Foreign Car Service

Foreign Car Service is a great repair facility. Very successful, great reputation. They do it all. But with that success, they apparently can pick and choose which business they want and which business they don’t want. So, if Fritz tells you, «I’ll get back to you.» He’s not channeling the Terminator but passing on your business.

While I’ve only been with this auto shop for a couple of months, I’ve taken both of my cars there for service and also body work. Fritz and crew are knowledgeable and the prices are fair and responsible. They have not tried to push unnecessary repairs and have been very honest about timelines, etc. I will continue to use their services and I recommend them highly!

Unlike most patrons, I do not have a BMW. I just live nearby and needed a state inspection at the last minute.
They were able to fit me in with no hassle, and performed the inspection in about 15 minutes early the next morning. They did a good job, provided me clear and useful advice about the car, and sent me on my way. I made it to work on time.
It makes me wish I had a BMW, because my dealer isn’t nearly this responsive or helpful.

Excellent service and accurate estimates.

One of my good friend told me to use Foreign Car Service. I am glad I did. Andreas was my service advisor. They fixed all my Porsche Cayenne S issues on time and at a fraction of cost as compare to a local Porsche dealer.
I now understand why they have been in business for 50 years. They are honest and upfront with the repairs cost. There are not hidden charges.
Thank you FCS, I will return for future services.

I have lived a block from Foreign Car Service for 17 years. They have taken care of my «toys» during this time. From a 1992 BMW 325, 1999 BMW 324, Porsche boxter, porshce cayman and mini cooper. They have done all maintenance once these cars were out of warranty. They have done several body work jobs. They have come to my house two times to jump a dead car. They are excellent. In all this time there was only one time when I felt they did not do a good job.
They are a German family. Herr Kesterman the elder came to the US and started his company and now his sons run it. I think they are honest and reputable and would recommend them to anyone.

We are new to the garage having come from those morons at Audi of Alexandria. Foreign Car Service fixed several electrical problems and repaired the wipers which weren’t working at all. Audi of Alexandria couldn’t make this repair by the way!
They did a good job, reasonable prices. My wife recently followed up with a routine service on her car. Thank you notes waiting in email when we got home. It is a couple of blocks from Enterprise Rental car in Old Town if you need to rent a loaner.

Kestermann’s Foreign Car Service is a good as it gets! I was unable to make an appointment for my BMW 650i at the BMW dealership; therefore my husband and I decided to go with a friend’s referral of Kestermann’s Foreign Car Service. We were very happy with the service we were rendered and my car drives as good as new.
#1 They gave me a courtesy ride to the nearest metro so I would not have to wait
#2 They completed my service sooner than expected
#3 THEY ARE OVER 50% LESS THAN THE DEALERSHIP!!!
I was satisfied and highly impressed. We are prior military and normally it takes longer for us to find an auto service provider we can trust. Kestermann’s is family owned and live up to their great reputation; everyone in this place is AWESOME!
O. Bethune

I came to Foreign Car Service with an urgent need for quick auto body repair. I explained my tight time constraint to them They did a quote immediately, and my car was ready within a few hours. They did a great job! Not only that, but they did the repair for $ 500 less than another auto body in the area quoted me.
I will be a loyal customer of this establishment moving forward. Fritz and his team were life savers (and really nice to boot)!

I’m on car #4 with the guys at FCS. Fritz and all the gang are awesome, whether it’s a simple oil change or a complicated body/​paint job fix.
No, they’re not the fastest in the world, but the end product is perfection. The prices are fair and everything they’ve ever done for me has been perfect.

I was recently steered to FCS as an insurance trusted agent for an accident. As they’re only a few blocks from my house, I decided to try them (given five options).
I was relatively pleased with how quickly I was able to get an appointment, but didn’t understand why it would take a week to remove, replace and color match a small front fender. A week seemed excessive, but I wasn’t there for the Earl Scheib treatment, so was content to see how they’d do.
Drop on Monday, pickup on Friday. Or the following Monday. Well, Tuesday. Is Wednesday ok? So I walked down and asked to see it, because he wanted to hold onto it until Friday. A week later.
Turns out the guy was a perfectionist, and while I’m a bit OCD and care a lot about detail, I was amazed at how beautiful it looked. He tried to get me to see how there was a flip-​flopping of color if you looked just right, but i couldn’t see it and neither has anyone else I’ve asked.
No overspray or cheap, speed driven mistakes. Good work. Five stars if they could set and maintain realistic deadlines.
Yep, it’s also very expensive; someone else’s insurance paid for this one, but if i had a need I’d go on my dime. Whether or not it’s worth it depends on your sentimental attachment to your car. If you have a Hyundai or a Prius, go somewhere else.

I’ve used FCS between 5 or 6 times for repairs on a Japanese sedan. Initial impressions were OK, but the most recent repair put me into the never going again territory. Had to pay parts and labor to replace brake elements that had been replaced (by them) just 18 months prior. Really annoying to pay twice for the same thing to the same business. Brake pads, rotors and calipers last way longer than 18 months. When I asked how this could have been prevented, I was told it was unpredictable and there is nothing I could have done. Kind of a bummer.
Sometimes I suspect going to a shop in a different hood might work out better. If you know Old Town you know how much money there is there, and the FCS lot is consistently filled with upmarket foreign (mostly euro) cars. Since i’m not driving an S-​class, I expect my repairs to be reasonable and they should certainly last longer than my brake job did.

