Nichols Tire & Automotive

Won’t go anywhere but here! They fix you up fast & have amazing customer service!!! LOVE the guys here. Would recommend in a heartbeat !!!

Quick service and super helpful staff! Chris and Michelle in the front were awesome and super helpful, will def be coming back! Inspection for only 7 bucks!

These guys are legit! Helpul, knowledgeable, speedy and affordable. If like me you are new to San marcos this automotive shop is a gem. This will easily be my new neighborhood shop for all things auto. Be sure to take advantage of the Unilocal deal, I did and wow, what a savings.

Love this place! The workers genuinely care about your auto needs and always go out of their way to give you the best price. They always do a quality job and are super nice as people. I would recommend this place to anyone with car troubles or even just for a standard check up and oil change.

Came in to get my headlight fixed, the passenger side headlight. Waited over an hour to get it fixed, but no worries. They took me right away. Light got fixed, we tested it, it looked great. 24 hours later, the light doesn’t work anymore. Called up to see about a refund, as I live in New Orleans and have a house in Martindale. Spoke with a lady on the phone who advised me to bring the car back in, but since I’m 500 miles away that isn’t possible. She put me on the phone with the manager who said «that headlight was working fine when you left here. So it must be something you did to it, it’s not our fault». I said «You’ve got to be kidding me, it’s been 24 hours and it’s broken now» he said «Hey buddy? Did you listen to what I said? It’s not our fault. It might be a wiring issue, you should probably look into that». I asked him why they didn’t diagnose it as a wiring issue right then and there so that we could get it fixed and he said «Like I said, we fixed it fine when you were here. Not our fault.» I asked to speak to the owner, he told me the owner wasn’t in. After I told him that this was no way to talk to a customer and no way to do business, he hung up on me. Awesome! Great customer service. I’ll file a complaint with the BBB and get my refund that way. Great management there! They really handle the situation effectively.

Came in to replace my back tires; Nichols ordered these bad boys and had them delivered the next day (I wanted the back to match the front).
Renewed my inspection and they informed/​ordered/​installed (the next day) a sensor that was faulty. In other words, they worked on my car on two separate occasions, less than a day apart, pulling one tire twice just to make sure I was taken care of.
¹⁰⁄₁₀ will always have my business.

I see people writing tons of positive reviews about this place, but sadly they all most be bold face lies. Walked in on Saturday at 12:27 wanting a car inspection so I could renew my registration but was told that «they close at 1 and have a oil change in front of us and they wouldn’t have time to help us» I don’t know who is in charge of the business anymore but hey obviously don’t care about making money or having repeat customers. I’ll stick with Conley’s where they’ll stay open 5 extra minutes to make their clientele happy.
TL;DR –1 will never go back

There is not a more honest, quality car repair shop in the country, anywhere, than these wonderful people.
If you need anything done with your car, not just tires, this is the only place I trust — and i drive 20 miles just to go there.
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I love Nichols Tire. I’ve been taking my Toyotas here for years, and they still surprise me every time with their great service and good prices. As a single woman, I wouldn’t want to trust just anyone with my cars. I feel like these guys are my brothers! This week the 12 v battery went out in my Prius in one of the university parking garages. They were more than happy to go with me to the garage and install the new battery I had bought. Barely caused a bump in my schedule or my wallet though I could have ended up spending hours and lots of money towing and waiting around if it wasn’t for them.
Please support this great business – they are in the midst of that awful construction on LBJ right now and that’s bad for all business in that area. It makes it a little harder to get there (go down LBJ from the square), but it’s certainly worth the small inconvenience.

I was in today after getting out of class to find a flat. They came out in 15 min to change my tire & within an hour I was back in the road with 2 new tires for a reasonable price. These guys absolutely saved my afternoon.

Great suggestions, no pressure into buying stuff we didn’t need. Friendly, all of them. Went the extra mile to give us the best service possible.

need mechanics you can trust? this place is totally it! we brought both of our cars here while we lived in san marcos and the only sad thing about moving to nashville was having to leave an Jetta TDI and our 1977 Jeep Wagoneer… they can do it all!

This place could not be better. They have never tried to take advantage of me at all.
Today I took my car down there because the battery kept draining on me, but the battery and alternator both tested fine. It was something really simple, so they fixed it in about two seconds and didn’t charge me anything.
I almost went to a place in Austin (where I now live) that is rated «the best most honest mechanic in Austin» but they told me they wanted to charge me $ 50.00 for a diagnostic just based on what I told them about the problem. Seriously?
Another great experience I had was a couple years ago. I had the starter in my car replaced and then a few months later, it was already messing up again and went out completely. I took the car back to them and told them they had replaced the starter, but I didn’t have a receipt or any record of this (really stupid of me, I know!) However, they found me in their records and replaced it for free. How awesome are these guys?
I don’t care that it’s far away from where I live now. I will be going here for every oil change and every small or large problem.

I have only had great service at Nichols for years. I often drop off my car, walk up the hill to work and it is always ready before the end of the day. From maintenance work to more extensive repairs. I feel they are honest, are a good value and always pleasant. They let me know when my Subaru needs are beyond their scope so I can take it to the dealership. Highly recommend them!

