Stillwater Auto Repair

At Stillwater Automotive we use a digital inspection system. We give you a detailed report on your vehicles overall condition. We do this for several reasons. First, we want you to have a clear overall idea of your vehicles condition. The last thing we want to do is only look at the problem you brought the vehicle in for, repair that one issue and then report back to you that, "Oh, by the way, while we were driving your car we noticed that your front end is also worn out and you need new brakes. You will need another $1,800 in repairs to make your vehicle safe to drive." Maybe if you had the whole picture up front you may have decided to get rid of it instead of fixing it. We want to be ethical and give you that choice before we do any serious work.  Second, we want you to be confident in our diagnostics. When we do the digital inspection, we send you a report detailing what we found. We attach pictures and videos to the report so that you can actually see, whenever po ... read more

            I want to talk to you today about aftermarket warranties on your car. Everyone gets those calls…”I’m calling about your car’s expired warranty.” They make it sound great. “Are you tired of paying for auto repairs?”….like they will happily pay them for you. “You have so much more flexibility with our coverage because you can take your vehicle to any ASE Certified auto shop and we will cover your car no matter how many miles it has on it!” As every auto repair shop knows, this may sound good but it seldom works out for your good.             Read the contract that these warranty companies have you sign when you purchase them. If you do that, you will realize that there is a very specific list of parts that they cover. Once you have a breakdown you will find that if your failed part is not on that list or was caused to fail by a pa ... read more

Today’s vehicles are much more expensive than they were even 3 years ago. The average new car payment grew by 29% from 2019 to 2022, the 3-year-old used car payment rose by a whopping 52%. That is CRAZY but that is just the way it is. With vehicles costing so much to purchase it makes sense to take great care of them so you get the most life possible from them. What can you do to get the most life from your expensive purchase? Focus on maintenance. Vehicles today have a lot more longevity than they did when I was a young man. In my early days of owning a shop, most engines were worn out by 100,000 miles. Today’s car/truck can easily last double or more. I traded my last truck when it had 305,000 miles on it and it had never had the engine or transmission oil pans off. How did I get it to last so long you ask? I did the maintenance religiously. Every 30-40k ... read more

Finding a good auto repair shop or mechanic is an important step in taking care of your car. There is a great variation in quality of shops out there and of course, I always say going to an auto repair shop is like going to the dentist….no one likes to go there. The only good thing is that your auto mechanic is not putting his/her hands in your mouth!          So how do you go about finding a great shop in your area? I would recommend starting out by asking your friends where they take their vehicles for repair. Ask if the staff is friendly, knowledgeable and seem to be competent. Ask if they communicate well. Do they call you before any work is done? Are they up front with costs? Do they take a good look at your car before they give you an estimate? That last question is a very important one and one we hold dear at Stillwater Automotive. The last thing we want to do is hand someone an expensive invoice on their car repair and then say ... read more