Mike’s Union Auto Repair

Unless all previous reviewers speak decent Mandarin, my experience was somewhat poor
Yesterday when I inquired about pre-​purchase used car inspection a guy who spoke decent English said yes and it costs $ 85, pretty much their hourly rate. Come to find his morning that he was not there, and the only two people in the shop this morning — a lady at the counter and a mechanic hardly spoke any. To the point that a lady had to call her daughter, who would translate, so we could understand each other

I had a flat 0.4 miles from Mike’s on Saturday morning, and they were the closest open business. A kind gentleman ushered me in, gently scolded me for driving on my flat tire, and then fixed me up. Not only did he patch the tire, he also filled up my other tires and put back a hub cap that had fallen off weeks ago. And, finally, after paying a reasonable $ 25, the woman also working there halted traffic as I pulled out of the shop. I was back on the road within 20 minutes of entering the shop, but now with a smile on my face. What a pleasant experience!

This place needs more recent reviews to inform those that are on the fence.
Probably like you, I was interested in this place for their convenient location. Also, it was a short holiday week, and they were one of the only shops who could check out my car on short notice. I came back from vacation and my car had leaked oil all over my garage floor. I took it in, and they claimed the gasket on the oil filter was damaged, as well as the gasket on the oil filter housing. They replaced the filter and ordered the housing gasket. A week later. I went in to install the new housing gasket, and they had ordered the wrong one. Another week later, they received the correct part and i took it in for installation. All the while, I have been topping off my oil to compensate for the leak. The leak only got worse. I paid ~$ 200 for repairs, and they only made it worse.
I finally was able to take the car to my regular guy, and it turns out that the part that needed replacing was totally different. They did not solve the problem.
So.with great inconvenience, they were unable to diagnose and fix an oil leak. Repairing oil leaks should be pretty straightforward for an auto shop. If they can’t do that, I wouldn’t trust them with anything more complex than an oil change.
The people were pretty nice… just incompetent.

The current owners recently purchased this business (about a year ago??) from the old owners, so forget about the previous reviews.
They did exactly what I asked them to do, and did it better. I always do my research before I take my car to a mechanic. So I’d know the origin of the problem, approximate cost of the parts and the labor. Of course there is always little additions to what I initially would come up with but that doesn’t change the big picture.
With this pre-​amble, here is the story. My Golf’s transmission starts doing some weird things, I do my research, I figure out that it is the selenoid valves that need changing as these are known to break at a certain mileage. The valves cost $ 203 at e bay. and a few hrs of labor, the job should not cost more than $ 800 tops.
Before I get the spare parts I wanted to take it to some mechanics I worked with and or were close to where I live, to see what they’d say about it. All 5 of them said that they wouldn’t touch transmission and recommended a tranny shop. The tranny shop says its gonna be «around» $ 3500 to recondition the tranny, it’s apparently slipping, yada, yada.
I got my spare parts from e-​bay in this instance, took it to Mike’s Union, agreed on a price, aaaaaand got the job done for $ 450 including $ 110 German transmission oil change. Plus the $ 203 I spent for the spare parts. Total cos of job $ 653. The transmission is working as good as new for the past month.
People in Mike’s Union are courteous, honest, and more skillful than your other mechanics who don’t have the balls to look at a transmission let alone touch it.
They are a find folks, I tell you, they were what I was looking for in a mechanic every last bit.

Mikes Union Auto Repair is under new ownership as of a month ago. My 2001 Subaru Forrester’s radiator broke, it was getting late and all other mechanics in my neighborhood were closed. I chose MUAR because they were open till 6:30 (other mechanics either didn’t pick up the phone, were busy or closed).
The people at MUAR were very nice and helpful. They replaced my radiator in about 3 hours, for only $ 250. They also, checked my check engine light for free, noticed my oil was low and replenished for for free, and filled the coolant in the radiator up for free.
They were nice and helpful, and after doing some research, I realized they were the least expensive service in town at $ 85/​hour for labor. Most places in SF charge between $ 80 – 180. I highly recommend taking your car in. They are comprehensive, inexpensive, professional and just lovely people.

Great service and friendly staff. My car was done in less than 2 hours after I sent it in for replacing my master cylinder. I’ll be coming back again!

Last week I took in our 7 year old Japanese compact car. Up until this problem we have had no major problems with the car since the day it was bought in 2003.
I am able to work on cars myself, so I am more able to explain symptoms than most. I explained in minute detail what had happened when we towed the car into the garage a little after 9 a.m. After 4 hours in the shop its owner led me to believe after running a computer diagnostic in addition to checking all major system he understand what needed to be done. The estimate was shy of $ 700.
As students we are relying on this car to last until graduation while providing a way to make money by being dependable wheels to get back-​and-​forth to work. We explained it was absolutely necessary this solve the problem as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Yet, the next day the car was still idling rough at start-​up. Then, just three days later the EXACT same problem occurred. Again, we towed the car in early in the morning. The mechanic and Mike’ Union quickly recommended another repair for a $ 125.
I asked him if this repair DID NOT fix the problem, what would be his next step? He said it would be to fix/​replace the fuel injection system.
Sure enough, the problem occurred again the next day. So, I arranged to take the car to another TheGarage on 10 St. in Soma for a diagnostic. For another $ 120 we found out that there is a leak in the head gasket letting coolant into cylinders 2 & 3. This coolant is interfering with the spark and preventing the car fro starting. To fix it will be around $ 1000.
Mike’s Union did $ 825 of work that had nothing to do with solving the problem, despite being described in detail and still occurring when towed into his garage on two occasions. If I would have started with an knowledgeable mechanic like the one at The Garage, for just $ 300 more I would have solved the problem. However, now I need to spend another $ 1000 in addition to the $ 945 I already spent.
A problem that should have cost $ 1120 to fix will end up costing $ 1945!!! Almost double the price because Mike’s Union doesn’t know what it’s doing.
P. S. I have a suspicion that he might not actually have the diagnostic equipment to evaluate faults in modern autos and instead is trying what he thinks is the best treatment for the symptom (without knowing its source) method. Sometimes this method may work. Other times, like in our case, it goes down the wrong path adding needless expense to what could have been a straight forward repair.

dont go, brake pads should cost about 200 bucks for an average car. they wanted to charge me 360 bucks. total crap. why would they have to do that unless they were trying to rip me off. hmmmmmm sucks.

On a frustrating Saturday (as I had already driven to three repair shops which were either closed on the weekends or were trying to rip me off) I stumbled upon Mike’s Union Auto.
David helped me and he was very nice, very patient, and I think very fair. I asked a friend who knows much more about cars than I do and told him what I was being charged for my brakes and some cracked hoses which needing replacing, etc. My friend told me that I could’ve easily been charged more elsewhere, so I took that to be good news!
I recommend Mike’s Union as they provided me with a fast turn-​around and they didn’t try to sell me a bunch of crap that my car didn’t need! They were nice to deal with and accommodating.

I have been using these guys for about 2 years. Great shop. They are always forthcoming and patient. I feel confident that they do a great job and I’ve never had to take my car back in after a repair.