Andrew Porter, 02/19/2025

They can fix your ISUZU TRUCK! The family business I work for sells furniture and our largest and most important piece of equipment is our Isuzu NPR box truck; it's our lift gate truck. I first truly appreciated that machine delivering a four-hundred pound mahogany armoire. So when it started having trouble a couple of months ago (check engine light, exhaust warnings, reduced performance) we took it where we always took it- probably the same place you take your large truck as it is well advertised, I'll call them the Can't Repair Autos Properly Shop, or CRAPS for short. So craps got the warnings turned off and gave us a diagnosis of what fix, which was around 5k. When we got the truck back there was a terrible squeal that sounded like a belt. A young craps employee told me it would "settle down" in time. It did not, and the truck broke down on its first run, oddly right in front of craps, with fluids spraying out from under the engine. Another craps employee told me a bolt had come loose... and charged me ten bucks to "replace it." Also the warnings were all back and they said they didn't have the ability to reset them. What was the point of even working on it if you are unable to do that? So I got a tip that Auto-Doctor had the necessary magic to talk to an Isuzu. They fixed it (well under 2k) diagnosed the real problem, discovered that the noise was NOT a belt that would settle down, but my compressor was going out, and topped off my DEP fluid (which was low- craps didn't even bother to fill it). My POC at Auto-Doctor was Larry and he is a great communicator although I accidently saved his number under the name Debbie so I affectionately call him Debbie in my head, though not to his face. If you've been in Cville for any time at all you'll know the place, right off Rio behind the three gas stations across from the Greenbrier neighborhood. I always wondered what the place was, like a level for a videogame I hadn't gotten access to yet. Turns out all I needed to do in order to go there was get screwed over by a greenhorn mechanic in a fancy garage. No shiny new cars fronting this place. It's a working shop in the middle of a junkyard, not a daycare garage with a dealership out front, so for the hard-work challenged you may feel anxious driving down the dirt road (called Gasoline Alley!!) that takes you passed the car corpses. Nobody is likely to greet you at the door because they are busy doing a great job for a reasonable fee so tuck your feelings in your pocket with the money you save. If you ask me it's what an auto-shop should be, surrounded by dead cars. I mean really- what can a mechanic learn from a new car lot? That's why med schools teach gross anatomy on corpses. And these guys are truly auto doctors.