Black Forest Automotive

Great shop. Fair. Honest. Professional. Experts in their craft. What more could you ask for? Highly recommended.

Another series of work on my lovely 911. Oil filter and annual service, all ok. Then water pump failed on way home … Hmmm. $ 1000 or so later, I drove away and car was definitely not running well. Towed if back and Black Forest figured it was the reference sensor. Replaced it at cost and did not charge me labor as it was 3^rd trip that week. Thanks guys for going the extra mile to make me happy. Car running great again.

Black Forest has been servicing my car for ten years without an incident or complaint from me. Car runs great and even though I have been out of warranty for many years.
Just picked my car up this morning, (minor service). Jeff (Service Advisor) continues to impress – competent, ethical and knowledgeable – what more could you ask for?
10 years down, 10 years to go!
:)

I’ve had my 911 Carrera serviced annually at Black Forest for the last 10 years and can say nothing but great things about the attention that John, Jeff and the team give me and my car. The price is always as quoted. The car always runs excellent after my visit. These guys know Porsche better than anyone I’ve met and I know that my prized possession is in good hands when she is at Black Forest.

Check engine lite on 03 996 came up. My computer said it was Cam Position sensor out. Brought it in and was quoted $ 1000 with an exhaust rattle to look at. Fixed it all for $ 780. Thanks guys! Love it when a fix comes under budget.

I have been a happy customer for 13 years.
I am not a «frequent» customer, becuase they do such a good job, but the last time took the cake. (No pun intended.)
My 1979 911 sat for over a year neglected. All kinds of issues. Wouldn’t even start.
Jeff called me every day to update me on findings. He told me certain things were optional and what the ramifications would be if I chose not to repair.
One issue he told me could be cheap or expensive once I gave the ok. I gave the ok and he called me back and it was cheap. They could have made up anything and I wouldn’t have known.
After taking the car home it died. Prettu sure the alternator crapped out. Expensive.
They called and said it was just a bad battery terminal. NO CHARGE.
They could have got me for an alternator too.
Couldn’t be happier. I would give 6 stars if I could.

I have been taking my Porsche 911’s here for 10 years now and have had an exemplary experience. They always stand behind their work. On the rare occasion that a problem emerged after the repair, they have always made it right.
Also, the pricing is very fair in my opinion. I have never felt overcharged or pressured to perform unnecessary work.
This is a shop of great integrity and character. If you have a Porsche that needs work, I would not hesitate to bring it here.
Joshua Kaufman, M.S.

The reviews on Unilocal seem to be mixed, so I’m happy to provide perspective. It is true the counter team are honest, professional and do generally come in under the estimate. There is no doubt in my mind I wasn’t being ripped off. It’s also quite true that at least some of the garage staff are sloppy, not properly supervised, or downright incompetent. It took three trips back to get a drivers seat trim back together properly after they replaced a battery (the battery is under the seat – go figure). Some trim parts were broken in the process and they gave me the «you can’t prove that was done here.» And when do I normally remove the drivers seat? Another repair of a wiring harness took two trips back before it was done correctly.
In their defense, it seems from the majority of the vehicles in the shop they specialize in earlier model 911-​type cars and I have a later model Cayenne. A completely different beast. I’d have rather they just said they don’t know how to work on those than try to and create all the trouble.

