Colonial Auto Center

Typical dealership service shop… I was driving from Charlotte, NC to DC on the night of 12÷30÷14 when a wheel bearing on my truck went bad just outside of Charlottesville. I was able to limp into town to and got a hotel room for the night. Woke up the morning of the 31^st and popped over to Colonial Auto. I explained my situation to the guy at the service desk and told him I was hoping to be able to make it to work in Fairfax by 12:30.
Guy: «Well, we don’t have the part. Earliest we could get it would be Friday.»
Me: «Is there any auto parts store in town with the part?»
Guy after making a phone call: «Fisher’s has an after-​market part that’ll work. They can have it here in a half hour or so. Of course, I’ll have to markup the price on it a little bit. It’ll run you about $ 350 for the part.»
Me, after wondering why the hell they were marking up the price for a wheel bearing by $ 100 when the part is DELIVERED TO THEM!!!: «Um, how much would it be if I drive across town and pick it up myself?»
Guy: «oh yeah, sure… I guess you could do that. You might be able to save some money that way. But we probably won’t be able to get you in until 11:30 at the earliest.»
Me: Umm… no thanks. I’ll look into some other options.
Then I drove a few miles over to Straight Up Auto (
). Timmy had my truck diagnosed and repaired in under two hours, and didn’t try to extort me on the price of the part.

I was looking for a specific used car. The sales person I worked with was fantastic in helping me find exactly what I wanted. The great thing was they had a mechanic give my car a thorough examination before I bought it. It was as good as buying experience as I have ever had in the automobile arena. On top of that I knew exactly what the fair price should be and they gave a price very close to that number without any haggling. Again, a fantastic experience.