
So why only a 3-​star review? Well, the process of getting there has been unnecessarily painful.
Here is a summary of my experiences with Fred’s:
Brought the van in with a noisy transmission and crapped-​out engine. They told me the transmission needed a rebuild and they’d look at the engine after that. Fine. The transmission rebuild ended up taking 3 months to complete as it was tricky to find some parts and the their transmission expert is elderly to say the least. As it happens, I’m very happy with the transmission — it works as it should. My only frustration during this period was that they would never call me, rather I would always be chasing them. I got the impression at the time that they’d taken on far too much work and were overwhelmed and stressed.
Once the transmission was done, they couldn’t figure out why the engine was running so badly. Eventually, they proposed stripping it down and rebuilding it. The previous owner had claimed to have done a rebuild, and according to Fred’s, he’d done a bad job and the thing needed a complete overhaul. Fine, I’m willing to suck up the cost of a rebuild for an engine that’ll do me another 100k miles.
The engine rebuild took another 2 months. In all, they had the car in the shop for almost 6 months. When I picked it up, it didn’t seem to be running perfectly, but I put that down to a running-​in period. John knocked a bunch off the bill, which I appreciated at the time — seemed like he was a little embarrassed they’d had it so long.
A week later, the brake booster went. Unrelated problem. I had it recovered back to them so that they could fix it. When they gave me the car back, there was brake fluid everywhere dripping onto the floor mat, into the fuse box etc. I pointed this out and Tom came out with a rag and wiped up what he could, however the fluid stripped a bunch of paint from the inside of the cab. Just basic carelessness.
Then I noticed my rebuilt engine was leaking oil and was progressively running worse. I took it back asking them to fix the oil leak, do the 500 mile adjustment and see why it wasn’t running well. When I turned up, John assured me that the oil leak was fixed. It wasn’t. And it still wasn’t running properly as I drove away. At that point, I decided I could probably fix the poor running myself.
Then one morning a few weeks later, I started the van and had a horrible noise from the engine. Recovered the van to them. They fixed it for free and told me it was a bad lifter. Still not running great, still leaking oil, shouldn’t have happened to a newly rebuilt engine.
Long story short, I tracked down the poor running to a bad injector which I replaced. They could have easily diagnosed and fixed this for me. After further persistence they eventually «improved» the oil leak to the point where I can live with it.
Most recently I went in asking about a dull knocking noise when the engine is running hot. The noise is clearly coming from inside the engine, which I’d confirmed myself with a stethoscope. John came out, kicked the muffler and told me it’s probably that. It clearly isn’t that.
At this point, what do I do? I REALLY want to like this place. I so want it to be the garage that many reviewers have experienced so positively. However, now that my 12 month warranty on the engine work has elapsed, I doubt I’ll be going back.

First experience with Owner A: 5 Stars great information fast service and this is what I had replaced: 08÷01÷13
Fan Switch
Oil Pressure Switch
Water Temp Sensor
Air Filter
Heater Bypass
Coolant
Oil Pan
Oil
Oil Filter
Oil Pan Gasket
Rear Wheel Bearings
Second experience with Owner B: No Stars bad attitude and this is what I had replaced: 08÷06÷13 I am thinking this is John !
Coolant Flange
His Mechanic did not Bleed out my coolant and when I drove away my car start to over heat. Owner B told me I need a new head gasket and it would cost 1000. I told him that there was no way oil and water were mixing because the car’s exhaust was clean and not blowing smoke. I told him I was there the week before and to tell his mechanic to bleed the coolant and stop trying to scam.
I hope you deal with Owner A I hope he is Fred. I would go back if I knew I could deal with only Owner A

Bottom line, I’m paying another shop to replace the same diesel injector pump on my Passat TDI that Fred’s Garage replaced 3 years ago.
The original diesel injector pump job took Fred’s months and months to complete, after hearing a long long list of excuses why they couldn’t complete in the quoted time. When I did finally get the car back, it came back without the belly pan and the airbag light was lit. They washed their hands and said that was my problem, not theirs. After fighting so hard to get my car done, I didn’t want to waste any more of my time or money after the ordeal that Fred’s Garage already put me through.
Fast forward 3 years later, while I’m having the head gasket replaced in the same TDI, my mechanic finds that the solenoid on the injector pump is no good, and the coolant hoses that Fred’s said they replaced (because they were swollen after being soaked in diesel from the original leaky pump) were still swollen and still needed to be replaced. I was left wondering what I really paid for from Fred’s since I paid good money for a bum pump and no hoses replaced after waiting 6x or 7x the time they quoted for job completion.
Unless you like hearing excuse after excuse or enjoy paying for a job twice, I would never recommend these guys to touch a VW/​Audi, or any other car for that matter.

They are great, efficient and fair! I just had my wheel baring replaced on a 2010 Tdi. Their quote was $ 350, by far the lowest! I was quoted from 450 up to $ 600 for this job from 3 other place in Redwood City, Bosch, Ben’s, and German Auto Co.
Plus they did the job in ½ day, all others said it would take all day (I guess to justify their ridiculous price!)
Thanks!