I went to Black Forest to have my BMWs serviced for several years, however, my last several experiences there have prompted me to not only stop using them, but to warn others to avoid them as well.
I’ll start with the positives: the people there are friendly, always remembered me, and on most repairs managed to come in at or under the quoted price.
Then things started getting bad. I had some repair work done that required my steering system to be partially disassembled (the repair was unrelated to steering). When I picked up my car, my steering wheel was out of alignment and my traction control system failed. I brought the car back a three or four times to have this dealt with — always unsuccessfully, and they could never get my stupid steering wheel back on straight. On their last attempt it was still off by 10 or 15 degrees — this is just stupid and sloppy work that’s very easy to test (try driving down the road in a straight line, duh).
In the mean time, I had a fuel line break. They changed it out just fine, but it involved removing the gas tank, and after I picked up my car (drumroll)… my fuel gauge had failed — (it went down and then never came back up) — I actually found this out the hard way after my car ran out of gas on the way home from the shop. I brought it back twice to have this fixed and on both occasions it exhibited the same behavior — the needle went down and never came back up, usually within 20 – 30 miles. Again, you’d think they would actually test this (at least on the third attempt!!!) before returning the car to the customer, but I guess not.
I understand that sometimes parts that are marginal or on the edge of failure can get their last 3% of life suddenly knocked out when a mechanic is poking around, but two significant failures in a row during repairs — and their amazing inability to resolve the problems despite given repeated attempts — makes me strongly question their competence, attention to detail, and simple ability to test to see if a problem is resolved. Absolutely inexcusable. I’d recommend avoiding them at all costs.
UPDATE — I wound up taking my car to another servicing facility to have these items addressed. According to their techs, the fuel gauge issue turned to to be caused by a wire that somebody had cut in one of the cable bundles under the seat and then wrapped up in electrical tape. I certainly didn’t do this, nobody else had worked on the car other than Black Forest, and it’s pretty hard to imagine somebody breaking into my car, digging to that cable bundle and cutting one wire, trying to hide it with electrical tape, and then leaving no other trace. I don’t know exactly what happened here, but the obvious conclusion is certainly ugly. The steering wheel and traction control issue was also resolved; the solution was quite different (and far less expensive) than what Black Forest had suggested. I’d actually take them to court over this if it was worth the hassle. What a mess.

I expected to like these guys a lot, plus they’re convenient to my house. Shop is appealing … feels like a good place, plus there were lots of cool cars sitting around.
However — AC went out on my 97 BMW. Black Forest told me my compressor was dead and they wanted $ 2500 to make the repairs. Import Auto in Santee spent ten minutes with a sniffer (I was standing there, watching), and found a small valve in one of the refrigerant lines that had a leak. Half hour and $ 75, out the door. That was four years ago, and the AC is still cold.
2012 update, five years after the $ 75 repair, the AC is still cold, and the compressor still isn’t dead.
2015 update — the AC is still cold, and the compressor still isn’t dead, and I still have my $ 2500.
For the right repair, Black Forest might be great. I wouldn’t know — I haven’t been back.

When I moved here in 1998, I took my 944 to Black Forest. Jeff behind the counter is great. Then one time, they dropped my car. Literally. It fell off a jack or lift and sustained damage. Yes they paid for the repair but gave me grief about paying for a rental for a couple days. Geez, I only had one car and needed a way to get to work.
When I bought a 928 several years later, I had them do the post-​purchase inspection and check and retension the timing belt the prior owner had recently had installed. The very next day a cam gear sheared, causing several thousand dollars in damage. Wouldn’t accept any responsiblilty for overtensioning the belt or failing to notice the spider gear behind the cam gear was cracked. I won the first round in small claims court but then was sandbagged at the appeal. More questionable behavior.
I now take all my Porsches to Greg Brown at Precision Motorwerks in Anaheim. Yes, it’s a hike. But when Greg fixes something, it stays fixed. And when there’s a problem, he stands behind his work. I couldn’t even get John at Black Forest to return my calls or speak to me at the counter. Needless to say, I won’t go back.

I have a 97 Porsche 993 Carerra Cab C4 and took it in for a 60,000 mile service at the dealer. I had several small oil leaks and I asked the dealer for a quote to fix them and the estimate seemed a little high so I took my Porsche to Black Forest to have it repaired saving $ 500. They were very helpful and attentive. I met Jeff, service manager, and told him that I found him on Unilocal along with the review about the paint damage and yelling in the reviewers face. There is more to the story on that one. I didn’t find any complaints on the BBB website and I am going with Black Forest. They did a great job and I will be gong back.