I have been using Nichols Tire & Automotive for years. Nobody is better. They ARE THE BEST. So honest and fast and trustworthy. I even enjoy sitting there and meeting the other people coming in. So true to their word. This is my first review ever but I just had to say all this. They are the best!!!

It’s been three years since we first reviewed Nichols, and they continue to impress, every time. Always friendly, fair and honest. Today, they checked out a car Niblet is thinking about buying. It involved two mechanics, a battery diagnostic test, and a trip up the lift for a careful under-​car inspection. Oh, and two separate test drives by a mechanic, including a run up and down the interstate.
As usual, they refused to take my money. As usual, when I whipped out my credit card, I heard, «Come back when you need something fixed.»
This is as good as it gets, people. Don’t waste your time with other garages.

As a female, finding a mechanic I feel like I can trust implicitly is like finding a hair stylist I can trust implicitly but BETTER (ladies, I know you feel me). When I can walk into an auto shop and know that I won’t be taken advantage of because I’m alone, I will drive far out of my way to take my car there and recommend it to everyone I meet. That’s how I used to feel about Nichol’s, but after the events of my last visit, I won’t be recommending Nichol’s anymore and I won’t be taking my business there either.
My car started to make a really high pitched squealing sound when I turned on the a/​c a few days prior to my visit. It wasn’t consistent, but it happened frequently enough that I decided to take my car into the shop. When I dropped off my car at Nichol’s, I told them the exact same thing. Verbatim: «When I turn my a/​c on it sometimes makes a really high pitched squealing sound. When I turn it off, the squealing stops, and if I turn it back on it sometimes keeps squealing and sometimes doesn’t.» I told this to TWO people, then left my car. They called me a few hours later to come pick up my car. When I went to pick it up, a third gentleman told me that they’d changed the freon in my car and that it cost $ 70. When I asked if that would fix the squealing, he had no idea what I was talking about and went to go talk to the mechanic who worked on my car. Apparently, they had only written «a/​c» on the service order, so he had thought I only needed a recharge. The mechanic got sort of defensive and said, «I was just following what the service order said!» Both men went back out to listen to my car engine, which wasn’t currently squealing, and then the mechanic came back out and told me my timing belt needed to be replaced and that it would cost close to $ 700 and that they would apply the $ 70 from the freon I hadn’t needed to that cost. He said I needed to make the repair immediately or risk permanent damage to my car. A little stunned, I told them I would bring my car back the next day.
I dropped my car off at Nichol’s the next morning, but I had checked my records beforehand and discovered that I had my timing belt changed in late 2006. I called my old mechanic in Illinois who had done the work (who I trust IMPLICITLY), and he gave me the mileage I’d had at the time of the work. When I told him how many miles I had accrued since then, he said that my timing belt should still be fine and that it sounded more like a serpentine belt issue. I called Nichol’s and told them that I’d already had my timing belt changed and that it might be a serpentine belt issue and they said they’d check it out. I got a call back a few hours later and the mechanic was still convinced that there was a noise coming from my timing belt and that my serpentine belt was fine. He told me that I needed to replace the belt, the bearings, and the water pump behind the timing belt, still to the tune of almost $ 700. When I told him that I’d talked to my old mechanic about it, the mechanic at Nichol’s sounded really annoyed. Then he started to make prevaricating statements like, «I’ve seen cars make this noise and last for years,» and «it will probably last you until the end of the summer at least.» That was a pretty sharp 180 from «immediate repair or risk permanent damage». The longer I talked to the guy, the more I felt like I was being taken for a ride. A very expensive ride. I finally told him that I didn’t have that much money and wanted to pick up my car. When I went to pick it up, the guy at the counter had no clue about the $ 70 charge for freon from the previous day but he didn’t charge me for the mechanic checking it out that day. The mechanic who had worked on my car was nowhere to be found.
I wanted to believe the freon issue was just the result of someone having an off day, which would have been completely understandable, but the way the situation played out left me with $ 70 less in my bank account and a bad taste in my mouth. To say that I am extremely disappointed would be an understatement. I’ve had a lot of good experiences with Nichol’s, but in retrospect the BF had always accompanied me inside for previous visits. It only takes one bad experience to break my trust in a mechanic, and my faith in Nichol’s has been thoroughly shattered. It’s been several months since I took my car in and it’s running fine. My car doesn’t squeal anymore when I turn the a/​c on, probably because the mechanic at Nichol’s took off the serpentine belt and then put it back on when he was checking out my engine, fixing whatever slippage issue was actually occurring. I am now in search of a new mechanic in the San Marcos area.

We’ve been using Nichols off and on for a couple of years, and have had nothing but good experiences with them. The guys who work there are friendly and really know their stuff, and their prices for repair work are very reasonable. Their oil changes are a bit more than you can get elsewhere, but I also suspect they do a better job of checking out the rest of the car when it’s in for regular maintenance than other places do. They’ve also run checks on used cars we’ve bought for very reasonable fees, and have offered advice when those vehicles have finally given up the ghost.
We had bounced around to various mechanics around town over the years, but finally settled on these guys, and haven’t regretted the decision.