Bottom line, steer clear of these guys.
After having an electrical problem with my car, I went to Bradham Electric right up the street. If you haven’t tried these guys, try them out. They’re professional, do a host of «not so standard repairs» and are great. I was told by them to check Foreign Car Service out for a repair they couldn’t take care of for me. To be fair to Bradham, they didn’t recommend them to me, they just said that they were close.
Foreign Car tried to help me with my repair, but couldn’t. Had to take the car back down twice. I was charged once for a diagnostic/​repair and then charged a second time after I brought it back down. They should have called it even after the second time. They didn’t fix my car, gave me an insulting quote the third time, they do not call when they say they are and they should consider removing the claim on there website that says they’re quick and will have an answer for you in a day.
Car still has problems and I’m still at square 1. I know some people (including myself) are a little wary of dealers and dealer prices. But, in this case, if you drive a foreign car and you’re having issues, schedule an appointment with the dealer.

I have owned a number of cars and lived in Old Town for long enough to know a secret or two.
The mayor get’s a city car and driver.
The secret service hangs out on Les Street guarding the Sec. of Defense.
And there is one auto car service place where the customers go back decades and are on a first name basis, and this is it: Foreign Car Service.
Located right at the cusp of Old Town, Alexandria, on the running and bike trail, this is an honest, fast, dependable, and homey business. A family business that has passed down from father to son over multiple generations, it is a rare find.
I owned a Honda and they fixed it up after a got in a bender, dealt with the insurance, and returned it fast and spotless.
I just took in my current car, a BMW X5, fearing the worst — but even though it was bad (brakes, oil, lights) the cost was ¹⁄₃ of what the dealer would have been. I saved, I think, two grand!
The crew here is stable, they work there year after year, and embody the ethic of hard work so missing in service businesses today.
Not only that, but once you drop off the car, they will pull around there own personal vehicles and give you a lift nearby or to the metro.
A gentlemen’s garage.

Zero stars isn’t an option?
I had one good experience with them, so I took the car in for a very simple repair. What ensued was an absolute disaster as well as a huge financial mistake.
All they had to do was replace the thermostat. They told me the repair was complete and the car was tested and ready to go. I picked up the vehicle after hours, and was stranded on the side of the road due to overheating. I incurred additional expense in having the car towed back in. I was told that the cooling system still had air bubbles and had not been properly bled. They told me they completed the bleeding process and tested the car and it was ready to go. I picked it up again after hours and was again stranded on the side of the road. I had the car towed in for the third time, at my expense. Now I am told that this problem caused the head gaskets to fail. The head gaskets had already been checked by them the first two times I took the car in because I specifically requested them to do so. The cost of the head gasket replacement was several thousand dollars. They refused to accept any responsibility and had nothing to say about my hassle of continually being stranded and paying for towing to their shop at night when I had work the next day. It was a huge inconvenience.
I decided to give them another shot at the car when I as having an issue with the air conditioning system. It had suddenly failed. When I took the car in, they told me the system had no pressure and that in order to test the system, they would need to charge me $ 250 for evacuation, recharge and adding a dye in order to check for leaks.
Luckily for me, I realized this was too high a price for this service. I took the car to the Subaru dealer who told me that this service was $ 150 or less no matter where you go. They also informed me that the AC lines had to be removed in order to replace the head gasket. The dealer immediately noticed that the freon was leaking out of the gaskets that needed to be replaced when the lines were removed to replace the head gaskets. The dealer recommended that I take the car back to the shop to have this fixed free of charge due to the mistake. The dealership didn’t want to charge me for someone else’s mistake.
I decided to call around to other shops locally. I did not find a single place that charged more than $ 150 for this work. Unfortunately, when I called Foreign Car Service to discuss this issue, they were not polite and had no interest in discussing my concerns about their previous work.
They refused to fix the job they did wrong so many times previously and told me that they «had to go» because they «had another customer calling.» They admitted to charging more than the cost of the job in order to make sure they «made a profit.» They were dishonest and unreasonable. Be warned.

I can not give this business even a single star.
My issues:
#1 — I went to have my clutch repaired and ended up with 2 additional problems
#2 — my clutch was replaced by them and then went out again within 2 months — they said that the clutch was just a bad clutch — I’m not an auto mechanic, but clutches aren’t normally squishy within 4 weeks of brand new install — I’m feeling as if they spilled oil in there and may have even done a job on the clutch to avoid replacing parts meanwhile charging me a tidy $ 1500.
#3 — they said my oil filter was loose and that they replaced my oil and oil filter as a courtesy — this without speaking with me at all prior and at my cost — yet my oil filter and oil had just been replaced by jiffy lube not long before — this might also explain the sticking clutch
#4 — they replaced my transmission fluid with incorrect non-​Honda fluid and caused my engine to nearly stall whenever I came to a stop — this was later fixed by a more trustworthy shop and the information was conveyed to me about the incorrect fluid replacement — I have not had an issue with the idle since — I complained to Foreign Car Svc and they a) would not admit to the problem, b) could not or would not fix it, c) said that there was nothing wrong with the car
#5 — they broke — literally broke — the knock sensor off my car — this immediately caused my car to throw a check-​engine light. When I asked them about this they said that my knock sensor needed to be replaced — alright so how often do you hear about knock sensors literally being snapped off by road wear & tear? When I mentioned that the check-​engine light was not on until after they had the car — they refused once again to address the issue and insisted that it was just a bad /​broken knock sensor. The problem of course is that the other more trustworthy shop provided me information that the sensor was completely broken off.
I have never had a more dissatisfying automotive experience in my life. Some people swear by this shop, but I can’t say a good thing about them myself.
Oh yes, it’s worth mentioning that during the original clutch repair, they had my car for over 5 days causing me to have to rent a car for a part of the time — additional cost to me that I will never recover. And of course for the other mechanic to fix the damage that they caused, I was put out some additional dollars that I can’t recover.
Good luck to anyone else who may feel intrepid and willing to risk these same types of experiences.