Fast service at a reasonable price. What more can you ask for in an auto repair shop. Black Forest was recommended to me by my Dad’s business partner; he knows how to take care of his car and it just happens to be one of their specialties. Mine happens to be their other specialty so, there you go.
I brought my car in for a diagnostic — the coolant light was on, and well, you just never know what you’re in store for when that happens. I called Thursday morning and they said to drop it off that evening so they could check first thing in the morning. Made sense because it would have to cool down in order to be checked, so I dropped it off. Friday mid-​morning I get a call detailing what they found wrong and telling me the price for parts, labor and tax. I knew from earlier that the diagnostic was quoted between $ 50-​$ 100 (depending on difficulty, with no charge if the issue was readily apparent), so I asked if how much the diagnostic was so that I could prepare to shell out the big bucks. «That’s in there. Your total will be XYZ out the door.» Oh, okay, perfect. And it was far less than I was mentally prepping myself for — very reasonable for the issue it turned out to be (a crack in the coolant resivoir, requiring replacement). By Friday evening I had my car back on the road. Score!
Service is also guaranteed for two years by BMW so if the exact same issue happens again, I just have to call. Sounds good to me.

I like professional and friendly service and the service writer, Jeff, gives just that. I had an issue with my car, explained the symptoms, and he suggested what needed to be done. As it turns out, I could perform the work myself and he sold me the parts I needed at very competitive prices. He even suggested a few things I ought to know since I was doing the job myself. If I run into serious problems that I can’t fix, I know I can trust this shop. They are looking out for the Porsche community while running a business. These are the good guys.

Porsche and BMW specialists, what more could you ask for? Great service both in terms of getting my car fixed right the first time as well as how nice the people working there are. This is the place to take your German car.

They managed to screw up oil change on my 2006 Porsche Carrera S. Added too much oil. Scary. I won’t be going back.

I had hoped this was a good shop, but they are crooks. I had seen ads for Black Forest and since it was close to my work, I thought I’d give it a try — I brought my 911 in for service — they damaged my bumper and when I pointed it out to them and said they needed to repair it, the service manager — Jeff, got in my face and started cussing at me accusing me of being a liar. I even pointed out where in their service bay it appears to have been scraped. After I calmed him down, he said I would need to talk to the owner, John, if i wanted them to repair it. I tried calling him several times and left messages, and I wrote him several email messages too. My calls or emails were never returned.
I checked out these guys on the BBB, better buisness bureau, and they have several complaints against them, i wish i had checked BEFORE going. I do not recommend this place at all to anyone.
I had been using Dieters for all my Porsche service needs, it is a much better place but its just kind of far from me. They have quality guys and are honest. It’s worth going a little further.

i normally pick my foodie places from Unilocal but i go to the pca for garage recommendations. on the talk forums, black forest was at the top of several lists.
sure, i could go to cheaper places but i’ve had extremely bad experiences from 2 other «reputable» garages — ones who charged me for things they didn’t fix, to using used parts, to repairing my leather seats with fake leather without telling me.
the guys at black forest were top notch, precise and thorough. they even photographed the issues so that we could go over the repairs over the phone.
for the air cooled 911 enthusiasts, there is no other place.

I was really excited the first time I went there. It was clean, reasonable oil change package, etc.
But then I had real things to be done on my Boxster:
1. Key command broke…
Black Forest: need to replace the entire command box placed underneath the driver’s seat + the key = $ 700 repair
Porsche Miramar: come back in 30 mins we are changing your key command = $ 250 MUCH BETTER!
2. Check engine light on… not good
Black Forest: it’s an air injection valve = $ 712
Porsche Miramar: nope, it’s the vacuum that is cracked, valve is fine = $ 600 repair.
I mean seriously… the repairs are the same price if not lower at the Porsche dealer ship, they lend you a car for free, AND they seem to get the diagnoses right.

This is a great shop. It really is. Quality work and more affordable than a dealership.
If you’re balling in a late model Porsche or are cruising in a classic 911 then this should be your shop. They also work on BMWs and other German cars. Ive seen VW’s there.
Yes, Ive had my car worked on here before.