Chet’s European and Japanese Auto Care

Vu is without a doubt the best mechanic. He is straight, honest, and I’ve been to too many shady mechanics to know. It’s a wonderful feeling of content, knowing you have a reliable mechanic who is familiar with you and your car, and where you no longer have to engage in the trial and error of shopping around for «the one.»
My fiancé and I are truly confident in Vu’s work and recommendations. I already dread the day when Vu decides to retire or if we move away from the Bay Area.

Chet’s has resurrected my 1990 Celica and I ALWAYS go to them for my oil change. Amazing service!!! Fast and efficient. They don’t give you the run around here. Thank you Vu!

Went in for a oil change under co-worker’s recommendation.
100% agree with co-​worker, Vu is very nice and professional.
The workshop is clean and organized. Definitely going back for maintenance.

The best period. Was referred by a friend and I owe him huge. For four years my car was taken care of at extremely fair prices, high quality work, and honesty which is the most important feature. A great guy and great service, I wish I could move him with me.

Vu is a true professional. He’s good at what he does because he genuinely cares about his clients and their cars. That is why I have brought my car (now my wife’s car) to be serviced for the past 10 years. Not only is he knowledgeable and trustworthy, but explains in detail the mechanics and what exactly needs to be fixed/​serviced. He’s very thorough and his quality of work is top-​notched. Lastly, I appreciate the human element (rare trait to find)…he will work with you and is fair and reasonable with his pricing.

Reliable, honest, and knowledgeable. You can have full confidence that you will receive great service with recommendations that will be in your best interest. As a car owner with limited knowledge in the auto repair world, they took the time to explain all of their recommendations and the long term benefits. Thumbs up for Chets!

Vu is helpful and provides services at reasonable prices. He makes time if I have urgent issues that need to be fixed soon. In addition, he always tries to explain problems to me (someone who has no idea about cars).
My only thing is he isn’t open on Saturdays. Since my primary transport is my car I feel bummed that I need to take time off to get my car fixed.

Preceding repair experience was not as smooth before. Vu forgot to close the brake fluid reservoir when he returned the car to me. I drove 2 days with a wide open brake fluid reservoir. Luckily, the cap didn’t fall out of the engine bay as it was sitting on the battery. A bit bummed about this since this work was for my family which I transport my young’ns around.
When I notified Vu, No apology was made, and seemed annoyed that I even brought it up.
This is not typical of my previous experience with Vu, but in the interest of full disclosure, I felt it fair to update my review. This may have been just a bad day for Vu, and I understand. Previously, he went beyond what one would expect for a customer.

Vu found a problem with RX8’s clutch that most dealers had shrugged it off. He’s pretty good at identifying the problem and solving it, and at very reasonable prices.

I took my Nissan Armada to have a check engine light inspected, accommodated my appointment on short notice and left the car for Vu to inspect. I also wanted him to look around the car and see if we need anything else since I’m taking family to LA…2 hours later he calls me and said I had to take my SUV to dealer to reset computer unit, I asked him if I needed to do anything else to the car and he said everything was OK. Vu didn’t even charge me for the diagnostic, this was amazing!
I took my SUV to the dealer and indeed they had to reset my computer.
We’ll be taking our vehicles to this place from now on.

I’ve been coming here right after Vu opened. I happened to have my car smogged next door and it failed. Took it next door and Vu fixed it quickly.
Fair and honest plus a great mechanic. He maintains and fixes my family and relatives’ cars now. I don’t mind the drive from Fremont to get have an honest mechanic fix my cars.

I dropped by on a weekend and luckily Vu was free to check and replace my starter that was on its last leg. It took him a little over an hour to get the part ordered and into my car. We talked shop while I waited — he had some great, funny, work-​related stories by the way.
Overall, great service at a reasonable price. I would not hesitate to go back for any of my maintenance needs. My car has been starting up like new and running smoothly.

I had an old beat up Toyota Corolla that Vu kept running for way longer than should have been possible, but that’s not the best part about this shop. The best thing about coming here is you know you are being treated honestly.
I can’t overstate how nice it is to have a mechanic who will be honest with you about whether or not a repair is worth it, or you should just scrap the car. Every other one I’ve dealt with is always trying to tack on as many repairs as possible, not Vu — he only does what is necessary and doesn’t try to rip you off.

