Great Landie service shop in the Seattle Area

[brandr]

The shop is Biggs Eastside Automotive... they have done a great job on my 99 discoII... They are run by a guy who use to run the service department at Land Rover Eastside. They do great work for a great price. They own Rovers themselves.

The shop is located in Bellevue, WA

http://www.biggseastsideautomotive.com/

Tel: (425) 688-0080

[schuyler]

I took my Freelander there for its 37000 mile service. The price was right, but they gave me a list of the things they 'serviced' which included everything the manual lists. I noticed right off the bat that they didn't check or rotate my tires, although it was listed as performed. Customer service was good, but the tire thing, the $80 an hour labor costs (which is barely cheaper then the dealer), and having to drive to Bellevue from Seattle made me return to Land Rover Seattle. I'm sure its a great shop, just not the place for me.

[vader wagon]

Originally Posted by schuyler

...and having to drive to Bellevue from Seattle made me return to Land Rover Seattle.

Haha, I came over from Bremerton to go to Biggs!

In the thread I started about my experience at Biggs, I was very happy with them. Their price quote was competitive with the other local shops I'd check. Plus, they weren't going to be learning on my rig, there's a lot of added value in that for me. Overall, I was very happy with Biggs and I'll be going back--but hopefully not too soon!

Regarding the tires, I could see how that could happen and not intend for it to be deceptive. Since they're an auto repair shop and running a business office is an add-on, I am more than willing to forego office-ninja skills for wrenching experience. As an example of what how this could have happened, they may have pre-completed forms for some routine work that they use as a template. To that they add or delete details for the particular job. In the tire instance, I could imagine that the tech forgot to rotate them when the rig was on the lift or they forgot to delete the tire-rotation line item from the invoice.

As long as everything else was done, I'd say non-rotated tires is a pretty minor thing. But that's just my opinion, YMMV.

EDIT: Oops on the thread dig... found it doing a search and didn't note the dates. :^0

[Series 3 guy]

next time save yourselves some money and go to Lamorna garage in Freemont. Gordn' knows more than them and has some real great techs that those Bellvue posers couldn't hold a candle to. Best Landy shop in the Pacific northwest!

[vader wagon]

Originally Posted by Series 3 guy

next time save yourselves some money and go to Lamorna garage in Freemont. Gordn' knows more than them and has some real great techs that those Bellvue posers couldn't hold a candle to. Best Landy shop in the Pacific northwest!

I don't know much about Lamorna, other than daweb sez he only works on RRCs and older... so he's not what I need. Also, "overbooked and popular" sounds like a great idea for a person that has time to leave their LR there as long as is needed. That's not a bad thing, I'm just noting this.

Honestly, I felt like I was "cheating" on my usual mechanic, JR at Best Auto Sales in Bothell by going to Biggs. JR is a very experienced mechanic--he was an engineer in Poland before moving to the US--and knows tons about Mitsu and Subaru rally cars. I decided to go to Biggs because I was/am banking on the brand-specific knowledge as having to redo the work would really shoot me in the foot. Having said that, I've NEVER had a problem with JR's work... that's why I feel like I "cheated" on him by not just taking the LR to him for the headgasket job.

If I weren't 110% satisfied with Biggs, I wouldn't have mentioned them... but it's only fair to mention the Biggs as the did right by me. And... now I've mentioned Best Auto as another place that's always taken good care of me.

[02Kalahari]

Complete Automotive on Cap Hill does great work as well. Have had my 02 Discovery II there for the 60K and some other misc. items. Bought the car used and took it to Biggs before we bought to have it looked at, they seemed great. I just hate going to the eastside.