Mark's Auto Repair in Greenfield: two thumbs up

[cellio]

Several weeks ago somebody hit my car in a parking lot and was decent enough to leave a note. (Scuffed paint, hit by a car of a contrasting color, but no dents.) We were going to resolve it privately until the sticker shock set in (it was her first accident), so I set off to get an estimate to send her. My regular car guy does innards, not body work, but I've been driving past Mark's Auto Repair and Service in Greenfield (Beechwood near the bridge to Squirrel Hill) every weekday for something more than a year, so I figured I'd see what they had to say. They were friendly, IT-challenged (they were having fax troubles possibly at the hand of Verizon, and they don't seem to have a web site), smoking like chimneys (ugh), and kind of casual -- when I stopped by a couple days later for the written estimate to follow up on the verbal one (because the fax was still out) Mark typed one up on the spot with the actual work summed up in one line-item. (Plus there were a couple standard add-ons, including tax.) But they sounded like they knew what they were talking about, the place is always busy, this was pretty safe work to try them out with, and they assured me that they never smoke in people's cars. So a few weeks ago, once I had the check from the insurance company, I went back to Mark's instead of accepting the insurance adjuster's offered repair service.

They do body work on weekends, so Mark suggested I drop the car off on a Friday and get it on Monday ("possibly Sunday afternoon"). That sounded optimistic to me, but I could drive Dani's car to work Friday and Monday -- and, if needed, longer -- so I did that. They were very good about giving me rides between my house and their shop to facilitate this. When I dropped the car off I asked how much extra it would cost to also fix another ding (not that driver's fault), and Ken (the body guy) said "I was already planning to do that; no charge". Bonus! Then on that Monday morning when Ken came to pick me up he said he'd noticed some scratches on the front bumper (nowhere near the other damage), so he took care of that too.

It turned out that the timing was optimistic; there hadn't been enough time for the paint to fully dry so he could buff it. He apologized and asked if I could bring it back on Friday for that, which was fine. He did a very nice job with all of this work; I don't think anybody who didn't already know would be able to say where the damage was. And he washed and vacuumed the car -- washing didn't surprise me, but cleaning the interior did.

In talking with both Mark and Ken I learned that it was just the two of them until the week they were doing my work, when they hired a third guy. They are looking for property nearby so they can have separate places for the body shop and the repair shop. (I didn't ask, but I infer from the scheduling that they interfere with each other somehow.)

If you're looking for a place that will specify all the work in glorious detail in advance, this might not be your place. (In contrast to their one-mostly-empty-page estimate, the insurance adjuster gave me a five-page bid. I gave it to Mark to make sure that was the work he was planning to do and he said yes.) But if you're looking for a place that will treat you well and do more than was promised, give Mark's a look. I'll be going back there in the future.