I’ve been going to Chet’s Auto Care for about 2 years now. The owner Vu is not just an amazing technician — but also very professional and fair. Vu is the kind of technician who is «Honest» and would not recommend you to change parts in your vehicle unless it is really required.
On occasions — I’ve had doubts about certain things in my car and I’ve not hesitated to show it to Vu. And if the my doubts turned out to be in-​genuine and the car was just fine — Vu would not charge me to show the problem. I’ve moved from San Jose to Daly City but I still don’t mind driving the extra hour to visit Chet’s and get my car serviced — because that’s what gives me mental satisfaction in the long run. He has saved me lots of money and I owe it to him.

Vu is an honest, mechanic, who doesnt play around with you. His work is quality and he isn’t trying to take your money from you. I recommend anyone to go to him, and tell your friends too!

I took my VW there twice. He does a good job, but according to me he is quite pricey. Also he is one those mechanics who keeps pushing you into replacing parts that are not really needed.
Just because I needed to have the head seal replaced, he wanted to replace my timing belt even though it would still have 20k miles to go (to be perfectly honest, replacing timing belt when replacing head seal is easier and makes sense in certain cases — but that was not my case).
Also for replacing one headlight bulb he asked $ 30 just for the work (I think this is a little too much for 3 minutes of actual work, especially when I paid him $ 300 for something else during the same visit…).
TLDR: the service is not bad, but it is quite expensive.

If i could give this place a 10 stars, i would!
VU is the BOMB! I fully trusted him once i stepped foot in his shop! Not only is he extremely knowledgeable about my BMW 545i, he’s honest!
He saved me a ton of money and saved my car! I will never take my car anywhere else!

WARNING: VU IS NOT A MECHANIC, HE IS A NINJA!
(this is why I gave him 5 ninja stars)
I rolled up in my 2009 BMW 328i with a few problems. Vu emerged from either the ceiling, swinging down with ninja rope or from behind his iMac. I think it was from behind his iMac. He was eating pizza on lunch break. But this ninja did not care. He dropped his pizza to see what was going on with Dark Night (my black beamer).
My engine fan was making some noise, even more so when the AC would go on. I knew it was gonna cost me some $$, and was prepared for a heavy price tag. Mind you, I did have a holiday coupon from Stevens Creek BMW for 20% off service and parts, but I was NOT in the mood to sell my wife’s shoe’s and handbags to cover the cost.
I decided to search on Unilocal for BMW service and found Chet’s shop. 5 stars? Really? I had to check this ninja out.
Vu busts out this long screw driver that kinda looked like
, and checks for noise. This ninja turtle is still chewing on his pizza.
«YOU NEED AN AC COMPRESSOR, LISTEN!»
He makes me listen to the sound, and YES, that knocking sound was coming from the AC Compressor. Gosh dang it I wish this part was NOT $ 1,200!
Friggin German parts.
«LOOK AT THAT TENSIONER, IT“S BOUNCING UP AND DOWN»
Yes, it was bouncing up and down. $ 150 for the part.
«YOUR ALTERNATOR SCREW IS CRACKED IN HALF!»
Gosh, yes. It is cracked. What are we looking at Vu???
Vu takes another bite of his pizza. Walks over to his iMac.
«THIS GON COST YOU LIKE 2 GRAND»
Dayum! ok Vu, do what you gotta do. And he did.
He fixed the car in a day and a half!
He gave me a free oil change and did not charge for the screws. He also fixed that fan noise by aligning it a bit better. It’s been about 2 weeks since the job and I am a happy camper. The car is running good and I hope that it stays running well. If not, I’m sure Vu will take care of me.
and just like that, he was gone.
**poof**

Vu really knows his stuff. I’ve taken my A4 and Odyssey there, with great results.
Prices are fair, but more than that, the honest and quality work brings me back every time.

Sweet deal! My Johnny (Toyota Corolla) is running smooth again *insert bad Asian girl driver joke*
Anyway! Vu’s a really honest guy so he’ll totally give you the low down on your car and what he suggests. For only $ 285, I got new brakes, rotated tires, fluid flush, full inspection and he fixed my leaky gasket (I was at my 60K checkpoint). He gets pretty busy so I’d call ahead during the week to make sure he’s got time and when’s the best time to bring in your car. As long as he’s not too busy, he’s really quick!