Fred’s Garage is the place to take your VW or Audi! If you want great service for a great price, bring your business here. I’m honestly stunned they have any negative reviews at all!
I’ve been bringing my 2008 Rabbit here since I bought it, and I’ve never had any issues after they’ve worked on it. Whenever I go on a roadtrip, I feel safe knowing that my car has been checked by their staff.
Every single time I’ve come in, I’ve been warmly greeted with a smile and a «What can we do for you?» attitude. Their customer service is fantastic, and their prices are more than fair. If you want the best value for your money, bring your car here!

For those looking for a bargain job for that classy audi you just paid a premium for, consider my experience.
Brought my 2013 audi s5 here for the 15k check up since I was too cheap to pay for prepaid maintenance. After all, it’s just an oil change, no big deal right? Wrong.
Few red flags that I shouldnt have overlooked. First, the dude kept calling my car an a5. If you’re a certified audi mechanic, please make sure you come off like one. A5 and S5 are completely different cars. Sure, same chassis but that’s about it, esp from a mechanical/​technical pov.
Second, he kept saying some podunk oil brand was a better synthetic oil solution than Mobil 1. Amsoil and mobil1 are some of the top names out there so please don’t ruin my car with the cheap stuff. I brought my own oil. At least they allowed that.
Third, when I showed up it was a junkyard full of cars from the 80s/​90s. Cars have advanced tremendously since, esp audis where nearly everything is electronic. The place definitely does not make customers feel safe about trusting them with your 2011+ vehicles.
So why do I say this? I got my oil change from these guys, and a few weeks later, all the oil has leaked out of my car. I called them up and they said were about to close so I should come back when they opened two days later. I have an oil leak buddy, from your shops impressive work. Anyway, just took it to a dealer who said the previous mechanic had not installed the oil filter correctly, and all of the oil had leaked everywhere in the vehicle, charging me $ 95 for the cleanup work.
In conclusion, you get what you pay for. This is a place to take your dying vdub for a filter change or battery swap for cheap. They’ll duct tape and sawdust your car to a working condition. But if you prize that precious vehicle that’s fairly recent, take it to a reputable shop or dealer. Thankfully I discovered I had prepaid maintenance on mine anyway, so I’ll never be back here again.
*UPDATE — Just to further validate my statement, check out the next review by Mary D who gave 5 stars for a job on her 1974 VW LOL.

This is really hard for me to write because I want to support and feel good about small businesses but this place has gone down hill. I have been coming to Fred’s for over 5 years now and had my car in for repairs about 10 times (5 were just in the last 2 months for the same problem). I don’t like to read long reviews so I will summarize:
1. they don’t keep ANY records, and don’t call you back. You have to call them.
2. they keep your car for days — in some cases a week or more
3. left parts missing off your car (which were found and replaced after I mentioned it)
4. i had towels on the floor mat to protect it while in the shop, both went missing
5. car smells dirty for the last 3 days since I’ve had it out of the shop
6. owner (?) yelling/​cursing at his employees in front of customers
7. kept saying my car was ready and then it would leak again the next day
8. the waiting room is ghastly, could use a woman’s touch or at least a good clean once in awhile.
Sadly, I won’t be back but maybe you will have a better experience. Good luck
Sigh…

I was looking to buy a 2003 Passat from a private seller in Redwood City and needed a local shop to do a pre-​purchase inspection. My ex husband was a mechanic and warned me of all the B.S. some dealerships and shops try to pull to rip people off, especially women but I know more than most women (thanks ex-​husband). Based on their Unilocal reviews they seemed honest and luckily they specialize in VW and Audi.
Tom and John both man the phones but also play an active role in the shop so you might have to call a couple of times. Be patient, they work hard, wait 5 mins and call back.
Their pre-​purchase inspection was very well priced (well compared to SF prices, not sure about Redwood City). They were thorough and save me money off the car’s purchase price since they discovered the timing belt needed to be replaced. I talked to Tom and John and both were very nice and took the time to answer all my questions. All of them.
Since then, I have been back twice for the timing belt and some other issues (the car is 10 years old and has over a 100k miles… things are going to break). Tom noticed something wrong with my front tires and instead of telling me I needed new tires he showed me the problem and spent 10 minutes discussing different options. I never felt pressured and I could see he was thinking of ways to help me without breaking the bank (I’m a full time student).
If are coming from out of town like me, they will pick you up and drop you off at CalTrain which is pretty close by. This is not a fancy garage, there is no wifi or coffee in the waiting room. If that’s a problem for you then remember you are looking for an honest automotive repair shop, not a Starbucks. They are reasonably priced (again compared to SF) and will not charge you the full estimate price if your car doesn’t need unnecessary work. They accept all major credit cards, no checks.
I’m sure there are great mechanics in San Francisco but these guys have earned my trust and that is worth the drive. If they prove me wrong I will make sure to update my review but I don’t think that will likely be the case.

Like thousands of others, I appreciate that Fred’s team has specialized in VWs for years. Because of their experience and knowledge, I take my beloved ’09 Jetta diesel to Fred’s Garage for regular maintenance. A bonus is always seeing well-​cared-​for old classic VWs also there for service or repair.